Re: [virgo-dev] JDK 8 Adoption

[Florian Waibel <fwaibel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Markus,

thanks for sharing your random thoughts.

> You are talking about the source level only, correct? The binaries would still be running on a 1.7 system?

Given the fact that "After April 2015, Oracle will no longer post updates of Java SE 7 to its public download sites.”[1] I thought about delivering the
binaries in 1.8 format, too.

I wasn’t able to figure out whether it is possible to use source level 1.8 and produce binaries compatible with 1.7.

I double checked the build scripts we are currently setting -source 1.7 only, thus producing 1.8 binaries because we build with JDK 1.8 on our HIPP.

> The reason why I'm asking is because I believe that Virgo as a server-side technology runs most of the time on "conservative" systems, i.e. systems that are not necessarily running the latest release from every software or OS. With such use-cases in mind it is sometimes better to stick to an older version, but that really depends on the consumers.

I agree.

> And even with a 1.7 compatible bytecode there are sometimes cases when it doesn't run with older class libraries. In RAP we are using the (maven) animal-sniffer plugin to ensure a certain Java class library level. Does something like that exist in the Gradle world?

Thanks for the pointer. There is a plugin available in the Gradle world. I’ll give it a try…

Regards,
  florian

[1] http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html