On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 09:03:06 +0100, Jörg Schaible wrote:
Gilles wrote:
Hi.
On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:28 +0100, Jörg Schaible wrote:
Hi Raymond,
Raymond DeCampo wrote:
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Gilles
<[email protected]>
wrote:
A very important issue here: what JDK version do we target?
I'd go for Java8, in the hope to revive interest in Commons from
an
audience that might be put off by the "no fun" of older and soon
unsupported JVM.
I am inclined to go with Java 8. Oracle has stopped public
updates
for
Java 7, so perhaps "soon unsupported" is an understatement.
Android still does not even provide Java 8 support. There are
always
more
players in the camp than expected.
It would be great to have those players in our camp!
I'm not against targetting old Java (cf. "Commons RNG"), so let's
not start the wrong fight.
The issue is: What do we gain (really) and what do we loose (really)
going one way or the other?
One aspect is that if we have separate components, they can target
different versions (each time answering the above question).
People in "Commons" pushing for a supposedly minimal mass for a
component are at odds with offering more choices to contributors.
We can't be expected to work with a hand tied behind the back for
the sake of the "unknown" programmer.
Removing the fun entails less opportunities to gather interest for
the project, so that eventually there won't be any code at all,
neither Java 8, nor Java 7.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against Java 8 here, but the arguments
"it is
not maintained by Oracle" or "nobody is using it anymore" are simply
not
valid. I maintain other open source stuff and I get regularily
complaints
from developers if they cannot port their Java apps to Android where
classes
targeting Java 8 are not usable.
How can we get that information from users, so that we can decide how
to proceed, component per component?
If we decide, we have a big benefit e.g. by using lambdas or streams,
fine.
We just have to be clear about the consequences. Is Numbers exotic
enough
that nearly no one expects it to run on Android?
Allow me to reverse the question: Do we want to make it exotic enough
in order to make it relevant in the future?
Surely, we can keep the "Complex" class Java 5 compatible, but in a
context becoming more "functional", shouldn't we go ahead and think
about how to make it more fit to it?[1]
By playing it safe, "Commons" is becoming less and less relevant, both
in contents and in attractiveness.
Regards,
Gilles
[1] "Complex" in CM 3.6.1 is still available for Android apps.
Cheers,
Jörg
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