Re: [Jython-users] [External Sender] Re: [Jython-dev] Java 7 or 8?

[James K. <ji...@sr...>]

This seems to be the most credible argument for not changing to J8 for 2.7.2.

However lets unpack that a bit.

Dropping Java 7 support just "one second" before 2.7.2 release looks rushed to me.

While I agree in theory - “one second” in Jython time appears to be in the year range given the amount of resources that I have observed to supporting advancement of the project. Are we talking weeks or or over a year away from a release? If latter I think in the best interests of both the current and future community that would like to utilize 2.7.2 - J8 is a better choice. That opens the door wider community wanting to incorporate. For us, we’ve had to stifle development on a custom lexer library that we access via pygments in order to retain Jython support. If we’re saying a release is eminent within a few weeks to a month I say just wrap up with J7, and the next version makes J8 the minimum. But Jython is quickly advancing into irrelevance as fewer and fewer projects are left that will work with J7. Modern projects won’t want to refactor libraries backwards just to gain Jython support - they’ll start looking for alternatives that are more modern.

I personally know a company where still Java 6 is floating around and I suspect there are plenty. So the EOL argument
is more a virtual one.

OpenJDK is where the world is at in the post-apocalyptic world known as Oracle Java. Those companies that have chosen to stick with 6 (and even 7 at this point) have concluded that they have the resources to support their back porting modern frameworks to fit their circumstances. I hate sounding like a dick, but given the number of developer resources available to support the Jython project - that already moves at a snails pace - growing adoption and the developer community around a solution that a wider audience can use seems more important that trying to support people who decided not to upgrade 3-4 years ago from J7.

Jeff mentions:
We currently build and test
on Java 7 but some things would resolve themselves if we could move on.

Could there be some elaboration here? What issues on the 2.7.2 milestone would be solved by moving to J8? Pluses and minuses here would be helpful.

The other elephant in the room is certainly around Python 3. The looming end of life for Python 2 is fast approaching. While I concede this isn’t necessarily a problem for Jython but it does define what a final 2.7.x features would need to be supported. How long does this project intend to support the Python 2.7 language spec? When do we support Python 3? I’m already seeing a fair number of modules not being supported for Python 2. The last time I had to build our runtime environment I had to go and pull package dependencies from sources as I could no longer download compatible versions for Jython. With the vast majority of new Python scripting happening around Python 3 - this is only going to get worse   Furthering J7 much longer furthers an ecosystem of frameworks that is all but obsolete and difficult to incorporate into modern projects.

My vote. If 2.7.2 is close to release (meaning days to weeks) stick to J7 for the sake of getting it done. If we’re talking more than a month or more - I vote J8 as IMO throws out a lifeline for the Jython project as a whole.

- jk