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From: Baptiste Mathus <ml@batmat.net>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 23:29:25 +0200
Message-ID: <CANWgJS70VZ9VHdF7w=S2jEOL-81byGzNLtWWxuUtP_PB7Y6=ZA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [RESULT] Re: Please retweet and vote
To: Maven Developers List <dev@maven.apache.org>
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archived-at: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 21:29:53 -0000

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Hello,

Only lurking those days, but chiming in quickly here :-).

2017-09-10 20:54 GMT+02:00 Robert Scholte <rfscholte@apache.org>:

> On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 20:21:11 +0200, Stephen Connolly <
> stephen.alan.connolly@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun 10 Sep 2017 at 19:04, Tibor Digana <tibordigana@apache.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Are we facing new API regarding networking and security useful in Java 8?
>>>
>>> When I first saw these options I asked myself what benefit would have the
>>> User and Jenkins from Java 8.
>>> And second question was whether we would be so flexible to rewrite the
>>> code
>>> and use Lambda fully anywhere in the code.
>>>
>>
>>
>> There is the social aspect. If you are a potential new contributor to
>> Maven
>> and you look at our heavy Java 1.3 convention codebase (ok, I'm being a
>> demagogue, it's had a bit updated to 5.0) are you going to be encouraged
>> to
>> step forward?
>>
>> How can you make small improvements and demonstrate you are a safe pair of
>> hands to gain the commit bit?
>>
>> Now if we have the opertunity to make lots of tidy up and you can show you
>> are a safe pair of hands, retaining binary compatibility with older
>> plugins, making the code more readable, finding file handle leaks, etc...
>> well now you have a welcome path to demonstrate your skills.... while
>> gaining familiarity with the codebase so that when we turn around to start
>> on Maven 5.0.x you can join in the fun.
>>
>> Now that is not a technical argument, but we are a community first... so
>> maybe the technical arguments are not so right to push!
>>
>>
> bq. but we are a community first
>
> What's the definition of community: the large user group or the few we're
> hoping to find who can help working on Maven?
> And if we're focusing on the latter, shouldn't the twitter question be:
>
> I want to become a Maven developer
> [] right now!
> [] only if Maven requires Java 8 ( so I can use lambda's, etc.)
>

This is definitely one the things we put forward for moving Jenkins to Java
8 recently [1], keeping contribution appealing.
Because, well, that's great the Maven community would try to help large
companies not be bothered by any kind of upgrade, like Free Enterprise
software support :-).
But I think this is a dead-end, those kind of teams/companies won't upgrade
*anyway*.

Looking at the stats, I would think there's actually not much debate:
people not wanting to upgrade, well, won't upgrade... And proportion is not
that high.
What is the actual issue anyway? They will keep using 3.5.x for 3 years? So
what, I bet they already do. No, wait, they're not, they're using 2.2.1.
I just checked, the company I left 1 year ago is still running 3.2.1, and I
don't expect them to upgrade anytime soon...

Maven backward compatibility is great, so IMO don't bother spending time
with JDK7.
The Maven dev team should IMO concentrate of making Maven great, not
supporting a big variety of versions/flavours developers will hate the
codebase each time they remember "urgh, I can't use this!".
The less combinatorials, the better for anyone working on her/his free time
:-\.

My 2 cents

-- Baptiste
[1] https://jenkins.io/blog/2017/01/17/Jenkins-is-upgrading-to-Java-8/

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