Accelerating the JDK release cadence

[Ben Evans]

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:33 PM, dalibor topic <dalibor.topic at oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On 12.09.2017 07:47, Ben Evans wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:11 AM,  <mark.reinhold at oracle.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> In addition to divide-and-conquer, implementation features can be merged
>>> in an experimental mode at first (e.g., G1, AoT) and then, over time, be
>>> made non-experimental and even become the default, if appropriate, as
>>> they mature.
>>
>> On the subject of G1, doesn't the new release cycle reopen the case
>> for delaying the cutover of G1 to default GC?
>
> The process in place for JDK 9 at this time is specified at
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk9-dev/2017-June/005884.html
>
> Quoting form the above mail:
>
> "The overall feature set has been frozen for some time now.  No further
> enhancements, no matter how small and low-risk, will be approved after
> the Initial Release Candidate build."

This isn't an "enhancement". This is a suggestion to reconsider making
default an implementation that seems to be unfit for purpose in a
non-trivial %age of real world cases.

I repeat: Given the new release schedule, why is it so important that
this high-profile potentially breaking change be forced through now?
Isn't the whole point to allow implementation features to be merged,
made non-experimental and become the default over time? Why the
urgency to do it now, rather than in March or September 2018?

Ben