Question: Where are JEPs discussed?

[Alex Buckley]

On 5/8/2019 6:35 AM, Adam Farley8 wrote:
> Does anyone know the answer to this question, raised on jep-changes:
>
> "What's a good way to stay informed about new JEPs and changes to existing
> JEPs?"
>
> Since the jep-changes list is basically silent, and the
> platform-jep-discuss list is near-silent, what would people recommend as a
> medium for JEP discussion?

Early on, JEPs were stored in the jep/jeps repository (the "JEP 
Archive"). Changeset notifications for that repository were sent to the 
jep-changes list. Nowadays, JEPs are stored in the JDK Bug System, so 
the original purpose of the list is gone.

If there is now to be a question asked about whether the JDK Bug System 
can send notifications about new issues of type "JEP", that question is 
best asked in Project Skara.

The platform-jep-discuss list served to host (i) announcements about new 
JEPs and (ii) early discussion of features proposed by new JEPs. I have 
two observations:

- Under Oracle's stewardship, the template for the lifecycle of a JEP 
has evolved considerably, so the drafting of a new JEP is not very 
significant. It would be actively wrong for someone seeing the 
announcement of a draft JEP to infer anything at all about the feature's 
scope and schedule, because ...

- ... The six-month release cadence of the JDK Project means that 
feature development happens at its own pace in either (a) other Projects 
such as Amber or Valhalla, or (b) a Group such as the HotSpot Group, the 
Serviceability Group, or the Core Libraries Group. A feature can enjoy 
early discussion, prototyping, and polishing on the list of a Project or 
a Group while a JEP is being drafted. If the feature prospers, then the 
OpenJDK Lead at Oracle may judge that the feature is a candidate for 
inclusion in the JDK Project; the candidacy will be announced on the 
Project or Group list (this is when the JEP gets a number). If the 
feature _really_ prospers, then the OpenJDK Lead may target the feature 
for inclusion in a specific release of the JDK Project; its state 
changes will then be announced on jdk-dev, though ongoing feature 
development obviously stays on the Project or Group list.

It's plain that the rationale for platform-jep-discuss is gone. There is 
no direct replacement for it. In a nutshell, JEPs are announced and 
discussed on Project and Group lists, and if they prosper, they will be 
finalized on jdk-dev.

Alex