RFR (s): 8026849 - Fix typos in the GC code, part 2

[Thomas Schatzl]

Hi Kirk,

On Thu, 2014-01-30 at 14:44 +0100, Kirk Pepperdine wrote:
> Hi Jesper,
> 
> Understood. Did this people express their views in a forum where we all can see
>and understand why this comma is so important to them?

  here are some thoughts about this issue. There is no particular big
discussion about this, mostly I think Jesper's closing of the bug as
Won't fix was too hasty.

My main gripe is that this issue is a bug. Whatever it is, it should be
fixed at the best possible time. It's an ugly wart.

The other consideration is that the impact of the change is within my
expectations of the stability of the Hotspot log.

I.e. in my view there are only modest expectations on keeping the GC log
unchanged for a long time: it reflects the internal workings of the GC
at the current time, which requires some breakage now and then.

So I do not feel that this particular change is outside the limits of
this regular expected breakage. See the examples about adding or
changing the contents of phases. I agree that those changes would give
you additional information (i.e. personal benefits), and your programs
in particular do not care about typos in the logs, but it is not only
your programs that look at them.

We also need to work with old versions of log files. ;)

If you find other similar issues, or have particular ideas etc., please
post them here, file bug reports, and (best) accompany them with fixes.

As for the timing of this change: currently one release is on the way
out (8), and we are starting to push changes for the next (8u20, 9).
This should actually be optimal, as it gives the users the most time to
react to such changes.
When else do you expect us to fix such "trivial" stuff?

Afair, we also asked Jesper at the end of the 8 release cycle to keep
off from pushing all these typo changes.

Thanks,
  Thomas