Preview APIs in the Java Platform

[Ty Young]

On 3/4/20 1:22 PM, Alex Buckley wrote:
> We are emphatically not proposing a mechanism for "Any API that is 
> written in Java can be made 'unavailable by default' by its author."
>
> We are proposing a mechanism for "An API in the Java SE Platform can 
> be made 'unavailable by default' by the Java SE Platform Spec."
>
> Our mechanism exists solely to support preview features in Java SE. 
> Per JEP 12, preview features embody precise commitments about quality 
> and readiness that we've signed up for when evolving the Java 
> language, JVM, and SE API. We have no expectation that other platforms 
> -- be they other languages on the JVM, or other APIs which sit above 
> the SE API -- will share those commitments for their own evolution. 
> Other platforms have no guarantee at all that the idea of preview 
> features, and the commitments they represent, will evolve in a way 
> that's useful or workable for those platforms.


...and yet the Java module system was released, which was only primarily 
made for internal JDK/JRE use and has been largely ignored outside of 
it. Many people on social media have publicly stated they won't use it 
nor do they see a reason ever to. Twitter, IIRC, said that they don't 
think the module system had the features that are expected of such a system.


It has been publicly said by multiple JDK developers now in regards to 
features like var that (in essence) it isn't the JDK developers 
responsibility to police code quality, only to provide the tools to 
write the code.


(and then ironically use better code quality as a bullet point advantage 
of some new feature like the new switch-case expressions... but I digress)


Yet you're saying, based on your own assumptions, that no one will use 
it or if they do use it will be abused. Since when did JDK developers 
start caring about either of those?


Instead of making assumptions, please actually ask people what they 
think. I've been asking Maurizio for a general module system update(much 
to his annoyance) for Project Panama which is currently a preview API 
and has "unsafe" operations within it for native memory access. Build 
systems and IDEs suck at handling command line arguments. They don't 
recognize them at all or are very slow to reload and realize the 
arguments exist.


>
> Especially with Java 14, the entire Java developer community is 
> becoming aware of the high quality, carefully delivered nature of 
> preview features in Java SE. If we opened up the mechanism so that API 
> authors could use it, they would do so -- and each would make slightly 
> different commitments about quality and readiness. The preview concept 
> would soon find itself in the same place as the semantic versioning 
> concept: a simple "standard" for API authors to follow in theory, but 
> a widely abused and mis-applied concept in practice. We are not going 
> to take the risk of the preview concept being diluted, because it's 
> something that every Java developer should recognize and understand 
> when they peruse the latest "What's new in Java XX" article.


"slightly different commitments about quality and readiness" is exactly 
where you are now. String literals have been pulled and modified while 
other preview features have sailed by with no issues AFAIK.


>
> Alex
>
> On 3/4/2020 10:26 AM, Bill Shannon wrote:
>> Alex, do you see any problems with using these new features with
>> "layered products"?
>>
>> For example, could some Jakarta EE APIs mark modules as "preview"
>> and take advantage of the same compiler and runtime support that's
>> available to JDK modules?
>>
>> Is there anything that limits this support to java.* modules?
>>
>>
>> Alex Buckley wrote on 3/3/20 1:15 PM:
>>> Java 14 will be the third release to contain preview language 
>>> features. The idea
>>> of shipping non-final language features -- conceived by JEP 12 in 
>>> 2018 -- is
>>> turning out well, producing better final features. This made us 
>>> wonder if
>>> incubation -- conceived by JEP 11 in 2016 -- is the right channel 
>>> for shipping
>>> non-final APIs, and if the recent introduction of APIs associated 
>>> with preview
>>> language features (such as `java.lang.Record`) is a signpost to a 
>>> better channel.
>>>
>>> Incubation follows the tenor of the old triennial release model, 
>>> where features
>>> were chosen at the start of a release and their evolving 
>>> implementations were
>>> shipped in the JDK's Early Access (EA) binaries for years before 
>>> General
>>> Availability (GA). To signal that an API is non-final both before 
>>> and after GA,
>>> incubation places it in the `jdk.incubator` namespace. 
>>> Unfortunately, this
>>> distorts the API and its implementation [1][2], and means that 
>>> signatures in
>>> `java.*` cannot refer to the new API even if such integration is 
>>> desirable.
>>> These problems are not significant for user-level libraries such as 
>>> the HTTP2
>>> client API which incubated in JDK 9, but they are significant for 
>>> lower level
>>> libraries which need a privileged relationship with `java.base`, 
>>> such as the
>>> Memory Access API which incubated in JDK 14.
>>>
>>> [1] 
>>> https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/panama-dev/2019-June/005884.html 
>>>
>>> [2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8237349
>>>
>>> In the new biannual release model, features are targeted to a 
>>> release only when
>>> they are ready. Until then, they evolve in OpenJDK projects such as 
>>> Panama and
>>> Valhalla, watching JDK releases sail by every six months. There is 
>>> broad public
>>> awareness of these projects, and they generally offer EA binaries, 
>>> so there is
>>> good potential for feedback in the time before a feature is targeted 
>>> to a
>>> release. Also, because OpenJDK projects are blueprints for the 
>>> future Java
>>> Platform, they can place non-final APIs directly in `java.base` and 
>>> refer to
>>> them from signatures in `java.*`. This makes projects' EA binaries 
>>> look more
>>> polished and should produce higher quality feedback.
>>>
>>> Ultimately, though, the best way to provoke feedback on a feature is 
>>> to ship it
>>> in the GA binary of a JDK feature release. This approach has worked 
>>> well for
>>> preview language features, where the Java community has accepted the 
>>> idea of
>>> non-final features that are disabled by default and can thus be 
>>> changed in
>>> response to feedback. Ideally, we want a way to ship highly-evolved but
>>> non-final APIs in a JDK feature release, without distorting the API by
>>> relocating its packages and modules, and without misleading 
>>> developers about its
>>> status.
>>>
>>>
>>> Most "preview principles" carry over from language features to APIs:
>>>
>>> 1. A _preview API_ is a new method, field, class, package, or module 
>>> in the Java
>>> Platform whose design, specification, and implementation are 
>>> semantically
>>> complete, but which would benefit from a period of broad exposure 
>>> and evaluation
>>> before achieving either final and permanent status in the Java 
>>> Platform or else
>>> being refined or removed.
>>>
>>> We would recast the quality bar for all preview features from "95% 
>>> done now" to
>>> "100% done within a year". This recognizes two points: first, our 
>>> experience
>>> that two rounds of preview is normal, and second, the fact that an 
>>> API has a
>>> larger surface area than a language/VM feature and thus undergoes 
>>> more syntactic
>>> polishing on its way to final status.
>>>
>>> 2. A preview API will often reside in the `java.base` module, but 
>>> may reside in
>>> another `java.*` module, including one introduced just for the 
>>> preview API. For
>>> example, the HTTP2 client API could have previewed in the 
>>> `java.net.http`
>>> module, where it ended up after incubation.
>>>
>>> A JEP that introduces many packages may designate them all as 
>>> preview APIs and
>>> place them in different `java.*` modules as it sees fit.
>>>
>>> 3. Preview APIs are unavailable by default. To use them, a developer 
>>> "opts in"
>>> in the same way as for preview language features: `--release N 
>>> --enable-preview`
>>> at compile time. The class files of the developer's program are 
>>> marked to depend
>>> on the preview APIs of Java version N, as if the program had used 
>>> preview
>>> language features. Accordingly, the class files must be executed with
>>> `--enable-preview` at run time, and only the same JDK version.
>>>
>>> Java 14 already has "APIs associated with preview language features" 
>>> that work
>>> this way, such as `java.lang.Record`. In future, such APIs would 
>>> simply be cast
>>> as preview APIs. The existing private mechanism that identifies them 
>>> to `javac`
>>> and `javadoc` -- `@jdk.internal.PreviewFeature` -- will be used for 
>>> all preview
>>> APIs.
>>>
>>> 4. The class files of a preview API itself are _not_ marked. There 
>>> are no
>>> changes to how the JDK is compiled, and every class file in the JDK 
>>> will have a
>>> 0 minor_version as before.
>>>
>>> To allow for intra-JDK use of a preview API, code in the same module 
>>> as a
>>> preview API is _not_ required to "opt in" in order to use the API. 
>>> That is, when
>>> `--enable-preview` is missing, the effect of using a preview API 
>>> element is a
>>> compile-time error _only for code in other modules_. This is similar 
>>> to how the
>>> effect of using an `@Deprecated` element is a warning _only for code 
>>> that is not
>>> itself deprecated_.
>>>
>>>
>>> Beyond APIs, incubation has been used for tools, e.g., 
>>> `jdk.incubator.jpackage`
>>> in JDK 14. However, it has little real meaning there. A tool that's 
>>> good enough
>>> to ship in a JDK feature release has already achieved a high level 
>>> of quality
>>> and is ready for a final round of polishing for its command line 
>>> options. As
>>> long as the tool displays a suitable message about its non-final 
>>> status, it can
>>> legitimately be called a "preview tool" and placed in a module in 
>>> the ordinary
>>> `jdk` namespace rather than the `jdk.incubator` namespace.
>>>
>>>
>>> We don't propose to deprecate incubation or delete JEP 11. It may be 
>>> useful in
>>> future for non-final APIs that wish to live at arms' length from the 
>>> JDK,
>>> outside the `java` namespace.
>>>
>>> I intend to update JEP 12 to incorporate preview APIs in the near 
>>> future,
>>> hopefully in time for 15 so that projects such as Panama can benefit 
>>> from them.
>>>
>>>
>>> Alex