Classparser API

[Robert Scholte]

Hi Remi,

I don't think that the ASF process itself is the problem, but in our case it is the numbers:
- ~100 individual release roots (Maven, plugins, libraries)
- 72h voting period
- every release requires 3 positive votes of Maven PMC members

This combined with the low number of active committers means we must carefully pick when and what to release. 
If the JDK could be extended with a ClassParser API, we could spend time on other releases.
Increasing the number of committers could help, but experience is that is quite hard to find new volunteers.

I don't want to start discussions about what a proper release policy is in 2020, it really differs per project.
However, I'm pretty sure more projects would benefit if this would be part of the JDK itself.

thanks,
Robert
On 22-9-2020 20:15:21, Remi Forax <forax at univ-mlv.fr> wrote:
Hi Robert,

Yes, ASM 9 was released this morning, as a meagre consolation, it seems the classfile will not change in the next releases until the introduction of Valhalla.

And yes, the new release cadence has some ripple effects but at the same time, it's not a reason to not try to streamline a little more the release process of any Apache projects.
After all, we are in 2020, releasing a software or a library should be something casual and not an exceptional daunting task.

regards,
Rémi

----- Mail original -----
> De: "Robert Scholte"
> À: "jdk-dev"
> Envoyé: Mardi 22 Septembre 2020 19:23:25
> Objet: Classparser API

> With the new release of Java followed by a new release of ASM comes a returning
> task where some of our Maven plugins and libraries should update this
> dependency. They make use of the classfile parser, the upgrade is required to
> understand the new bytecode version.
>
> Due to the Apache Software Foundation Policy (for legal reasons) every release
> comes with an amount of overhead. Doing a release for just a single dependency
> update to ease the usage for Maven users has always felt awkward.
>
> Is there any chance that the JDK will be extended with an API for parsing
> classfiles?
>
> thanks,
> Robert Scholte