FYI, planning to drop support for -source/-target/--release 7 from javac in JDK 20

[Liam Miller-Cushon]

> JDK 7 was released in July 2011, over one decade ago. Per the general
sentiment, but not exact wording, of JEP 182

Would you be willing to provide any hints about what the future update to
JEP 182 might look like? Is the sentiment behind JEP 182 that language
levels will continue to be turned down roughly ten years after they were
originally released, and so support for targeting Java 8 might be removed
around 2024?

By way of an experience report on JDK-8173605, I'm seeing roughly ten times
more usage of '-source 7 -target 7' than there was of '-source 6 -target 6'
when it was turned down. So far most of those uses don't seem to be
necessary anymore, but there are a few where it's not clear. So it's been a
more invasive breaking change than JDK-8028563 was.

On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 7:20 AM Brian Goetz <brian.goetz at oracle.com> wrote:

>
> > The only problem i see is that the compiler plugin of Maven still use
> 1.7 as default.
>
> This is kind of bizarre, though.  Java 7 went to "end of public updates"
> in 2015.  You would think that would be the trigger for Maven to update
> their defaults?  Or maybe, as the release model is evolved, they could
> pick a policy of "default to the newest/oldest LTS"?
>
>
>
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