[External] : Re: Be wary: --enable-native-access is breaking integrity

[Attila Kelemen]

>
>
> I think we should tone down the level of uproar about a flag. Flags is how
> Java is configured. We offer jlink and @files as means of storing and
> sharing such command line configurations.
>
> I mean, I’m certain there are people out there who find typing the
> character ‘{‘ difficult, but these people aren’t using Java. A Java
> programmer probably sets the command line several times a week. If setting
> the command line is “pain” that’s sufficient to force people to leave Java,
> then those people would have left a long time ago. So yes, there’s a very
> minor inconvenience involved, and we can spend more time explaining why
> it’s needed, but let’s not turn this into a high stakes thing. Also,
> between asking people to add flags we also deliver things like FFM and
> virtual threads and records, so let’s not try to present this like it’s
> some end of the world. Among all the things we’re delivering we’re also
> imposing some minor inconvenience from time to time when we think it’s
> absolutely necessary. You don’t have to agree that it’s necessary, but I
> think it’s pretty clear that it’s not that big of a pain.
>
>
While it is obviously not a world ending disaster, it is more painful than
what you give credit for, because you assume there are all these
nicely structured applications out there, where you can just add this new
flag to the many. Sadly, that is often not the case. There are extremely
many cases where people are just calling "java" directly left and right
copy pasting the JVM arguments. While this is arguably a fault of those
applications, it will be a very tough sell to them (certainly they won't
fault themselves). And I already have a hard time convincing people to
please upgrade, and you are just giving them an additional reason to delay
it. Also, I have my ulterior motives as well: If you allow them to make it
considerably less painful through modules, then it will be easier to
convince people who are still not using modules to finally do (I can use it
as a carrot).
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