Mystery meat OpenJDK builds strike again

[Anssi Kolehmainen]

On Wed, 15 May 2019 18:49:55 +0000, Gil Tene wrote:
> If anyone was wondering about the importance of having version strings say
> "EA" (or some other "THIS IS NOT a RELEASED VERSION" warning) on any
> and all OpenJDK builds that are not an actual release build, the above shows
> you how bad things get when that practice is not followed.

Here's an outsider UI testing report for Java versioning:

Task: How can I find out which is the correct build for this version


Google openjdk, go to openjdk.java.net, on frontpage click install.
Instructions say "sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre" which then installs 
8u212-b01. Success!

Go back to frontpage, click on "here" (as in Oracle builds), see only "8u212",
don't want to do read through EULA so go back to openjdk frontpage.

Go through the tiny left navbar, click on "JDK 8"... This talks about 2014 so 
bummer. Go to "JDK 8 Updates"... Pretty much empty page so "Consult Wiki for 
details".
Font gets even tinier but I keep glancing. Releases list "Latest: 8u212" but 
only "GA" as build number. Click on "tag" which goes to hg[1] "Added tag 
jdk8u212-b02"... Success!
[1]: http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8u/jdk8u/rev/5218ef8ea6c3

Click on "Released", get to Github AdoptOpenJDK releases. Title says "8u212 
GA" but thankfully tag shows "8u212-b03".

Go to Azul web to look for releases and notice that there is grey overcast on 
whole page which prevents clicking on any links. Top bar says something about 
cookies but I close the page since it seems broken. (Thanks EU)

Go back to OpenJDK frontpage and click on Mercurial. Click on jdk8, jdk and 
notice that everything is again 2014. Go back to jdk8u, go to jdk8u, go to 
jdk.
Click on tags and be amazed of the UI. A bit hard to demonstrate in email but 
something like

jdk8u212-b04                                                     01535393e060
jdk8u212-ga                                                      ac2ef877d3e8
jdk8u212-b03                                                     ac2ef877d3e8
jdk8u212-b02                                                     acab6dbdd0b5
jdk8u222-b00                                                     fcf246aa327f
jdk8u212-b01                                                     fcf246aa327f

So b04 is the newest (and thus best?) but after decreasing resolution from 2K 
and applying ruler to display ga happens to have same node as b03.

Finally dig out mailing list archives, find the release announcement and look 
up in the URLs that say b03.


Final tally is something like
b01  1 hit
b02  1 hit
b03  3 hits
b04  1 hit

So with some confidence it would be possible to say that b03 is the correct
version :)


It would be really much better if version number would include beta/pre/EA in 
the prereleases or then GA in the final version.

-- 
Anssi Kolehmainen