Proposal to revise forest graph and integration practices for JDK 9

[Joe Darcy]

On 12/02/2013 04:52 PM, Lana Steuck wrote:
>
> On 12/02/2013 11:38 AM, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
>> That's no doubt a good thing, but are we confident that we'll be able 
>> to do such an integration every week, including any necessary manual 
>> testing of client code? If not then it seems we need a separate 
>> client forest that feeds into the dev forest after appropriate 
>> testing, just like the HotSpot forests. - Mark 
>
> It seems that it would depend on SQE resources. If SQE could perform 
> manual client testing of the pre-integration build weekly, then we 
> could do weekly integrations of jdk9-dev.
>
> - Lana
>

A few more thoughts on client library code.

First, on a technological  basis, client libraries are library code like 
the core libraries, living in the same repository and being built by the 
same makefile rules.

In terms of volume of changes, looking at the number of bug fixes per 
component in JDK 8, the client libs component has fewer than half the 
fixes of either core-libs or hotspot:

     client-libs fixes in JDK 8: 840
     core-libs fixes in JDK 8:   1983
     hotspot fixes in JDK 8: 1778

To me, both of these factors argue in favor of combining core libs and 
client libs fixes in a single forest.

Over time, throughout the JDK we should work to reduce the reliance on 
manual testing.

My strong preference is to start JDK 9 *without* a forest dedicated to 
client libs changes and only add such a forest if that arrangement 
proves unworkable in practice. Fewer forests means testing efforts can 
be more focused.

-Joe