Views on JSR 376 from the Eclipse JDT team

[Stephan Herrmann]

On 06.05.2017 21:49, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
> 2017/5/6 9:56:12 -0700, stephan.herrmann at berlin.de:
>> Alex,
>>
>> I appreciate your answers to our questions, which give hope
>> that a future version - incorporating all this - will be sufficient
>> for defining what is Java 9 from a compiler's perspective.
>>
>> The post sent by Markus explicitly refers to the specification
>> as it was submitted for public review, which is not sufficient
>> in several regards.
>>
>> I see two reasons for insisting in this distinction:
>>
>> It is necessary to call out that JSR 376 is again behind schedule,
>> putting third party implementors under extreme time pressure,
>> to the degree that a compliant implementation may not be possible
>> on the currently scheduled release date.
>>
>> Only once we hold in our hands a specification that has all the
>> missing parts integrated and that has passed some level of QA,
>> it is possible to confirm whether all the pieces fit together
>> in a coherent, consistent and sufficient way.
>>
>> (This is my personal view as an individual contributor to Eclipse JDT)
>
> Stephan,
>
> Thanks for expressing your concerns.
>
> The maintainers of many libraries, frameworks, and tools have been able
> to keep up with the latest developments in JPMS and Jigsaw in real time,
> on this list and elsewhere.  Some of them are ready for JDK 9 now, and
> more will be ready by JDK 9 GA or shortly thereafter.
>
> You and Markus seem to be saying that since the Eclipse JDT team can
> only really get started when they have a specification that's complete
> in every detail then the rest of the Java community must wait.  Is that
> what you mean?
>
> I understand that Eclipse is important, but is it important enough to
> hold up the release for everyone else?

Mark,

I am honestly glad that my role in all this is not at a management level,
but at the technical level, so I humbly refrain from answering your questions.

Still, I feel qualified and obliged to add my share of transparency to
the discussion. If a spec is insufficient, I will call it insufficient.

Alex knows that I'm doing so in deep appreciation of JLS. In many
discussions about differences between javac and ecj I defended the view
that "right" or "wrong" is not defined by any implementation, but only
by JLS. I keep making a point that implementing ecj based on the
specification and nothing but the specification is the ultimate quality
assurance that could be applied to JLS.

Please help me continuing this advocacy of JLS.

best,
Stephan