Views on JSR 376 from the Eclipse JDT team

[Mike Milinkovich]

On 2017-05-06 6:30 PM, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
>> You are comparing apples to oranges. The Eclipse Compiler for Java is
>> neither a tool, nor a framework.
> A compiler is a particular kind of software-development tool, last
> I checked.  An important one, certainly, but a tool nonetheless.
>

Surely there is a distinction between those tools, libraries and 
frameworks that require porting to run on top of the Java 9 language 
specification, and a compiler which provides an independent 
implementation of it?

> So: Is it the view of the Eclipse Foundation that any release of the
> Java SE Platform that changes the Java programming language must wait
> until the maintainers of the Eclipse Compiler for Java are satisfied
> with the draft Java Language Specification?

It is the view of the Eclipse Foundation that any release of any JCP 
specification must be sufficiently complete that it enables independent 
implementations.

> If not, then how would you characterize the conditions under which an
> update to the JLS may be considered ready for release?

I am sure that you are aware that in past releases of the Java SE 
Platform, the Eclipse team were not completely satisfied with the spec. 
However, in all past cases they have been willing and able to work 
through the pain. I believe you've seen Stephan's recent blog post[1] 
about continuing issues with Java 8, for example.

There is no simple answer to your question. It is a matter of degree. 
What I can say is that this is the first time the ecj team has expressed 
this level of dissatisfaction.

[1] https://objectteams.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/several-languages-java-8/

-- 
Mike Milinkovich
mike.milinkovich at eclipse.org
+1.613.220.3223 (mobile)