18 month release cycle..

[Daniel Zwolenski]

I've raised this idea a few times before and the silence was deafening, but: I don't believe jfx should be part of the JRE. I think some minimal core components could be, eg prism and base media stuff (ie anything that is 'OS' level - since that's what the JRE is, a virtual OS) but everything else should just be a nice normal, external library. Still built by you guys, still owned by Oracle, still 'official' - just not hard wired in. 

Spring, hibernate, struts, GWT, etc, have no problems of 'reach' despite not being part of the jre. They achieve reach by being awesome, as would jfx. 

I understand there are political advantages but the technical advantages of co-bundling are close to none (the only one: I don't have to include a jar on my path). The disadvantages however are significant: slave to auto-updating, hampered release cycle, limitations on external libraries that can be used, etc, etc.

Anyway, I'm fully expecting for this rant to have no real impact, and I'm ok with that. Just feel the need to say my piece and now I can go back to my rocking chair and mutter to myself ;)


On 21/06/2012, at 5:54 AM, Richard Bair <richard.bair at oracle.com> wrote:

> That is a JCP issue. If JavaFX never becomes part of the standard, then we limit reach, but can have quicker release cycles. If JavaFX becomes part of the standard, we get better reach but longer release cycles (for features). Of course bug fixes can go into update releases. We are aiming for something like Java 9 for standardization so that by the time we get there we'll be able to handle the longer cycles. Short of "fixing" the JCP, I'm not sure there are any good alternatives.
> 
> On Jun 20, 2012, at 8:20 AM, Pedro Duque Vieira wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> ...Unlike the JDK, our code doesn't yet require JSR or JCP approvals. That
>>> is why we were aiming for making JavaFX a part of standard Java in Java 9
>>> timeframe so that by the time we got there FX would be mature enough to be
>>> able to handle 18month release cycles between new features (for anything
>>> that is part of JavaSE, you can only add new API on major releases, whereas
>>> since FX is not yet part of the Java specification, we can make updates any
>>> time)...
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Hi Richard,
>> 
>> Sorry to meddle in the conversation..
>> 18 month for a release cycle? That sounds like too much, even for something
>> that is mature. I think one of the big advantages of javafx is it's short
>> release cycle.
>> 
>> Thanks, best regards,
>> 
>> -- 
>> Pedro Duque Vieira
>