Proposal: Bump minimum JDK version for JavaFX 20 to JDK 17

[Tom Schindl]

Hi,

To me upgrading to "--source 17 --target 17" sounds like a good idea.

Tom

Am 19.07.22 um 15:44 schrieb Kevin Rushforth:
> Even though we build JavaFX binaries with JDK 18 as the boot JDK, the 
> latest version of JavaFX still runs with JDK 11 (and is capable of being 
> built using JDK 12 or later, and with some limitations, using JDK 11), 
> although it isn't tested with older JDK versions. In order for JavaFX to 
> be able to use newer JDK features, such as records, switch expressions, 
> text blocks, and so forth, we need to increase the minimum version of 
> the JDK that can run the latest JavaFX. Additionally, there is an 
> ongoing cost to keeping JavaFX buildable and runnable on older versions 
> of Java, and very little reason to continue to do so.
> 
> To this end, I propose to bump the minimum version of the JDK needed to 
> run JavaFX 20 to JDK 17. I filed JDK-8290530 [1] to track this. This 
> will not affect update releases of earlier versions of JavaFX (e.g., 
> JavaFX 17.0.NN), which will continue to run with the same minimum JDK 
> that they run on today.
> 
> As a reminder, we only assure that JavaFX NN will run with JDK NN-1 or 
> later, although in practice, we haven't bumped the minimum required JDK 
> version in several releases. So, while JavaFX 19 is built using JDK 18 
> as the boot JDK, it produces class files that will run with JDK 11, 
> using "--source 11 --target 11". The proposed change discussed here 
> would update that in JavaFX 20 to "--source 17 --target 17".
> 
> NOTE: this will not be an invitation to do wholesale refactoring of 
> existing classes or methods to use newer language features (e.g., a PR 
> that turns a bunch of existing data classes into records would not be 
> welcome). Rather, this can be seen as enabling judicious use of new 
> features in new code, much as we did when we started allowing the use of 
> "var".
> 
> Absent a compelling reason to remain stuck in the past, I plan to send 
> out a pull request for this change next week.
> 
> Comments are welcome.
> 
> -- Kevin
> 
> [1] https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8290530
>