Workshop proposal: Porting in the era of The Fast and The Furious

[Johan Vos]

Sounds like an excellent topic.

I have similar issues with OpenJFX on mobile/embedded. We're working hard
now for getting the important functionality ready for RDP1, and only after
that is done I will really start looking at porting OpenJFX 11 to
iOS/Android/embedded. As a consequence, the mobile/embedded ports typically
are 1 release behind the desktop ports.

- Johan

On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 6:05 PM White, Derek <Derek.White at cavium.com> wrote:

> ABSTRACT:
> The rush of exciting new JVM features combined with the new release tempo
> makes life for porters a surprising game of Keeping Up with the Joneses.
> Just when you finish the in-ground pool you look over the fence and see -
> wait, is that a Helipad?
>
> The top-level question for participants is "How can feature developers
> coordinate better with porters to ensure that new features are available to
> the widest set of platforms?".  More detailed questions listed at end.
>
> LENGTH: Long?
>
> BIO: Derek White has been working on JVM implementations off-and-on since
> 1996. You'd think he'd be finished by now. Activities include: Ported the
> Java-in-Java Squawk JVM to embedded Arm SoC with 32KB Java heap, Optimizing
> Hotspot for Cavium Arm SoC with 256 hardware threads.
> http://javathunderx.blogspot.com/
>
> PRESENTATION: I could provide a few slides to show the scope of the issue,
> but it's not strictly necessary.
>
> Some sub-questions could include:
>
>   *   Should JEPs that only include an implementation for one platform
> have an indication that porting is required? File bugs for missing
> implementations?
>   *   Should JEPs with no porting issues be tagged as such? "Deprecate the
> Pack200 Tools and API" sounds innocuous to us porters, but we have to look
> at the implementation to verify this.
>   *   Why is Zero always broken? Should JEPs with incomplete
> implementations always provide a Zero implementation also? I've no idea if
> this is either difficult or useful.
>   *   Are JEPs ever targeted to a release within weeks of that release's
> feature freeze? Could this ever be a problem? Discuss.
>   *   How should we handle porting for features in incubator modules? When
> is too soon or too late to bring in porting considerations?
>   *   Similarly, OpenJDK projects like Valhalla, Panama, and Metropolis
> are a great source of new features, but tracking porting issues is
> difficult. Following all of the email lists is not practical, waiting for a
> JEP may be too late?
>   *   Are the solutions process, convention, or something more ad-hoc?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>   *   Derek White
>