LTS releases and JEP 182: Policy for Retiring javac -source and -target Options ?

[Alan Bateman]

On 27/02/2019 10:18, Andrew Leonard wrote:
> Hi,
> Does anyone know if this JEP will be modified to cater for the shorter
> release cycles and LTS releases?
> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8046172
> The original Impact statement stated: "but even with this new policy
> source code 10 or more years old should still be able to be compiled"
> however now, for example with JDK12 this policy will only support 1+3 =
> 12, 11, 10, 9, which means LTS JDK8 would not be recognised?
> "1+3" is essentially only 18 months now!
>
JDK 12 dropped support for compiling to --release 6, see JDK-8028563 
[1]. You shouldn't have any issue compiling to --release 8.

The policy documented in JEP 182 pre-dates the more rapid cadence, the 
policy hasn't been updated yet. The topic has come up on jdk-dev, 
discuss, and other places. Joe Darcy's recent mail to jdk-dev [2] might 
be useful.

-Alan

[1] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8028563
[2] 
https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-dev/2019-February/002628.html