Moving to Java 5?

[Charles Oliver Nutter-2]

Before we released 1.0, we discussed the possibility of making future
releases of JRuby based on Java 5 instead of Java 1.4.2. I think it's
time to raise that question again.

We have a 1.0 release out now, which largely seems to be very solid and
very well received. Compatibility is very good and performance is
comfortable enough to be safely used in real production apps. We will
maintain the 1.0 branch for users of JRuby 1.0, which will receive
compatibility and minor performance fixes as appropriate. Release 1.0.1
will be coming out soon with a large collection of fixes migrated from
the trunk work and from a couple large users of JRuby that have been
helping to merge stuff across.

But the lack of Java 5 support in trunk is now starting to hold back
development. A short list of things we could actually make use of:

- Enums for the many flags and specifiers in the system
- Real concurrent collections, rather than emulated implementations from
the backport library
- Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as allow us
to split method implementations by arity and even argument type
- Support for Java 5 constructs (generics, varargs, enums) in Java
integration
- Elimination of a few areas of inefficiency: environment variables,
Integer.valueOf (Integer caching), various String manipulation methods,
Charset conversions...

So there's lots of reasons to start making trunk Java 5+ only. And we
made good on our promise to release JRuby 1.0 compatible with Java 1.4.2.

Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?

- Charlie

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[Dean Wampler-2]

While I'm personally all for Java 5, I know a lot of institutions that have been very slow to migrate to Java 5, much less Java 6. This means that JRuby might not be as widely used as it could (and should) be. On the other hand, some of the institutions I'm thinking of aren't forward-thinking enough to adopt JRuby anyway ;) 

The Spring community has wrestled with the same issues, for the same reasons. I haven't checked lately about their current strategy with Spring v2, so it might be worth looking at what they are doing.

So, it's a tough call, but given the issues you listed below, I'd vote

+1.

Dean
 

On 7/23/07, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...> wrote:

Before we released 1.0, we discussed the possibility of making future
releases of JRuby based on Java 5 instead of Java 1.4.2. I think it's
time to raise that question again.

We have a 1.0 release out now, which largely seems to be very solid and
very well received. Compatibility is very good and performance is
comfortable enough to be safely used in real production apps. We will
maintain the 1.0 branch for users of JRuby 1.0, which will receive
compatibility and minor performance fixes as appropriate. Release 1.0.1
will be coming out soon with a large collection of fixes migrated from
the trunk work and from a couple large users of JRuby that have been
helping to merge stuff across.

But the lack of Java 5 support in trunk is now starting to hold back
development. A short list of things we could actually make use of:

- Enums for the many flags and specifiers in the system
- Real concurrent collections, rather than emulated implementations from
the backport library
- Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as allow us
to split method implementations by arity and even argument type
- Support for Java 5 constructs (generics, varargs, enums) in Java
integration
- Elimination of a few areas of inefficiency: environment variables,
Integer.valueOf (Integer caching), various String manipulation methods,
Charset conversions...

So there's lots of reasons to start making trunk Java 5+ only. And we
made good on our promise to release JRuby 1.0 compatible with Java 1.4.2.

Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?

- Charlie

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--
Dean Wampler
http://www.objectmentor.com
http://www.aspectprogramming.com
http://www.contract4j.org

[Tim Bray]

On Jul 23, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?

+1

  -T


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[Dudley Flanders]

On Jul 23, 2007, at 2:31 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?

+1

:dudley

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[Thomas E Enebo]

Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer (it may be
entertaining to know if anyone is still using 1.3 or earlier to)?

-Tom

On 7/23/07, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...> wrote:

> Before we released 1.0, we discussed the possibility of making future
> releases of JRuby based on Java 5 instead of Java 1.4.2. I think it's
> time to raise that question again.
>
> We have a 1.0 release out now, which largely seems to be very solid and
> very well received. Compatibility is very good and performance is
> comfortable enough to be safely used in real production apps. We will
> maintain the 1.0 branch for users of JRuby 1.0, which will receive
> compatibility and minor performance fixes as appropriate. Release 1.0.1
> will be coming out soon with a large collection of fixes migrated from
> the trunk work and from a couple large users of JRuby that have been
> helping to merge stuff across.
>
> But the lack of Java 5 support in trunk is now starting to hold back
> development. A short list of things we could actually make use of:
>
> - Enums for the many flags and specifiers in the system
> - Real concurrent collections, rather than emulated implementations from
> the backport library
> - Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
> eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as allow us
> to split method implementations by arity and even argument type
> - Support for Java 5 constructs (generics, varargs, enums) in Java
> integration
> - Elimination of a few areas of inefficiency: environment variables,
> Integer.valueOf (Integer caching), various String manipulation methods,
> Charset conversions...
>
> So there's lots of reasons to start making trunk Java 5+ only. And we
> made good on our promise to release JRuby 1.0 compatible with Java 1.4.2.
>
> Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?
>
> - Charlie
>
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> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>
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>
>

--
Blog: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/ThomasEEnebo
Email: enebo@... , tom.enebo@...

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[Dudley Flanders]

On Jul 23, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Thomas E Enebo wrote:

> Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
> when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer (it may be
> entertaining to know if anyone is still using 1.3 or earlier to)?

I'm running Java 6 in production and developing on 5. The apps I'm  
working on are new, so I started with 5.

:dudley

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[Francis Cianfrocca]

On 7/23/07, Thomas E Enebo <tom.enebo@...> wrote:

Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer (it may be
entertaining to know if anyone is still using 1.3 or earlier to)?

I'm currently porting the Ruby/EventMachine library to JRuby and am developing and testing on Java 6. (I'm using various Java-5 features so Java/EventMachine probably won't run on 1.4.2.)

(By the way, performance is decent but not spectacular, and noticeably less than the MRI version. And the problem isn't in the Java code, which in Java-only testing is nearly as fast as the original C++ version.)

[Charles Oliver Nutter-2]

Francis Cianfrocca wrote:

> On 7/23/07, *Thomas E Enebo* <tom.enebo@...
> <mailto:tom.enebo@...>> wrote:
>
>     Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
>     when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer (it may be
>     entertaining to know if anyone is still using 1.3 or earlier to)?
>
>
>
> I'm currently porting the Ruby/EventMachine library to JRuby and am
> developing and testing on Java 6. (I'm using various Java-5 features so
> Java/EventMachine probably won't run on 1.4.2.)
>
> (By the way, performance is decent but not spectacular, and noticeably
> less than the MRI version. And the problem isn't in the Java code, which
> in Java-only testing is nearly as fast as the original C++ version.)

Any specifics you can provide will be helpful, especially in the form of
benchmarks that are good illustrators of performance differential.

- Charlie

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[Francis Cianfrocca]

On 7/23/07, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...> wrote:

 Any specifics you can provide will be helpful, especially in the form of
benchmarks that are good illustrators of performance differential.

Will do so on another thread, but I'm pretty sure the issues are in the Ruby-Java integration. I'm having to convert NIO buffers to Ruby strings, etc, and there may be better ways to do it that I haven't thought of yet.

Back to the original thread topic, however, I vote

+1

[Changshin Lee]

+1

Cheers,

ias

On 7/24/07, Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@...> wrote:

> On Jul 23, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
>
> > Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?
>
> +1
>
>   -T
>
>
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>

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[Chris Nelson-2]

+1

FWIW, I wrestled with these same kinds of issues with Trails and made the decision to go Java 5 a couple years ago.  Though at that time there were a lot more people stuck on 1.4 I still didn't regret it.

--Chris

On 7/23/07, Changshin Lee <iasandcb@...> wrote:

+1

Cheers,

ias

On 7/24/07, Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@...> wrote:

> On Jul 23, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
>
> > Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?
>
> +1
>
>   -T
>
>
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>

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[dreamhead]

+1

2007/7/24, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>:
> - Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
> eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as allow us
> to split method implementations by arity and even argument type

I really like this idea.

As we know, we can port most Java 5 features back to 1.4 in bytecode
level except annotation. But I think it's OK if annotation is just
used for code generation.

--
Everything is simple!

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[David Pollak]

For what it's worth, there's been a similar discussion about Scala  
and Java 5 over on the Scala mailing list.

The key reason for keeping Scala @ 1.4 is that there is no Open  
version of Java 5+  Yes, Sun has open sourced 95% of the JDK, but the  
other 5% bars folks from actually releasing an Open version of the  
JDK.  On the other hand, the Open JDK clones are @ 1.4 and the Scala  
team wants to be able to distribute Scala with an Open JDK.

On a private list, some folks took an informal survey of JDK 1.4 vs.  
Java 5 usage.  It turns out that no one from a public company was  
able to guarantee that Java 5 was available on all their production  
servers.  Most of the companies were migrating to Java 5.  Kaiser  
(the CA HMO) as of 9 months ago had just completed its JDK 1.3 to JDK  
1.4 migration (they are at one end of the "conservative" spectrum.)

Personally, I like all the library and annotation features in Java 5  
and think that folks who don't move there are sloths.  But I tend to  
live on something that looks like a bleeding edge.

My 2 cents.

On Jul 24, 2007, at 1:27 AM, dreamhead wrote:

> +1
>
> 2007/7/24, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>:
>> - Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
>> eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as  
>> allow us
>> to split method implementations by arity and even argument type
>
> I really like this idea.
>
> As we know, we can port most Java 5 features back to 1.4 in bytecode
> level except annotation. But I think it's OK if annotation is just
> used for code generation.
>
> --
> Everything is simple!
>
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> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>
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>

--
David Pollak
http://blog.lostlake.org






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[Ola Bini-3]

I am against such a move. I would love to have some of the features in
Java 5, but the fact of it is that most "enterprises" are still on 1.4.
I believe JRuby is very important especially in the areas where
conservative values reign, and moving to Java 5 will totally destroy
that advantage.


Cheers

--
 Ola Bini (http://ola-bini.blogspot.com)
 JRuby Core Developer
 Developer, ThoughtWorks Studios (http://studios.thoughtworks.com)

 "Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.



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[Charles Oliver Nutter-2]

Ola Bini wrote:
> I am against such a move. I would love to have some of the features in
> Java 5, but the fact of it is that most "enterprises" are still on 1.4.
> I believe JRuby is very important especially in the areas where
> conservative values reign, and moving to Java 5 will totally destroy
> that advantage.

The concern I have here is that other implementations are not hindered
by a platform version as much as we are, and it's starting to cause us a
bit of pain. For example, IronRuby is based on C# 2.0, and they're able
to use many features we can't like annotations.

Also, as I pointed out, JRuby 1.0 would continue to support Java 1.4.
The fact is that it requires a fair bit of effort and pain on our part
to continue using Java 1.4 going forward, and that's rather not in the
spirit of open source. If people want to continue supporting Java 1.4,
they can put in the effort themselves.

- Charlie

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[Raphaël Valyi]

Again, why not use Retroweaver (http://retroweaver.sourceforge.net/)
to backport a 1.4.2 compliant JRuby as well while coding in Java 1.5?
Still, I can't tell how well retroweaver works, I never used it.

BTW I'm also in favor of java 1.5. in the company I'm working I see
more and more java CMS that can't run anymore in Java 1.4 and I would
say roughly only 20% of our customers are sticked with java 1.4.2, and
I don't doubt they'll change their mind under the increasing pressure
for 1.5. The company I'm working in (Smile.fr) is arguably an Open
Source leader in France and I can't see any customer asking for using
an OpenJdk, so I mean I doubt the clash with OpenJDK 1.5 is
significant, while it could be soved in a matter of a few months,
couldn't it?
Still, this is not a significant point of view, you guys from jRuby
know better what to do; thanks for all your work again.

Raphaël Valyi.


On 7/24/07, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...> wrote:

> Ola Bini wrote:
> > I am against such a move. I would love to have some of the features in
> > Java 5, but the fact of it is that most "enterprises" are still on 1.4.
> > I believe JRuby is very important especially in the areas where
> > conservative values reign, and moving to Java 5 will totally destroy
> > that advantage.
>
> The concern I have here is that other implementations are not hindered
> by a platform version as much as we are, and it's starting to cause us a
> bit of pain. For example, IronRuby is based on C# 2.0, and they're able
> to use many features we can't like annotations.
>
> Also, as I pointed out, JRuby 1.0 would continue to support Java 1.4.
> The fact is that it requires a fair bit of effort and pain on our part
> to continue using Java 1.4 going forward, and that's rather not in the
> spirit of open source. If people want to continue supporting Java 1.4,
> they can put in the effort themselves.
>
> - Charlie
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>
>     http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>
>

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[René Jansen]

If I may add my 2 cents, us enterprise types sometimes also like the  
flexibility that choice offers: sometimes only one requirement of an  
important tool is enough to upgrade a whole set of boxes.

And believe it or not, lack of 1.5 support by another JVM language we  
used in a project (NetRexx) was actually used to inflict damage on it  
by some detractors.

René.

On 24-jul-2007, at 21:21, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> Ola Bini wrote:
>> I am against such a move. I would love to have some of the  
>> features in Java 5, but the fact of it is that most "enterprises"  
>> are still on 1.4. I believe JRuby is very important especially in  
>> the areas where conservative values reign, and moving to Java 5  
>> will totally destroy that advantage.
>
> The concern I have here is that other implementations are not  
> hindered by a platform version as much as we are, and it's starting  
> to cause us a bit of pain. For example, IronRuby is based on C#  
> 2.0, and they're able to use many features we can't like annotations.
>
> Also, as I pointed out, JRuby 1.0 would continue to support Java  
> 1.4. The fact is that it requires a fair bit of effort and pain on  
> our part to continue using Java 1.4 going forward, and that's  
> rather not in the spirit of open source. If people want to continue  
> supporting Java 1.4, they can put in the effort themselves.
>
> - Charlie
>
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[gm-mrktc]

Thomas E Enebo wrote:

Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer ?

We have built our app on 1.5 and all of our customers are running 1.5 if not 1.6.

+1 to moving up, and keep up the good work.

[Mike McKinney-4]

+1 for moving up to 5

(as of this month, all of the gov't projects I work on run 5, some have been running 5 going on a year.)

On 7/24/07, gm-mrktc <gmiller@...> wrote:

Thomas E Enebo wrote:
>
> Could people who respond say what they are using in production and
> when they moved from Java 1.4 if using something newer ?
>

We have built our app on 1.5 and all of our customers are running 1.5 if not
1.6.

+1 to moving up, and keep up the good work.

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Moving-to-Java-5--tf4131923.html#a11773210
Sent from the JRuby - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


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[Marcin Mielżyński-2]

Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> Before we released 1.0, we discussed the possibility of making future
> releases of JRuby based on Java 5 instead of Java 1.4.2. I think it's
> time to raise that question again.
>
> We have a 1.0 release out now, which largely seems to be very solid
> and very well received. Compatibility is very good and performance is
> comfortable enough to be safely used in real production apps. We will
> maintain the 1.0 branch for users of JRuby 1.0, which will receive
> compatibility and minor performance fixes as appropriate. Release
> 1.0.1 will be coming out soon with a large collection of fixes
> migrated from the trunk work and from a couple large users of JRuby
> that have been helping to merge stuff across.
>
> But the lack of Java 5 support in trunk is now starting to hold back
> development. A short list of things we could actually make use of:
>
> - Enums for the many flags and specifiers in the system
> - Real concurrent collections, rather than emulated implementations
> from the backport library
> - Annotations for specifying method bindings. This could largely
> eliminate the need for manual method-binding code, as well as allow us
> to split method implementations by arity and even argument type
> - Support for Java 5 constructs (generics, varargs, enums) in Java
> integration
> - Elimination of a few areas of inefficiency: environment variables,
> Integer.valueOf (Integer caching), various String manipulation
> methods, Charset conversions...
>
> So there's lots of reasons to start making trunk Java 5+ only. And we
> made good on our promise to release JRuby 1.0 compatible with Java 1.4.2.
>
> Perhaps it's time we made the move to Java 5?
>
> - Charlie
>

+1

Though, I'd be reluctant in using generics too often since they make it
difficult to control casting.

lopex

--
Opole - Miasto Bez Granic.
http://www.opole.pl - tu znajdziesz nowe miejsca, nowe mozliwosci, nowe inspiracje...



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