Re: openjdk-9: FYI: Swing generics changes

That's clearly too late for Java 9, I'm afraid your bug report will not be accepted.

To avoid detecting this kind of breakage so late in the development cycle, maybe the Debian Java team could join the Quality Outreach [1]. There are a lot of Java open source projects out there, reporting feedback to Oracle. The sooner an incompatibility is reported, the higher chances are to find a solution. Also, Oracle notifies projects who discovered a bug when it is fixed. We (JOSM) joined this initiative during the Java 9 development cycle and I'm quite satisfied with the status today in JDK Bug System: 6 open/new bugs, 1 in progress, 10 fixed, 6 duplicates, 5 irreproducible, 5 rejected [2].

For example a full build could be run on a monthly basis, and build issues reported to upstream projects or OpenJDK team if necessary.

[1] https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/quality/Quality+Outreach

[2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/issues/?jql=labels%20in%20(josm-found%2C%20josm-interest)%20ORDER%20BY%20created%20DESC

2017-08-23 0:42 GMT+02:00 Chris West <solo-debian-java@goeswhere.com>:

As I can't think of anywhere else to complain...

I've been looking at Java 9 build logs again[1].

These packages are broken by the addition of generics to a small number
of swing classes:

* electric
* freeplane
* jajuk
* jsymphonic
* libjaudiotagger
* sweethome3d
* zeroc-ice

There may be others.

I've raised a bug against this with Oracle, but I doubt they will look
at it before the release. The bulk of the text is:
https://paste.debian.net/982594/

There was some discussion on the mailing list three years ago, and a
couple of people's broken code was fixed in the JDK (e.g. netbeans); I
guess I missed the boat on this one:
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk9-dev/2014-September/001295.html

The errors are typically "cannot cast .. TreeNode" or related to
"Enumeration<..> children()".

This really doesn't feel like the kind of thing we should patch, and is
rather ugly to fix in each package (although essentially simple). Sadness. :(

In happier news, an AWS i3.8xlarge (32 cores, 244GB RAM, NVMe) can build
nearly every default-jdk dependency (~1260 packages) in two hours; for <$3 on
the spot market.

--
Chris.

1: https://cryptpad.fr/code/#/1/edit/VH6giqhAylzK7Sa+aJiB5A/c01Z3XEbE0HCk2wOz4Xz8kKE/