Java 8 and the javax.time package

[Paul Witten]

I was surprised to see that the current drop of Java 8 does not yet have javax.time. Since this was originally scheduled for Java 7 I am baffled at how they could not have integrated it into the build by now. I thought they wanted people to hammer this thing before Feature Complete.

Anybody with their ear to the ground on that one?

Yes, I'd rather ask people here rather than other there (Oracle Forums). I figure I'll get a straight answer here. :-D

[Paul Clapham]

I thought Stephen Colebourne would be your man, so I looked at his blog, but he hasn't posted anything about the topic for ages. But it did have a link pointing here: ThreeTen which appears to be the page you're looking for.

[Paul Witten]

Paul Clapham wrote:I thought Stephen Colebourne would be your man, so I looked at his blog, but he hasn't posted anything about the topic for ages. But it did have a link pointing here: ThreeTen which appears to be the page you're looking for.

That's it! Thanks. The work is going on but the only jar they offer so far is two years old. So I'll poke around but for sure it's going to hatch out with many changes from that old code.

I did find a couple of comments that indicated how they'd really LIKE to have this be in JDK 8, and I found that a bit disturbing. Like should not be a word we hear about ThreeTen, IMO, but apparently there are doubts. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but you know how the bomb gets dropped in hushed, understated tones.

I think Feature Complete is mid-March, so there is definitely a way to go. And since when was delivery not pushed back to accommodate a big piece like that?

Thanks for the link. Yes, Stephen seems to be the man, and I just wish him luck on this project.

[Jay Orsaw]

So I'm confused, a google result says it's coming out in a year from now? How do we know all of the new goodies that will be presented? Have a link to some place they announced it...?

[Paul Witten]

Jay Orsaw wrote:So I'm confused, a google result says it's coming out in a year from now? How do we know all of the new goodies that will be presented? Have a link to some place they announced it...?

Not much out there except for http://sourceforge.net/projects/threeten/

If you google for "jdk8 roadmap" you'll see announcements but be careful of the time stamp on the announcement. IOW, if it's months old things could have changed.

I did find this from April, 2012 though:

Hi,

First of all I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Mathias Axelsson and
I'm the lead release manager for the Oracle JDK. I'm based in Stockholm,
Sweden.

Although my role at Oracle is to ensure that we deliver Oracle JDK 8 I think
it's clear that our developers are primarily focused on delivering code into
OpenJDK, and so I'd like to propose the following high-level dates for the
JDK 8 Release Project for review and feedback.

In 2010 Mark posted details about plan B for JDK 7 and JDK 8 [1]. The below
dates have been adjusted from the original post based on the details I have
for JDK 8 at this stage to come up with an achievable plan.

First of all I'd like to propose some dates for the implementation milestones
for JDK 8 so that there are some high-level buckets that can be targeted for
delivering features and enhancements.

Implementation milestones:
- M1: August 2011 - April 24, 2012
- M2: Ends June 14, 2012
- M3: Ends July 30, 2012
- M4: Ends September 11, 2012
- M5: Ends November 26, 2012
- M6: Ends January 30, 2013

Based on the above I would recommend a feature complete (FC) date of
end of January 2013 when all features and new tests development would
need to be completed.

Since there are a lot of features going into JDK 8 I think we need at least
as much time to stabilize JDK 8 as was needed in JDK 7. That leads us to a
target release date in September 2013.

In order to get from FC to the release date based on the above dates I think
we'll need to raise the bar in steps during the bug fixing phase of the
release so that we stay focused on the critical issues. I would like to
recommend the following approach.

- General bug fixing from early February till early April 2013
- In early April 2013 the bar is raised to only allow P1-P3 bugs to be fixed
- By mid-June 2013 the bar is raised even higher and only showstopper bug
fixes are considered

The component JSRs will most likely need time to bake beyond the FC date,
so I think JSR work should be exempt from the above rules until early
May 2013. After that time they'll follow the same approach as above.

In order to reduce the likelihood of critical bugs being discovered very
late in the game, as had happened in the final days of JDK 7 stabilization
with bugs that were discovered [2] by Apache Lucene developers, I would
like to recommend that we set a date for when testing and bug reporting
should have been completed in order to have enough time to fix them before
shipping JDK 8. Based on the proposed dates I would recommend that we set
that date to early April 2013. Bugs reported after this date should be
looked at (and hopefully fixed) as well but if the reports comes in too late
it might not be possible to fix them within the JDK 8 time frame. Therefore
I propose a proactive approach to test early and report the issues so we can
prioritize the critical bugs as early as possible.

I would like the timeline for JDK 8 to be clear for everyone working on the
project so please respond with any feedback by April 17 so it can be taken
into account.

Kind regards,
Mathias Axelsson

It's my first time being introduced to his name, and I think googling his name may yield more results but haven't had time to do so yet.

[Jay Orsaw]

Paul Witten wrote:

Jay Orsaw wrote:So I'm confused, a google result says it's coming out in a year from now? How do we know all of the new goodies that will be presented? Have a link to some place they announced it...?

Not much out there except for http://sourceforge.net/projects/threeten/

If you google for "jdk8 roadmap" you'll see announcements but be careful of the time stamp on the announcement. IOW, if it's months old things could have changed.

I did find this from April, 2012 though:

Hi,

First of all I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Mathias Axelsson and
I'm the lead release manager for the Oracle JDK. I'm based in Stockholm,
Sweden.

Although my role at Oracle is to ensure that we deliver Oracle JDK 8 I think
it's clear that our developers are primarily focused on delivering code into
OpenJDK, and so I'd like to propose the following high-level dates for the
JDK 8 Release Project for review and feedback.

In 2010 Mark posted details about plan B for JDK 7 and JDK 8 [1]. The below
dates have been adjusted from the original post based on the details I have
for JDK 8 at this stage to come up with an achievable plan.

First of all I'd like to propose some dates for the implementation milestones
for JDK 8 so that there are some high-level buckets that can be targeted for
delivering features and enhancements.

Implementation milestones:
- M1: August 2011 - April 24, 2012
- M2: Ends June 14, 2012
- M3: Ends July 30, 2012
- M4: Ends September 11, 2012
- M5: Ends November 26, 2012
- M6: Ends January 30, 2013

Based on the above I would recommend a feature complete (FC) date of
end of January 2013 when all features and new tests development would
need to be completed.

Since there are a lot of features going into JDK 8 I think we need at least
as much time to stabilize JDK 8 as was needed in JDK 7. That leads us to a
target release date in September 2013.

In order to get from FC to the release date based on the above dates I think
we'll need to raise the bar in steps during the bug fixing phase of the
release so that we stay focused on the critical issues. I would like to
recommend the following approach.

- General bug fixing from early February till early April 2013
- In early April 2013 the bar is raised to only allow P1-P3 bugs to be fixed
- By mid-June 2013 the bar is raised even higher and only showstopper bug
fixes are considered

The component JSRs will most likely need time to bake beyond the FC date,
so I think JSR work should be exempt from the above rules until early
May 2013. After that time they'll follow the same approach as above.

In order to reduce the likelihood of critical bugs being discovered very
late in the game, as had happened in the final days of JDK 7 stabilization
with bugs that were discovered [2] by Apache Lucene developers, I would
like to recommend that we set a date for when testing and bug reporting
should have been completed in order to have enough time to fix them before
shipping JDK 8. Based on the proposed dates I would recommend that we set
that date to early April 2013. Bugs reported after this date should be
looked at (and hopefully fixed) as well but if the reports comes in too late
it might not be possible to fix them within the JDK 8 time frame. Therefore
I propose a proactive approach to test early and report the issues so we can
prioritize the critical bugs as early as possible.

I would like the timeline for JDK 8 to be clear for everyone working on the
project so please respond with any feedback by April 17 so it can be taken
into account.

Kind regards,
Mathias Axelsson

It's my first time being introduced to his name, and I think googling his name may yield more results but haven't had time to do so yet.

Thanks, so like I said above there is still much time until it's release, we don't have all the answers yet... Hopefully 8 takes us to new heights.

[Paul Clapham]

At this point it doesn't matter, but... We have a forum specifically about JSR 310 here. I'm kind of embarrassed to be moderating a forum which has only attracted one post, but this looks like a fine candidate for a second. So I'm going to move it over there.