[WG: Sakai QA] SAK-15874 Java 1.6 transition

David Haines dlhaines at umich.edu
Wed Nov 18 08:01:06 PST 2009


The primary current goal for moving to Java 1.6 is to break the  
dependency on tools that will not be updated.  The least disruptive  
option for moving to Java 1.6 would be to just change the default  
Sakai build configuration to use the Java 1.6 SDK and JVM and set the  
compile options to expect 1.5 source and target a 1.5 JVM.  This  
requires only infrastructure changes. There have been installations  
running the current binaries with a 1.6 JVM so targeting a 1.5 JVM  
should not be a problem.

The changes required would be:
- Change the default SDK for compilation to be 1.6
- Add " -Dsun.lang.ClassLoader.allowArraySyntax=true " to JAVA_OPTS
- Modify GC parameters if necessary.

Changing the configuration on the QA servers ought to be  
straightforward. This means that the new releases would not be tested  
on a 1.5 JVM, but given limited resources we can't explicitly support  
everything forever.  Making the change now would provide installations  
time to make a planned transition rather than a sudden ad hoc  
transition when something breaks.  It also provides time for Sakai to  
move away from requiring 1.5 source compatibility gradually.

Comments?

- Dave

David Haines
CTools Developer
Digital Media Commons
University of Michigan
dlhaines at umich.edu



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