Java8

Why Java 8 is not dead

• Because Java 9 breaks things
• Because Java 10 breaks more things
• Because Java 11 breaks even more things
• Because Java >=12 will surely break more of the stuff that has been working perfectly for years

And the cost/benefit relation of moving along Oracle's ideas seems not worthwile.

Examples

Mediawiki-Japi

• Travis build suddenly fails

Problem

Mediawiki-Japi/src/main/java/com/bitplan/mediawiki/japi/api/Page.java:[34,33] package javax.xml.bind.annotation does not exist

Diagnosis

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43574426/how-to-resolve-java-lang-noclassdeffounderror-javax-xml-bind-jaxbexception-in-j

Oracle decided to remove APIs

Solution

Do not use Oracle's incompatible Java versions - stay with Version 8

diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
 # this is a java project using maven
 language: java
+# make sure things keep working see http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/Java8
+jdk: openjdk8

Crashing Eclipse

Problem

Trying to start Eclipse oxygen leads to multiple ClassNotFoundExceptions

Diagnosis

• https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=533390
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48349760/how-do-i-change-my-eclipse-ides-launch-jvm

Therapy

Surprise - stay with Java 8 ... Search it:

/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home

and add it to your eclipse.ini (make sure using two lines as below ...

-vm
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java