Hi Chesnay, Thanks for bringing this for discussion.
We should dig deeper into the current Java version of Flink users. At least make sure Java 8 is not a mainstream version. Receiving this signal, the user may be unhappy because his application may be all on Java 8. Upgrading is a big job, after all, many systems have not been upgraded yet. (Like you said, HBase and Hive) In my opinion, it is too early to deprecate support for Java 8. We should wait for a safer point in time. On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 11:45 PM Ingo Bürk <i...@ververica.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > also a +1 from me because of everything Chesnay already said. > > > Ingo > > On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 4:41 PM Martijn Visser <mart...@ververica.com> > wrote: > > > Hi Chesnay, > > > > Thanks for bringing this up for discussion. Big +1 for dropping Java 8 and > > deprecating it in 1.15, given that Java 8 support will end. We already see > > other dependencies that Flink use either have dropped support for Java 8 > > (Trino) or are going to drop it (Kafka). > > > > Best regards, > > > > Martijn > > > > On Mon, 22 Nov 2021 at 16:28, Chesnay Schepler <ches...@apache.org> wrote: > > > > > As with any Java version there comes a time when one needs to ask > > > themselves for how long one intends to stick with it. > > > > > > With Java 17 being released 2 months ago, and the active support for > > > Java 8 ending in 4 months, it is time for us to think about that with > > > regard to Java 8. > > > > > > As such I'd like to start a discussion about deprecating support for > > > Java 8 in 1.15. > > > We do not need to arrive with an exact date for the removal in this > > > discussion; the main goal is to signal to users that they should > > > (prepare to) migrate to Java 11 _now_. > > > That said, we should consider dropping the support entirely in the next > > > 2-3 releases. > > > > > > There are of course some problems that we are already aware of, like the > > > Hive/Hbase connectors that currently do not support Java 11. > > > However, we mustn't hold back the entire project because of external > > > projects that are (way to) slow to adapt. > > > Maybe us deprecating Java 8 would also add a bit of pressure to get on > > > with it. > > > > > > There are numerous advantages that properly migrating to Java 11 would > > > bring us (simplify build system, easier support for Java 17, all the API > > > goodies of Java 9-11, new garbage collectors (Epsilon/ZGC/Shenandoah)). > > > > > > Let me know what you think. > > > > > > > > -- Best, Jingsong Lee
