Posted by Sven Gothel on Dec 17, 2012; 1:25am
URL: https://forum.jogamp.org/Change-JogAmp-Module-s-Java-Language-Version-Constraints-tp2448646p4027537.html

On 12/16/2012 07:45 PM, Manu [via jogamp] wrote:
> It seems now that the target javac version of JOGL is 1.6 at this time.
> I wonder if there are some reasons why it's not 1.5 anymore, and in case
> there's no reason, if it could target 1.5 to be able to run libraries under
> older Mac OS X systems where Java 1.6 was never made available.

You probably refer to OSX version < 10.5.8,
i.e. 4 'sales' version earlier [10.4 .. 10.7].

Reason we have switched to 1.6 (Level 6.0) was mainly the availability of working
environments, which we made in January 2012.

We concluded it's best to compile the modules w/ a compliant compiler
of the target version (produce 1.6 class files w/ 1.6 javac and rt.jar)
instead of 'sneaking' in a 1.6 rt.jar of a 1.7 javac .. etc.

Since:
  - 1.5 (Level 5.0) was reaching EOL
  - OSX versions < 10.5.8 were reaching EOL
  - OpenJDK 6 and 7 availability on mobile/embedded devices
  - Android accepts Level 6.0 class files
we decided to pick the 1.6 class file version
w/ available tool-chains.

Further more, on OSX we only have 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 test environments.
Actually not even a real 10.6 test box anymore, where 10.7 is tested by
'other users'.

Sure, decorations like '@Override' for interfaces is another 'beauty' argument,
but doesn't really cut the cake - sure not.

Maybe there are a few bytecode or class-file related differences between 5.0 and 6.0,
which allow further runtime optimizations, but I doubt it.
  <http://java.sun.com/performance/reference/whitepapers/6_performance.html>

+++

http://jogamp.org/git/?p=gluegen.git;a=commit;h=64639b805a32338385421f168e12c1ef7f749d00

https://jogamp.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=516

+++

~Sven

> Emmanuel Puybaret