Are there any plans to move VASSAL up from java 1.5?

jrv

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As I understand it VASSAL gets upset if if finds java later than 1.5. Is there any estimate of when that might change?

JR
 

von Marwitz

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As I understand it VASSAL gets upset if if finds java later than 1.5. Is there any estimate of when that might change?

JR
Hm, I am using JAVA v1.8.0_131 (64 bit) and VASSAL v3.2.17 with Win7.
So far, I do not have encountered any issues.

von Marwitz
 

jrv

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Hm, I am using JAVA v1.8.0_131 (64 bit) and VASSAL v3.2.17 with Win7.
So far, I do not have encountered any issues.
You won't unless you are writing and compiling code. Java 1.8 runs Java 1.5 code just fine. When I compile I get warnings:

"warning: [options] source value 1.5 is obsolete and will be removed in a future release
warning: [options] target value 1.5 is obsolete and will be removed in a future release"

On top of which there are all kinds of neat language features that I would like to use but they are not in there. The last service release of java 1.5 (/5.22) was in 2009.

JR
 

Sully

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From the VASSAL website:

What version of Java should I be using for development?
All of our code targets Java 5 (also known as Java 1.5). We can't yet move to Java 6 due to a large number of users still running Mac OS X on PPC chips, for which there is no Java 6.
 

zgrose

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Since there is no VASSAL 4 on Java planned and OSX on PPC chips is over 10 years old seems fair that since they don't want to upgrade, they can keep using 3.2.x indefinitely while the rest of the world moves on...?

You can't even get Java 6 readily anymore....
 

uckelman

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One doesn't need to use Java 1.5 to write and compile Java-1.5-compatible code. One can do that just fine with any post-1.5 Java compiler.

The last time we advanced the minimum requirements for Java, it was quite an ordeal. It was worth it then, both to get the language improvements in 1.5 and because we knew the change would receive a lot of future use. We could also be sure that everyone already running VASSAL would be able to continue, since at that time every supported platform had Java 1.5 available. (IIRC, the thing which kept us from switching until we did was 1.5 support on Macs.)

You may think there are few users who can't upgrade to 1.6 or later---but as soon as we did, a surprising number of them would pipe up. That on its own would not stop me, but in combination with the fact that none of the upgrade work would help with VASSAL 4, it makes sinking time into doing a Java upgrade an unappealing prospect for me.
 
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