[ImageJ-devel] [fiji-devel] moving to Java 7

Sun Dec 7 12:13:43 CST 2014

Hi all,
for Alida/MiToBo we also tested ImageJ with Orcale Java 7 a while ago.
We only used the platform-independent Jar archive compiled with Java
1.6 for our tests and did not try to compile ImageJ with Java 7
ourselves. Anyway, running the ImageJ jar archive for Java 1.6 as
available from the ImageJ website with Java 7 we noticed some serious
problems on (Ubuntu) linux quite similar to those that Gabriel
mentioned. In particular, we got exceptions on closing windows, e.g.,
the ROI manager window. It closed, however, afterwards could never be
opened again. The same happened to other windows so that interaction
with ImageJ was seriously hampered after the exception appeared once.
The problems were restricted to special versions of Java 7 and also to
Linux, i.e. not all update versions seemed to be affected and on
Windows no such problems occurred at all. As we did this tests some
time ago unfortunately I don't know the exact exceptions and versions
of Java 7 anymore. In any case it appeared as if the way how ImageJ
closes windows and releases resources needs some updates to become
compatible with Java 7 - but this is just a guess.
Best regards,

 Birgit

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2 Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:25:45 +0000 From: Gabriel
> Landini <G.Landini at bham.ac.uk> To: fiji-devel at googlegroups.com Cc:
> IMAGEJ at list.nih.gov, ImageJ Developers <imagej-devel at imagej.net> 
> Subject: Re: [ImageJ-devel] [fiji-devel] moving to Java 7 
> Message-ID: <8391712.GzCbXzIIyQ at linux-g.site> Content-Type:
> text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> On Sunday 07 Dec 2014 02:51:35 Tobias Pietzsch wrote:
>> we are considering to increase the required Java version for
>> ImageJ2/Fiji from 6 to 7. Java 6 has been unsupported (ie, no
>> more fixes and updates) for over 1.5 years now, Java 7 is around
>> for a long time, and developers are moving on to Java 8 even.
>> 
>> Before we just move to Java 7, we want to see what users would
>> think about this. So, are there any strong opinions out there?
> 
> I have no strong opinion, but under opensuse linux 13.2, IJ1 with
> oracle Java 1.6, when I run this 1 line macro alone:
> 
> setPixel(2,2, 32);
> 
> it shows a window with a "no image open" error message, and an "OK"
> button.
> 
> With openjdk OR oracle 1.7, the window is blank, with no button,
> making it impossible to do any further with IJ, close the window or
> close IJ. I have to kill Java from the System Activity list to
> exit.
> 
> Under fiji the macro seems to be OK, but I guess this is because it
> is using Java 1.6. Maybe it is a simple bug, but I think it is
> better to check that this does not happen before moving to 1.7. 
> Cheers
> 
> Gabriel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3 Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2014 15:11:38 +0100 From: Tobias
> Pietzsch <pietzsch at mpi-cbg.de> To: IMAGEJ at LIST.NIH.GOV Cc: Fiji
> Developers <fiji-devel at googlegroups.com>,	ImageJ Developers 
> <imagej-devel at imagej.net> Subject: [ImageJ-devel] moving to Java 7 
> Message-ID: <6BCF924B-EB87-4C45-8298-B91E4D641572 at mpi-cbg.de> 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> Hi,
> 
> we are considering to increase the required Java version for
> ImageJ2/Fiji from 6 to 7. Java 6 has been unsupported (ie, no more
> fixes and updates) for over 1.5 years now, Java 7 is around for a
> long time, and developers are moving on to Java 8 even.
> 
> Before we just move to Java 7, we want to see what users would
> think about this. So, are there any strong opinions out there?
> 
> best regards, Tobias
> 
> On 05 Dec 2014, at 17:23, Curtis Rueden <ctrueden at wisc.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Mark Hiner wrote:
>>> my only hesitation towards agreeing with consensus here is that
>>> these particular mailing lists seem likely to be biased towards
>>> active developers (who I would expect to prefer newer Java
>>> versions).
>> 
>> I agree. While personally I would love to move to Java 7 or even
>> Java 8, and even if we all support that here, we must then ask on
>> the main ImageJ mailing list to get feedback from all users
>> first.
>> 
>> Regards, Curtis
>> 
>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Mark Hiner <hiner at wisc.edu>
>> wrote: Jay,
>>> Can anyone else confirm this experience?
>> Yep, Yosemite dropped Java 6. Definitely an annoying extra
>> barrier for developers. But there's a FAQ entry now!
>> 
>> Michael,
>>> When replying to a post like this, is it the done thing to
>>> reply to the list in general or should I be replying just to
>>> the original poster?
>> You did the right thing - reply to the whole list. That way there
>> is a complete record of any discussion-especially important on a
>> general topic like this. Personally, if I ever get a private mail
>> in response to something, I cc the list in my reply (see also:
>> http://imagej.net/Philosophy#Open_source)
>> 
>> Out of curiosity, how do people feel about establishing set
>> guidelines for when to advance Java versions (e.g. if it's 18
>> months past the end-of-life release and under 2% of the users
>> would be affected, just upgrade)? There will certainly be times
>> when this question will come up again... and my only hesitation
>> towards agreeing with consensus here is that these particular
>> mailing lists seem likely to be biased towards active developers
>> (who I would expect to prefer newer Java versions).
>> 
>> Best, Mark
>> 
>> P.S. Thanks for starting this thread Tobias!
>> 
>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Lee Kamentsky
>> <leek at broadinstitute.org> wrote: For CelllProfiler, there's some
>> packaging work that would need to be done (we bundle the JRE with
>> the Windows version and the Centos 6 RPM has Java 6 as a
>> dependency). We rely on the system Java for the Mac presently and
>> I don't have a clear idea of what range of Java 7 support to
>> expect on our user's Macs.
>> 
>> It certainly seems like there is a lot of pressure to move to
>> Java 7, so my vote would be to move to Java 7, even considering
>> the above.
>> 
>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Tobias Pietzsch
>> <pietzsch at mpi-cbg.de> wrote: Hi all,
>> 
>> what is everyones opinion on moving the IJ2/Fiji stack to a new
>> version of Java, i.e., Java 7. Java 7 has been around for more
>> than 3 years now. The end-of-life final public release of Java 6
>> was more than 1.5 years ago.
>> 
>> Benefits I see are the following:
>> 
>> * We could use the ?new" Java 7 libraries. For example the
>> Fork/Join framework would come handy in defining multi-threading
>> interfaces in scijava-common (to be used in imagej-ops for
>> example). Or the NIO2 stuff (java.nio.file)
>> 
>> * We would benefit from improvements of type inference for
>> generics in the compiler. No more jumping through hoops to fix
>> ?errors? in code that should compile with Java 6 but doesn?t.
>> (Plus we could use the diamond operator to shorten generics
>> instantiations.)
>> 
>> * We could use third-party libraries that only support Java 7.
>> For example I?m using Jetty in a project that can therefore not
>> be part of Fiji currently. (This mail was more or less triggered
>> by me looking into http://ojalgo.org who maybe went a bit over
>> the top and already abandoned Java 7 for Java 8). I think it is
>> only a matter of time until we will have a problem with
>> third-party libraries that we already use abandoning Java 6.
>> 
>> 
>> I do not have a clear picture of what the downsides would be.
>> Johannes always said that people on old macs are tied to an old
>> java version and that we do not want to leave those users behind.
>> It would be interesting to know how many people that actually
>> would impact.
>> 
>> 
>> What do you think?
>> 
>> best regards, Tobias
>> 
>> 
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