3 ms·

So you're saying that Oracle should be responsible for the defects in a 3rd party product?

nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
If you're building a platform, yes, you should at least be testing your point releases against a handful of the most popular applications that run on your platform, because things like this, even if caused by bad decisions in those 3rd party applications, look bad against the platform as a whole. If this was a big feature release like JDK7, that's one thing, but a bugfix release is completely different. Edit: Everybody would be grabbing for their pitchforks if Facebook all of a sudden updated their backend and broke FarmVille. It's the same concept.
- sbov 16y ago
  Just to add onto this: a company I worked for was a somewhat heavy user of a 3rd party api, and they integrated our key use cases into their test scenarios in order to avoid breakage. Depending upon what percentage of Java developers use eclipse, seeing if it still works seems fairly reasonable.
viraptor 16y ago
Well - when you're at some serious size, it makes sense... Kind of like special-casing the memory allocator in windows if SimCity is running: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html - how could they not be compatible with SimCity? How can Java be not compatible with Eclipse?...
tzs 16y ago
No, Oracle should be responsible for not breaking things with no warning that a large fraction of the customers use--it is not relevant whether or not those are third party things. A huge number of Java developers use Eclipse, and so it should be something Oracle tests with--that's just basic QA that any competent company should do. Then, when they find there is a problem, they should notify the Eclipse people. If Eclipse isn't fixed in time for Oracle's release deadline, they should at the very least put something in the release notes that there is a problem.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  Except that Oracle didn't actually break anything... Though I agree, they would have been wise to test some of the popular 3rd party apps based on Java.

If you're building a platform, yes, you should at least be testing your point releases against a handful of the most popular applications that run on your platform, because things like this, even if caused by bad decisions in those 3rd party applications, look bad against the platform as a whole. If this was a big feature release like JDK7, that's one thing, but a bugfix release is completely different. Edit: Everybody would be grabbing for their pitchforks if Facebook all of a sudden updated their backend and broke FarmVille. It's the same concept.

sbov 16y ago
Just to add onto this: a company I worked for was a somewhat heavy user of a 3rd party api, and they integrated our key use cases into their test scenarios in order to avoid breakage. Depending upon what percentage of Java developers use eclipse, seeing if it still works seems fairly reasonable.

viraptor 16y ago

Well - when you're at some serious size, it makes sense... Kind of like special-casing the memory allocator in windows if SimCity is running: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html - how could they not be compatible with SimCity? How can Java be not compatible with Eclipse?...

tzs 16y ago

No, Oracle should be responsible for not breaking things with no warning that a large fraction of the customers use--it is not relevant whether or not those are third party things. A huge number of Java developers use Eclipse, and so it should be something Oracle tests with--that's just basic QA that any competent company should do. Then, when they find there is a problem, they should notify the Eclipse people. If Eclipse isn't fixed in time for Oracle's release deadline, they should at the very least put something in the release notes that there is a problem.

Tamerlin 16y ago
Except that Oracle didn't actually break anything... Though I agree, they would have been wise to test some of the popular 3rd party apps based on Java.