Dropping Java 8, and going with Java 17

[dmikurube]

JRuby seems considering to drop Java 8 from their next major version (9.5?).
https://twitter.com/headius/status/1641463288176189441

Java open-source softwares still tended to stay with Java 8 until last year, but the trend may be changing.

It may be a good time also for us to start thinking about dropping Java 8 someday (although JRuby is not a show-stopper for us because JRuby is optional since v0.10).

For example (just one of ideas, nothing determined):

• Embulk v0.11: To be built with Java 8, but to support/test to run on Java 17 officially at some point in v0.11.
• Embulk v1.0: To be built with Java 17. (It won't run with Java 8.)

@embulk/core-team Wanted to hear your thoughts.

[kakoni]

I've been running v0.11 with JRuby 9.4.3.0 and Java 17 successfully (https://github.com/kakoni/embulk_docker/tree/main) for sometime now.

[dmikurube]

Thanks for your information!

[dmikurube]

Please share any issues / blockers / incompatibilities you found in using newer Java versions! ↓

[headius]

I just stumbled upon this, but as you may have seen we decided to make the leap to Java 21 for JRuby 10. However we will continue supporting JRuby 9.4, which still supports Java 8, at least into 2026. We have also greatly ramped up development and optimization work on JRuby and expect to release some amazing updates this year.

[hiroyuki-sato]

Hello, @headius. Thank you for your comment. Recently, I tested Java 22 + embulk-output-bigquery + JRuby 10.0.0.0. It worked fine.
https://x.com/hiroysato/status/1914661891919802571