Future changes to the Java Compiler

There are two notable draft changes to the Java platform, specifically the Java Compiler. These Java Enhancement Proposals are listed as follows and detailed in this section:

• Policy for retiring javac -source and -target options
• Pluggable static analyzers

Policy for retiring javac -source and -target options

A formal draft proposal has been submitted to define a policy for retiring -source and -target options. This effort is to help reduce maintenance costs of the compiler. The -source and -target options were provided to ease development efforts, but not formally required by any standards. Starting with the Java 9 platform, these target options are not recognized.

The new policy is called "one plus three back" which means that the current version will be supported as well as the three previous releases. This policy will persist with JDK 10.

Pluggable static analyzers

An ongoing research Java Enhancement Proposal was initiated in the summer of 2013 as an exploratory...