[Biojava-dev] Java version for Biojava 4

[Jose Manuel Duarte]

> In terms of real situations where having 7 is necessary now, I've 
> encountered one already (out of biojava): third party jars that have 
> moved to Java 7. e.g.: UniProt JAPI is on Java 7 since September 2013; 
> DRMAA-grid-engine library in maven central is only available in Java 
> 7. I admit that these are not such pressing reasons to move, but with 
> so an outdated Java 6 I guess that in the next year or so many people 
> will be moving their jars to 7.
>
Sorry, I was wrong about this. I thought that an application compiled in 
6 would not be able to use an external library compiled in 7. That's not 
true, it seems that the Java 7 VM can run any combination of class 
files. So the above is definitely not a reason for needing things 
compiled in 7.

In any case I'm still in favour of moving to 7, in my opinion Java 6 is 
almost irrelevant now and will definitely be irrelevant when Biojava 4 
comes out. So I'd support a revision of the "stick-to-6" policy if the 
web analytics demonstrate in a few months that 6 is gone.

Cheers

Jose