eclipse and java 8 support

[Jimmy]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 08:38:42PM +0800, Huang Wen Hui wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 2014-04-15 21:54 GMT+08:00 Jimmy Kelley <ljboiler at gmail.com>:
> 
> > On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 01:11:07PM +0100, Patrick Mackinlay wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > The minimum eclipse version for support of java 8 execution environments
> > > is 4.3.2. The FreeBSD eclipse ports are pretty old, even eclipse-devel
> > > (which I have been using for what seems like years) is on 4.2. Is it
> > > possible to upgrade, so that at least eclipse 4.3.2 is available. Then
> > > java devs can experiment with java 8 execution environments and compiler
> > > compliance levels of 1.8.
> > >
> > > regards,
> > > Patrick
> > >
> > > --
> > > Patrick Mackinlay                              patrick at spacesurfer.com
> > > http://patrick.spacesurfer.com/                    tel: +44.7050699851
> > > Yahoo messenger: patrick00_uk                      fax: +44.7050699852
> > > SpaceReg Limited                              http://www.spacereg.com/
> > >
> >
> > Patrick (and a few others that have been asking),
> >
> > I just put the latest work I've been doing for the Eclipse 4.3.2 port here:
> >
> > http://webpages.charter.net/ljboiler/eclipseKeplerSR2.shar.gz
> >
> > I was able to run it on the latest openjdk8 port, and following the
> > instructions here (
> > https://wiki.eclipse.org/JDT/Eclipse_Java_8_Support_For_Kepler)
> > I was able to install the updates for Java 8 and build/run a simple
> > HelloWorld
> > test targeted for the Java 8 runtime.  I welcome any and all interested to
> > try
> > it out and let me know of any problems.  Beware that you need a solid
> > internet
> > connection to build this, and lots of memory (2 GB minimum) and disk space
> > (about
> > 15 Gb).
> >
> Is it possible to download all needed package before build?  It is very
> hard to finish build
> as it need to download some packages while in building.
> 
> Cheers,
> Huang Wenhui
> 

Currently it's not possible.  Eclipse switched from using Ant to using Maven
to build itself, and from what I've seen while working on this for the last
several months it does not appear that the Eclipse developers are too concerned
about being able to build their product in a totally offline mode.

I will continue to study the Eclipse source and perhaps make it possible to
have everything downloaded prior to building, and hopefully the Eclipse developers
will continue to update their build tools to make this easier to do. 

Regards,
Jimmy