Provide a direct link to Java 8 download page

[soronpo]

This is to prevent beginners from accidentally using Java 11, since it's not yet supported on mainstream Scala releases.
See also my comments on https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/java-version-collision-for-beginners-weird-sbt-errors/2593

[nafg]

IIUC it works fine, although there are some JDK 9+ features that aren't supported yet, for instance you can't do Jigsaw modules. Also you get a warning because SBT uses protobufs which does something deprecated. I've been using JDK 10 for a while.

There's a different issue which is that from JDK 11, you should use the OpenJDK distribution. Everything it was missing it now has, and so the Oracle distribution only exists to be a proprietary version, and they've changed the license accordingly.

[SethTisue]

it's true that basic Scala + sbt works fine on Java 11, but there are libraries and tooling that haven't caught up yet, so I agree that it's best to steer beginners towards Java 8 for now

[nafg]

@SethTisue in what sense? What doesn't work?

[ashawley]

Sounds good.

Fix these two other pages that exist in the other repo as well?

• Getting Started with Scala in IntelliJ
• Getting Started with Scala and sbt on the Command Line

[SethTisue]

@SethTisue in what sense? What doesn't work?

I don't have a list handy and this PR isn't a good place to draft one, but it could be a good Discourse thread. (A possible outcome is that I'd be pleasantly surprised at how short a list we end up with.)

[soronpo]

I don't have a list handy and this PR isn't a good place to draft one, but it could be a good Discourse thread. (A possible outcome is that I'd be pleasantly surprised at how short a list we end up with.)

Is it possible to run the community build with JDK 11 and report which libraries fail (both for 2.12 and 2.13)?

[soronpo]

Sounds good.

Fix these two other pages that exist in the other repo as well?

* [Getting Started with Scala in IntelliJ](https://docs.scala-lang.org/getting-started-intellij-track/getting-started-with-scala-in-intellij.html)

* [Getting Started with Scala and sbt on the Command Line](https://docs.scala-lang.org/getting-started-sbt-track/getting-started-with-scala-and-sbt-on-the-command-line.html)

Glad to do it, but I can't seem to find its source. Any clue what generates this?

[Philippus]

they're in the docs.scala-lang-repo:
https://github.com/scala/docs.scala-lang/blob/master/getting-started-intellij-track/getting-started-with-scala-in-intellij.md and
https://github.com/scala/docs.scala-lang/blob/master/getting-started-sbt-track/getting-started-with-scala-and-sbt-on-the-command-line.md

[SethTisue]

someone want to follow up in the other repo?

[SethTisue]

Is it possible to run the community build with JDK 11 and report which libraries fail (both for 2.12 and 2.13)?

yes:

• https://scala-ci.typesafe.com/view/scala-2.12.x/job/scala-2.12.x-jdk11-integrate-community-build/
• https://scala-ci.typesafe.com/view/scala-2.13.x/job/scala-2.13.x-jdk11-integrate-community-build/
• flesh out JDK 11 and 12 community builds community-build#796

but note that what the community build tells is is whether something both builds and runs on JDK 11, provided all of its Scala-based dependencies also build and run okay on JDK 11. that's a high bar to meet, higher than the bar most users care about: users want to know whether the library runs okay on JDK 11 if it (and its Scala-based dependencies) were built on JDK 8, which is how nearly all published Scala libs were built

(this PR isn't the greatest place to discuss further)

[soronpo]

someone want to follow up in the other repo?

Yes, I'll take care of that as well. PR soon. I'll link it here.

[soronpo]

Added PR to docs.scala-lang repo here scala/docs.scala-lang#1269