Annotation SOURCE Retention Policy

Question

From the Java doc:

CLASS: Annotations are to be recorded in the class file by the compiler but need not be retained by the VM at run time.

RUNTIME:

Answer 1

This answer makes perfect sense - https://stackoverflow.com/a/43910948/3009968.

You would not like to include a dependency, the desired effects of which are realized even before the code is compiled. E.g. @SuppressWarnings

You would not like to include a dependency which is used by compiler to let's say generate code but not at all required during runtime. E.g. as mentioned already in previous answer -spring roo.

Answer 2

Things like @SuppressWarnings, @Override are annotations used by the compiler - not needed at runtime. For those RetentionPolicy.SOURCE would make sense. Also annotations can be used to generate code (look at Spring ROO) - such annotation are also not required at run time.