title: javac source and target options
body: <p>I have seen the compile options like discussed in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9260448/which-jdks-distributions-can-run-javac-source-1-6-target-1-5">Which JDK&#39;s distributions can run `javac -source 1.6 -target 1.5`?</a>. I understand the individual options for source and target. I don't  understand why source version is higher that the target version. Compiling the code for older targets makes sense. But in that case, why dont we just use -source of the oldest target we want to be able to run on</p>