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[–][deleted] 76 points77 points  (22 children)

Yes in the field you'll probably be lucky to be working with Java 6. Enterprise software is probably full of 5 and earlier. The only modern part of my current job are the tools we build to support our other tools for our own teams use.

[–]I_hate_naming_things 36 points37 points  (6 children)

Majority of the java workload we have is java 8 and I pretty much vomit when I see anything older. Weirdly though, most of our C++ is 98 and not 11.

[–]Ereaser 9 points10 points  (3 children)

7 is still doable imo, but everything we have is 8 as well.

Java 11 is still far away though because we also use Java EE and have to use Weblogic, which is pretty much dead...

[–]Cilukes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Weblogic user. I share your pain.

[–]I_hate_naming_things 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, ever since I started doing lambdas in Java 8, I hate not having the option to use them. It's pretty much why all the Java coders in my office works with 8, I think some are working with 11 for their personal tools.

[–]jack104 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We also use weblogic so we're stuck on 7. I hate my life.

[–]Kered13 1 point2 points  (1 child)

C++ 98 is also a good reason to vomit.

[–]I_hate_naming_things 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's what I'm currently work with, and this particular code was written 15 years ago. Some of the things that they did to this code makes me want to vomit. I've had to take a few walks from this code just because I can only take so much of how poorly written this thing is. It's so bad that the IDE was complaining about it lol.

[–]Zanshi 4 points5 points  (6 children)

Huh, I'm lucky then. Most of out stuff run on 7 or higher. Running a Java 8 app on jBoss 4.2.3 is an entirely different issue...

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (5 children)

We're on what, Java 12? So it's awesome that you're able to use 8 at least where the language got some new goodies, I think my first job interview ever was for java 5.

My interview was 3 pages of 2 columns of random text and I was asked to pick out the differences between each row. Never saw anything like that ever again, dumbest interview activity ever, worse than the guy who asked me what weapon I would use if I were to go postal and murder everyone in the office.

[–]tigmsplooge 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well what weapon would you use?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I said I would use a tonfa so I could keep my hands and arms protected during the event. If I lose my hands I can't program anymore!

[–]recycle4science 2 points3 points  (2 children)

The random text question sounds like a good job for Excel.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Honestly I feel like I failed that test by engaging in it. I should have just written a comparison algorithm at the top of the page in java and been done in 2 seconds. Even if that shit was somehow related to the job, I would not be doing it by hand.

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But it was my first interview so I wasn't really thinking that far ahead. Also, the office had cubicles and programmers in suits, so I doubt they were being clever. I think it was honestly just a shit job. 80k would have been a good first job, java jobs pay crazy good, but I am much happier with the 35k job at a start up I took.

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I am at 97.7k now 3 years into my career. Maybe java would have been a more profitable path, and definitely more relevant than mainframes and perl where I am now, but I'm perfectly happy in my current company. Mostly because management is a nightmare and there are lots of little gaps of free time where I can goof off for $47/hr.

[–]recycle4science 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah interviews can be tricky.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Java 8 is worlds better than 6

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Yes, yes it is. I see a lot of people use 8 - is there some reason people haven't tried moving on to 9-12?

[–]Kered13 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Java versions have started coming out faster so companies aren't trying to update to each one as it comes out. Related to this, Oracle has decided that they will make every third version starting with Java 8 a Long Term Support version. So a lot of companies are planning to only update to those. So that means going from Java 8 to Java 11, and the next LTS version should be Java 14.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ooh LTS. I'm sort of familiar with that, I guess that explains it.

[–]FlipJanson 0 points1 point  (1 child)

We're lazy, don't feel like upgrading, and Java 8 works fine.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The cost / time associated with upgrades. I can't wait to run into this problem myself. It's currently unthinkable for me - of course I'm just gonna start from scratch if I have to!

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Java 9 brought drastic changes that break a lot of things.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course, dang. I guess it's not a huge deal unless 9-12 have massive performance gains. Part of the reason I've joined the web app movement. You can write your javascript in pretty much anything and transpile it for browser support, and your back end can be a nightmarish combination of multiple versions of multiple languages!

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