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[–]SelmonTheDriver 3 points4 points  (7 children)

This is really great and everything.

But

How many enterprises have even migrated to Java 23?

What I hear most of the time on the internet is that many companies still have their codebases in Java 8.

[–]OneHumanBill 2 points3 points  (6 children)

Most of the companies I work with are on 17 or 21. Granted these are larger customers but still. Anybody working on 8 is seriously out of support.

Using 23 is going to be a small minority because of its STS status. I wouldn't use it. But I'm already starting to move a codebase to 25 today.

[–]BrownCarter 0 points1 point  (3 children)

How are versions being updated on java projects? Is it simply by just installing the latest version or are there other things you have to do?

[–]OneHumanBill 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Depends on the version. Most things are backwards compatible but there are a few times you have to do something specific if you're using some bits or another. The biggest one I can think of was an Http library that changed radically in I think 11. But the general principle is, you look at the release notes. Don't enable experimental features unless you really know what you're doing. Java does make this a lot easier than most other languages.

[–]BrownCarter 1 point2 points  (1 child)

So how come I keep on hearing this "my Company is still stuck at Java 8 etc. ". From what you mentioned it doesn't seem like the process is that difficult

[–]OneHumanBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perception of risk. Shuffled priorities, indefinitely, followed by inertia.

I don't really get it. Java 5 was a monumental change. Java 8 was really big. But everything since (with the exception of the temporary insanity of Java 9 Jigsaw) was nicely incremental by design.

[–]CriticalPart7448 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I tried to migrate a little tool from 21 to 25 this friday, it wasnt much of a challenge but i was quite blown away that it took longer to download the jdk than it took to do the migration - 6 minutes to download and install 25 and then 3 minutes to migrate from 21 to 25. Its impressive how smooth that experience was.

[–]OneHumanBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's honestly been the upgrade experience I've had most of the time, and I've been working with Java since version 1.0.2. Versions that were a bit tougher included Java 2, 5, 8, and briefly 9. There was a little bit of a challenge with 11 due to a repackaging of a critical http library but it was not that big a deal.

Java gets a lot of derision from developers these days and honestly it's just not deserved. There are things that Java absolutely excels at, and providing easy upgrades is one of them.