Java SE 6 and 7 devs weigh their options as support ends

Oracle Java Development Kit 6 and 7 support ends this week, leaving a sizable chunk of developers looking at their options. Around 15 percent of Java developers still use JDK 7, according to a survey by JRebel, which produces its own code development environment. That being the case, around a million developers could end up …

[Anonymous Coward]

Version numbering still confusing.

Back when I was certified for Java 1.3x... it was called Java 2. The versioning didn't make sense then and apparently still doesn't, Java 17? I guess if I had 4 candles, "hot" incense and a spirit blanket then the understanding would reveal itself.

[Wexford]

Re: Version numbering still confusing.

They probably inherited the versioning from Sun just like Sun's Solaris versioning...2.4 was SunOS 5.4 then when it became SunOS 5.7 they went from Solaris 2 to Solaris 7 then...I lost track

[sebacoustic]

Re: Version numbering still confusing.

The "Java 2" thing _was_ confusing but you're looking back more than 2 decades here. Since then we had 1.5, 1.6, .... and then by convention we dropped the "1." because it was getting retpetetive... not too hard.

Othe version cadences such as 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 7, (*expletive*), 10, 11 come to mind.

[StewartWhite]

Re: Version numbering still confusing.

That's where you're going wrong, it's fork handles, "hot incense" and a spirit blanket. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozpek_FrOPs&ab_channel=RikRamsden for an explanation.

[Swarthy]

potentially risking reliability, security, and productivity.

Didn't you already say they were running Java?

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Let the chaos begin

Big corps on Java 6/7 have tons of in-house tooling to modernize the language. Jump forwards to Java 17 and it's modernized already, but not in the same way. 15 years of custom tooling is redundant yet not mix-in compatible.

If you're going to pick a rapidly evolving programming language, you should probably update your compiler every few years.

[RichardBarrell]

Re: Let the chaos begin

> If you're going to pick a rapidly evolving programming language, you should probably update your compiler every few years.

Not meaning to start a flame war or cast a judgement on whether this is a good thing or not but... are you really calling Java a "rapidly evolving programming language"? Java?

I think C++ of all things has a higher rate of change.

[iron]

Re: Let the chaos begin

So rapidly evolving that the reccommendation is to move to Java 8, released in 2014, or Java 11, released in 2018.

[Franco72]

Re: Let the chaos begin

or you can move to Azul who support all Java versions including Java 6 and 7 (1.6 and 1.6) up to Dec 2027

[Sceptic Tank]

What's Java?

[Korev]

A kind of coffee

[TimMaher]

Named after an island.