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At my work place, I have recently switched to java 8. As I do not like Oracle, I really welcome the replacement of Oracle by Red Hat. Good ridance. I wish java

At my work place, I have recently switched to java 8. As I do not like Oracle, I really welcome the replacement of Oracle by Red Hat. Good ridance. I wish java had nothing to do with Oracle.

IloveHN84 7y ago
Why Java 8 and now directly 11 or 12? 8 is already at the end
- bad_user 7y ago
  Java 8 is "at the end" according to whom? Also note that 9 and 10 were basically alpha versions. Nobody deployed 9 and 10. And 12 will probably have the same fate.
  - awild 7y ago
    It was eol-ed this January for commercial use.
    - dikei 7y ago
      That's for Oracle's build only. OpenJDK 8 is alive and well, with Red Hat leading the supports.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  We are at JDK 8 now too and will move towards the next LTS (JDK 11) near the end of the year. The transition from Java 8 to Java 11 feels more involved than the transition from Java 7 to Java 8 was. Everything seems to work, but a lot of major libraries are still throwing lots of warnings, and to really get the most out of the transition developers and existing codebases should get comfortable with the new module system as well. Moving to a non-LTS release (12) is a non starter of course.
  - chipperyman573 7y ago
    >The transition from Java 8 to Java 11 feels more involved than the transition from Java 7 to Java 8 was I don't know a whole lot about Java 7 vs 8 vs 11, but wouldn't that make the most sense? 7->8 is one version upgrade, 7->11 is 4.
    - pilif 7y ago
      9, 10 and 11 are following a new release schedule of timed releases (every 6 months), whereas 8 was still a traditional feature release. I would say that aside of the module system that came with a huge list of now inaccessible internal methods that a lot of dependencies relied on even though they shouldn’t have, there was even more change between 7 and 8 than there was between 8 and 11
      - Freak_NL 7y ago
        Yeah, Oracle changed what one major version upgrade meant from JDK 8 onwards. For production purposes JDK 9 and 10 effectively don't exist.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    It's kicking the can a bit, but there's the "--release 8" javac flag you can use in 11.
- CamouflagedKiwi 7y ago
  There's still a heap of stuff that doesn't work on Java 9+ (for example, we use Apache Flink which is planning support but isn't there yet). Like Python 2, Java 8 will stick around at least until there aren't any blockers for getting off it.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    Yep, I'm the same - Spark will be stuck on Java 8 until it is rid of logj12, not sure what log4j1 is doing, but it doesn't work on Java 9 and Spark's Hadoop dependencies are riddled with log4j12. What's nice to see is that that log4j2 team have been helping with the work in the Spark project.
    - garblegarble 7y ago
      >not sure what log4j1 is doing If it's the bug I ran into then their code to detect running on a legacy JVM is tripping with the new JVM version numbers and it thinks that it's running under ancient Java 1.x. It's then saved in the org.apache.log4j.helpers.Loader.java1 field. To migrate some code that needs log4j12 to more recent versions of Java I ended up writing a hack that accesses Loader before log4j uses it and manually sets that field to "false"
- tyingq 7y ago
  Lots of stodgy Fortune 500's have tons of Java 8 still around. RedHat will deepen those relationships by giving those companies a cheaper path than Oracle for support.
pjmlp 7y ago
The actual people doing OpenJDK development and research of new features are mostly on Oracle's pay check, regardless of which company is doing maintenance. Lets not forget that besides IBM, which only made a single offer, no one else cared about saving Sun's assets. So had it not been for Oracle, which even kept Maxime alive and made it into Graal, Java would have been effectively stuck and version 6, and the only new Java projects would be migration ones.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  That's an interesting point. It seems everybody was overinvested in Java but nobody wanted to take care of it. And then Oracle, as much as it was "for bad reasons" took it and keeps developing it. So Java was Priceless and Worthless at the same time it seems.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Exactly, Google had the perfect opportunity to own Java, tailor it to their vision and avoid the lawsuit altogether. No reason to complain afterwards.
    - type0 7y ago
      Never-mind Google, Java being the behemoth that it is, would have been better off if it ended up at Apache Foundation or some other neutral third party.
- sangnoir 7y ago
  > The actual people doing OpenJDK development and research of new features are mostly on Oracle's pay check, regardless of which company is doing maintenance. That's only because Oracle hollowed-out the JCP (Java Community Process) and reduced its function to rubber-stamping Oracle-developed tech. Java was the crown-jewel they paid for - they had the right to do what they wanted with it; but to be clear - it wasn't the community/other companies slacking, Oracle chose to do R&D of Java internally because they wanted to control the roadmap.

At my work place, I have recently switched to java 8. As I do not like Oracle, I really welcome the replacement of Oracle by Red Hat. Good ridance. I wish java had nothing to do with Oracle.

IloveHN84 7y ago

Why Java 8 and now directly 11 or 12? 8 is already at the end

bad_user 7y ago
Java 8 is "at the end" according to whom? Also note that 9 and 10 were basically alpha versions. Nobody deployed 9 and 10. And 12 will probably have the same fate.
- awild 7y ago
  It was eol-ed this January for commercial use.
  - dikei 7y ago
    That's for Oracle's build only. OpenJDK 8 is alive and well, with Red Hat leading the supports.
Freak_NL 7y ago
We are at JDK 8 now too and will move towards the next LTS (JDK 11) near the end of the year. The transition from Java 8 to Java 11 feels more involved than the transition from Java 7 to Java 8 was. Everything seems to work, but a lot of major libraries are still throwing lots of warnings, and to really get the most out of the transition developers and existing codebases should get comfortable with the new module system as well. Moving to a non-LTS release (12) is a non starter of course.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  >The transition from Java 8 to Java 11 feels more involved than the transition from Java 7 to Java 8 was I don't know a whole lot about Java 7 vs 8 vs 11, but wouldn't that make the most sense? 7->8 is one version upgrade, 7->11 is 4.
  - pilif 7y ago
    9, 10 and 11 are following a new release schedule of timed releases (every 6 months), whereas 8 was still a traditional feature release. I would say that aside of the module system that came with a huge list of now inaccessible internal methods that a lot of dependencies relied on even though they shouldn’t have, there was even more change between 7 and 8 than there was between 8 and 11
    - Freak_NL 7y ago
      Yeah, Oracle changed what one major version upgrade meant from JDK 8 onwards. For production purposes JDK 9 and 10 effectively don't exist.
- tyingq 7y ago
  It's kicking the can a bit, but there's the "--release 8" javac flag you can use in 11.
CamouflagedKiwi 7y ago
There's still a heap of stuff that doesn't work on Java 9+ (for example, we use Apache Flink which is planning support but isn't there yet). Like Python 2, Java 8 will stick around at least until there aren't any blockers for getting off it.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  Yep, I'm the same - Spark will be stuck on Java 8 until it is rid of logj12, not sure what log4j1 is doing, but it doesn't work on Java 9 and Spark's Hadoop dependencies are riddled with log4j12. What's nice to see is that that log4j2 team have been helping with the work in the Spark project.
  - garblegarble 7y ago
    >not sure what log4j1 is doing If it's the bug I ran into then their code to detect running on a legacy JVM is tripping with the new JVM version numbers and it thinks that it's running under ancient Java 1.x. It's then saved in the org.apache.log4j.helpers.Loader.java1 field. To migrate some code that needs log4j12 to more recent versions of Java I ended up writing a hack that accesses Loader before log4j uses it and manually sets that field to "false"
tyingq 7y ago
Lots of stodgy Fortune 500's have tons of Java 8 still around. RedHat will deepen those relationships by giving those companies a cheaper path than Oracle for support.

pjmlp 7y ago

The actual people doing OpenJDK development and research of new features are mostly on Oracle's pay check, regardless of which company is doing maintenance. Lets not forget that besides IBM, which only made a single offer, no one else cared about saving Sun's assets. So had it not been for Oracle, which even kept Maxime alive and made it into Graal, Java would have been effectively stuck and version 6, and the only new Java projects would be migration ones.

raverbashing 7y ago
That's an interesting point. It seems everybody was overinvested in Java but nobody wanted to take care of it. And then Oracle, as much as it was "for bad reasons" took it and keeps developing it. So Java was Priceless and Worthless at the same time it seems.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Exactly, Google had the perfect opportunity to own Java, tailor it to their vision and avoid the lawsuit altogether. No reason to complain afterwards.
  - type0 7y ago
    Never-mind Google, Java being the behemoth that it is, would have been better off if it ended up at Apache Foundation or some other neutral third party.
sangnoir 7y ago
> The actual people doing OpenJDK development and research of new features are mostly on Oracle's pay check, regardless of which company is doing maintenance. That's only because Oracle hollowed-out the JCP (Java Community Process) and reduced its function to rubber-stamping Oracle-developed tech. Java was the crown-jewel they paid for - they had the right to do what they wanted with it; but to be clear - it wasn't the community/other companies slacking, Oracle chose to do R&D of Java internally because they wanted to control the roadmap.