4 ms·

JDK 11 is the current LTS version, so that's probably fine. With 2 releases per year, it's hard to follow the bleeding edge. Especially if you have to ship stuf

by elric 6y ago

JDK 11 is the current LTS version, so that's probably fine. With 2 releases per year, it's hard to follow the bleeding edge. Especially if you have to ship stuff to clients.

Freak_NL 6y ago
Yeah, this seems to be par for the field. Java 11 is what you should be targetting now. We're in the middle of the 8 to 11 migration as well. I got the impression (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that only this year most major libraries got all the kinks worked out for Java 11. In particular, when using them together. Guice is one that only recently got the nasty (but relatively harmless) warning you get when using it with Java 11 under control. Java 17 is the next long term support release, so most of us working on longer lived code bases will probably skip all the releases in between. It doesn't seem worth the effort, because if the Java 9 and 10 experience is anything to go by, you will be hunting down issues with Maven plugins, transitive dependencies, and libraries holding back for now all day.
- vips7L 6y ago
  > Guice is one that only recently got the nasty (but relatively harmless) warning you get when using it with Java 11 under control. Personally I've dropped guice and just stick to Weld anymore since it's the reference implementation of the standard. I haven't had any problems running it on JDK 14.
- krzyk 6y ago
  > [...] if the Java 9 and 10 experience is anything to go by, you will be hunting down issues with Maven plugins, transitive dependencies, and libraries holding back for now all day. You had issues with 10? The only issues I got were with Java 9, because introduction of modules broke some stuff. Later it was just making sure that ASM or aspectj/lombok is in the most recent version that has new JDK version added, which might have been a problem in 10 (I know I was trying to upgrade on day 1). But nowadays, all the most popular libraries are on par with the next Java version that is in the works at least a month before the release. Since JDK 12, I just do an upgrade every 6 months and had no issues so far. And if you don't ship software to clients then there is almost no downsides to upgrading and a lot of upsides. If you do ship software to clients you should be using jlink, this way you ship smaller binaries and clients don't need to worry about JDK, because you will provide it to them . And you also need to lookup what LTS means in case of Java - it is not the same as in e.g. Ubuntu. In Ubuntu you get free of charge fixes in LTS, in Java you need to buy an LTS version from someone (they will make fixes there) OR use the latest JDK version (which gets all the fixes free of charge).
pron 6y ago
It's not hard because the changes are small and gradual, and you have to update your JDK every quarter anyway -- whether you use the current version or an old one -- just to get the security patches. It's just a matter of how that work is spread. It's likely that updating once every 3 years is more work overall. Plus, you've done that already back when there were still major releases, and the semi-annual feature releases didn't get a new integer number (8u20, 8u40 etc. were big feature releases). Plus, keep in mind that LTS is a paid service. What appears to be "free LTS" isn't really LTS, but builds of the OpenJDK Updates projects. Those builds serve as the basis for various paid LTS offerings, but in themselves they don't actually maintain the full JDK. OpenJDK Updates just backports stuff from the mainline version. If you're using a component that's been removed from the mainline -- and you probably do or else you'd upgrade -- then that component is not maintained in OpenJDK Updates (so-called "free LTS") because there's nothing to backport from. The only version that's 100% maintained for free is the current JDK (15 as of today).
- Yeroc 6y ago
  That's not true unless you mean "free LTS" JDK from Oracle. There are several other projects providing free LTS, TCK-certified builds including: RedHat OpenJDK & Amazon Corretto to name two off the top of my head.
  - pron 6y ago
    No one offers free LTS (or, rather, what you call "free LTS" is very different from a real LTS service, which is always paid, and you might not be getting what you think you are). The "LTS release" you get for free are builds of OpenJDK Updates. Try to open an issue on, say, Nashorn against a "free" LTS 11 and see if it gets addressed. It won't be -- unless you actually pay for a real LTS -- because Nashorn has been removed from the mainline and there's nothing to backport. Same for CMS or any other package or component that's been removed. If you're using one of those "free LTS" distributions you should know that you're using a JDK that's not fully maintained. The only JDK version that's fully maintained completely free is the current version. To be fully safe and run maintained software you can either use the current version for free or use an old version and pay someone for LTS. Maintaining a JDK is a lot of work. There are a couple of hundred full-time developers working on OpenJDK tip and maintaining the current release; there are ~10 full-time engineers (probably less) from all companies combined maintaining both OpenJDK 8u and 11u. For real support for an old version you must pay. (I work on OpenJDK at Oracle)

by elric 6y ago

JDK 11 is the current LTS version, so that's probably fine. With 2 releases per year, it's hard to follow the bleeding edge. Especially if you have to ship stuff to clients.

Freak_NL 6y ago

Yeah, this seems to be par for the field. Java 11 is what you should be targetting now. We're in the middle of the 8 to 11 migration as well. I got the impression (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that only this year most major libraries got all the kinks worked out for Java 11. In particular, when using them together. Guice is one that only recently got the nasty (but relatively harmless) warning you get when using it with Java 11 under control. Java 17 is the next long term support release, so most of us working on longer lived code bases will probably skip all the releases in between. It doesn't seem worth the effort, because if the Java 9 and 10 experience is anything to go by, you will be hunting down issues with Maven plugins, transitive dependencies, and libraries holding back for now all day.

vips7L 6y ago
> Guice is one that only recently got the nasty (but relatively harmless) warning you get when using it with Java 11 under control. Personally I've dropped guice and just stick to Weld anymore since it's the reference implementation of the standard. I haven't had any problems running it on JDK 14.
krzyk 6y ago
> [...] if the Java 9 and 10 experience is anything to go by, you will be hunting down issues with Maven plugins, transitive dependencies, and libraries holding back for now all day. You had issues with 10? The only issues I got were with Java 9, because introduction of modules broke some stuff. Later it was just making sure that ASM or aspectj/lombok is in the most recent version that has new JDK version added, which might have been a problem in 10 (I know I was trying to upgrade on day 1). But nowadays, all the most popular libraries are on par with the next Java version that is in the works at least a month before the release. Since JDK 12, I just do an upgrade every 6 months and had no issues so far. And if you don't ship software to clients then there is almost no downsides to upgrading and a lot of upsides. If you do ship software to clients you should be using jlink, this way you ship smaller binaries and clients don't need to worry about JDK, because you will provide it to them . And you also need to lookup what LTS means in case of Java - it is not the same as in e.g. Ubuntu. In Ubuntu you get free of charge fixes in LTS, in Java you need to buy an LTS version from someone (they will make fixes there) OR use the latest JDK version (which gets all the fixes free of charge).

pron 6y ago

It's not hard because the changes are small and gradual, and you have to update your JDK every quarter anyway -- whether you use the current version or an old one -- just to get the security patches. It's just a matter of how that work is spread. It's likely that updating once every 3 years is more work overall. Plus, you've done that already back when there were still major releases, and the semi-annual feature releases didn't get a new integer number (8u20, 8u40 etc. were big feature releases). Plus, keep in mind that LTS is a paid service. What appears to be "free LTS" isn't really LTS, but builds of the OpenJDK Updates projects. Those builds serve as the basis for various paid LTS offerings, but in themselves they don't actually maintain the full JDK. OpenJDK Updates just backports stuff from the mainline version. If you're using a component that's been removed from the mainline -- and you probably do or else you'd upgrade -- then that component is not maintained in OpenJDK Updates (so-called "free LTS") because there's nothing to backport from. The only version that's 100% maintained for free is the current JDK (15 as of today).

Yeroc 6y ago
That's not true unless you mean "free LTS" JDK from Oracle. There are several other projects providing free LTS, TCK-certified builds including: RedHat OpenJDK & Amazon Corretto to name two off the top of my head.
- pron 6y ago
  No one offers free LTS (or, rather, what you call "free LTS" is very different from a real LTS service, which is always paid, and you might not be getting what you think you are). The "LTS release" you get for free are builds of OpenJDK Updates. Try to open an issue on, say, Nashorn against a "free" LTS 11 and see if it gets addressed. It won't be -- unless you actually pay for a real LTS -- because Nashorn has been removed from the mainline and there's nothing to backport. Same for CMS or any other package or component that's been removed. If you're using one of those "free LTS" distributions you should know that you're using a JDK that's not fully maintained. The only JDK version that's fully maintained completely free is the current version. To be fully safe and run maintained software you can either use the current version for free or use an old version and pay someone for LTS. Maintaining a JDK is a lot of work. There are a couple of hundred full-time developers working on OpenJDK tip and maintaining the current release; there are ~10 full-time engineers (probably less) from all companies combined maintaining both OpenJDK 8u and 11u. For real support for an old version you must pay. (I work on OpenJDK at Oracle)