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Yes, absolutely, Java’s compatibility story has been stellar. To the point that people got spoiled by it and no longer want to join the more agile release cycle

by jmaker 3y ago

Yes, absolutely, Java’s compatibility story has been stellar. To the point that people got spoiled by it and no longer want to join the more agile release cycle. I’ve experienced folks being more like “oh finally, now I can express myself at least a bit like I got used to with some other language”, so not sure the enhancements you’re mentioning go as far as to put Java apart from its modern day alternatives, at least some of those concepts finally trickled through though. Still, a lot of Java deployments are deliver once, never touch it again, those users would be happy to never upgrade anything. It’s no fun to revalidate the semantics in a large project.

pron 3y ago
> those users would be happy to never upgrade anything. It’s no fun to revalidate the semantics in a large project. Yep, that's why we introduced the LTS service. People may not have noticed before we did away with major releases and changed the version naming scheme, but in the past you had no choice but to upgrade to semi-annual releases with major VM changes, like 8u20 or 7u4 (probably because the name was too similar to patch releases, like 8u30 or 7u5). Now, with LTS, we try to only backport security patches and major bug fixes to make sure that such legacy users get the stability they need.