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Oracle Releases Java 10, Promises Much Faster Release Schedule (adtmag.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Application Development Trends:
Oracle announced the general availability of Java SE 10 (JDK 10) this week. This release, which comes barely six months after the release of Java SE 9, is the first in the new rapid release cadence Oracle announced late last year. The new release schedule, which the company is calling an "innovation cycle," calls for a feature release every six months, update releases every quarter, and a long-term support (LTS) release every three years. Java 10 is a feature release that obsoletes Java 9. The next LTS release will be Java 11, expected in September. The next LTS version after that will be Java 17, scheduled for release in September 2021...
The six-month feature release cadence is meant to reduce the latency between major releases, explained is Sharat Chander, director of Oracle's Java SE Product Management group, said in a blog post. "This release model takes inspiration from the release models used by other platforms and by various operating-system distributions addressing the modern application development landscape," Chander wrote. "The pace of innovation is happening at an ever-increasing rate and this new release model will allow developers to leverage new features in production as soon as possible. Modern application development expects simple open licensing and a predictable time-based cadence, and the new release model delivers on both."
This release finally adds var to the Java language (though its use is limited to local variables with initializers or declared in a for-loop). It's being added "to improve the developer experience by reducing the ceremony associated with writing Java code, while maintaining Java's commitment to static type safety, by allowing developers to elide the often-unnecessary manifest declaration of local variable type."
The six-month feature release cadence is meant to reduce the latency between major releases, explained is Sharat Chander, director of Oracle's Java SE Product Management group, said in a blog post. "This release model takes inspiration from the release models used by other platforms and by various operating-system distributions addressing the modern application development landscape," Chander wrote. "The pace of innovation is happening at an ever-increasing rate and this new release model will allow developers to leverage new features in production as soon as possible. Modern application development expects simple open licensing and a predictable time-based cadence, and the new release model delivers on both."
This release finally adds var to the Java language (though its use is limited to local variables with initializers or declared in a for-loop). It's being added "to improve the developer experience by reducing the ceremony associated with writing Java code, while maintaining Java's commitment to static type safety, by allowing developers to elide the often-unnecessary manifest declaration of local variable type."
Problem with JAVA is syncing up all the damn versions between servers and clients.
FASTER versions isn't helping.
Explicit LTS versions vs non-LTS will enable the conservative to have a roadmap and the adventurous to keep going with new ideas and features where the two eventually converge.
I'm personally quite sick of joining "enterprise" teams that use wildly past their shelf life versions of Java and then get indignant when I pointedly ask them WTF they're doing calling it "secure" when the product has been abandonware WRT security for over a year.
Right now it feels like "Java 7 vs 8 vs 9" is a matter of opinion. Now at least we can say "you chose a non-LTS version and didn't keep up... WTF?" and stuff like that. Oracle is at least now saying "this is for this type of user and that is for that type of user" and if you try a third way the answer is "you're wrong" unless you accept full responsibility.