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'Java 9, It Did Break Some Things': Oracle Bod Admits To Developers Still Clinging To Version 8 (theregister.co.uk)
Java has a problem -- the language and platform is evolving faster than ever, but many developers are stuck on the five-year-old Java 8. From a report: So why have developers not upgraded? Simply, Java 9 introduced major changes, including internal restructuring, new modularity (known as "Project Jigsaw"), and the removal of little-used APIs. These changes broke code, and even developers who are happy to make the necessary revisions have dependency issues. "We have problems with libraries that do not yet support the latest versions," said one QCon attendee.
"I want to explain why it was necessary," said Oracle's Ron Pressler, part of the Java platform group developing the language and lead for Project Loom. "There are billions of lines of code in Java, and Java 9, it did break some things. The reason is that Java is 20-something years old. It will probably be big and popular in another 20 years. We have to think 20 years ahead. The way the JDK was structured prior to Java 9 was just unmaintainable. We could not keep Java competitive if we had not done that change. That was an absolute necessity."
"I want to explain why it was necessary," said Oracle's Ron Pressler, part of the Java platform group developing the language and lead for Project Loom. "There are billions of lines of code in Java, and Java 9, it did break some things. The reason is that Java is 20-something years old. It will probably be big and popular in another 20 years. We have to think 20 years ahead. The way the JDK was structured prior to Java 9 was just unmaintainable. We could not keep Java competitive if we had not done that change. That was an absolute necessity."
I know of no new development done on java applications
Come on, Java server development is still going strong
I mean, some companies are still using Cobol, and you think Java is going anywhere?
Not to mention not all Android developers have moved to Kotlin, that is a many year process - in the meantime there is a ton of Android Java code, and even new apps being developed in Java until widespread Kotlin expertise ramps up.
"write once, run everywhere". fucking pack of lies that is.
Why? That actually worked well. In the past I worked on desktop Java apps that I could run across various systems (and still work today).
When I moved to server development, we would sometimes shift between systems like Solaris and Linux or some BSD variants, but while we may have had to tune the VM we did not change the code...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Java is as fast as C for the most part and is the backbone of a significant number of applications. Python could not handle the set of problems Java has solved and continues to solve. Call me in twenty years when Python has done something other than fill in some small gap in the computing space. That is all.
"It will probably be big and popular in another 20 years"
No, Oracle has pretty much fixed THAT problem, I'd say.