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Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

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Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#171

Post by zero_shift »

twic wrote: post #156
zero_shift wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this post is getting some downvotes; I'm not sure I agree with all of it myself. But I would ask those, who reject the premise here outright, to think back really hard to how things were in the 1990s. The Java brand was everywhere . It was a truly massive endeavour and one of the first languages to really go "viral" as the Solution For Everything. People laugh at the cute "Java runs on four billion devices!" ta…

There absolutely was massive Java hype. Twenty-five years ago Hype is not reason why "a major Silicon Valley company that's migrating their backend to it".

No, but I think it's a big contributor to the network effect advantage Java has.

I'm not bashing the language - it certainly has its defenders. Some people regard simplicity as a virtue (although I'd question how simple Java is nowadays). But I think even ardent Java fans will concede, Java has some deficiencies as a language. The main reason people use Java, is that people know Java. And the main reason they know Java, is because it is used.

It takes a long time to kill a network effect.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#172

Post by pjmlp »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #152
stonemetal12 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else would you use? Java is the shark that ate everyone else's lunch. At this point all you have as alternatives in the category of "easy to use for backend type stuff" is C#, and go. Both of which have their pros and cons but on the whole aren't bad choices. I guess like bellbottoms, Java is making a fashionable comeback.

Kotlin is actually the natural upgrade from Java if you want something that feels more modern than Java. Very easy to switch to from Java: a conversion tool is actually built into intellij. For most traditional Java frameworks (like Spring or Quarkus), Kotlin has long been a first class citizen (support, documentation, custom Kotlin extension functions, etc.) and probably the easier language to use when you are start…

Currently set at 8% of Java languages.

https://www.infoq.com/news/2022/03/jrebel-report-2022

Hardly a successor of anything outside Google's ecosystem.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#173

Post by marginalia_nu »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #163
marginalia_nu wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you are interested in reference equality?

Python uses the `is` operator, which is semantically much more explicit (and arguably correct, though C#'s use of the `is` operator is probably more correct). edit: Kotlin uses `===`, which is another good option.

=== seems almost more dangerous. It's a lot easier to tell == from Objects.equals(a,b) than == from ===.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#174

Post by _joel »

acdha wrote: post #83
_joel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to run Oracle apps like EBS. They only work on their release, not openjdk. Side note: Avoid EBS at all costs if you can, unless you like spending money on consultants and like crappy obfuscated processes.

That wasn't the only reason why I left one job but their Oracle buy-in was a big factor. Things like paying 7 figures a year for support, and then having the Oracle support manager ask if they could redistribute the hot-patch I made to other customers.

I completely understand, in the same situation myself atm after several years of lean and agile work, somehow ended up having to manage this EBS crap on a new contract (it was only part of the spec). It's a nightmare.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#175

Post by manigandham »

kaycebasques wrote: post #5

This is tangential and possibly too open ended to be productive but worth a shot anyway. Why is Java so popular? I know of a major Silicon Valley company that's migrating their backend to it. Why Java over other languages? Or maybe there's not really other viable options? I'm speaking as someone who spent the last 6 years focused on frontend web technology.

Java (and .NET) have vast ecosystems with lots of developer experience, a massive standard library, a big selection of 3rd-party packages, vendors and services, solid backwards compatibility and deployment stability, and tons of research/development constantly making everything better.

Contrary to the Silicon Valley popular opinion, these languages are incredibly productive and run much of the world, with code running in all of the Fortune 500 companies down to small businesses and even your phones.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#176

Post by zenron »

tyingq wrote: post #4
halestock wrote: post #2

Here's the openjdk page which includes links to details of all new features: https://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk/18/

This one looks interesting: "JEP 400: UTF-8 by Default": https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/400 It sounds like a good idea, but I can imagine lots of downstream breakage, some of it not immediately obvious, with apps that make bad assumptions. Edit: The risks section of the linked doc above does explain some of that, and there is some notable risk.

Windows default went over to UTF-8 from UTF-16 a few years back so its probably alignment with them especially with MS now rolling their own linux and java.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#178

Post by criddell »

paskozdilar wrote: post #62
kaycebasques wrote: post #5

This is tangential and possibly too open ended to be productive but worth a shot anyway. Why is Java so popular? I know of a major Silicon Valley company that's migrating their backend to it. Why Java over other languages? Or maybe there's not really other viable options? I'm speaking as someone who spent the last 6 years focused on frontend web technology.

IMHO, Marketing. Java had so many marketing crazes that it's crazy. I still remember the "Java mobile game" fad from a dozen of years ago - Java this, Java that, Java for phone, Java for toaster... At some point, the public mind starts to associate "programming" with Java. Since there were (and probably always will be, unless we evolve into utopia) hordes of job-desperate people who would do anything to feed themselv…

The marketing was pretty nuts. One of the consequences was Netscape deciding to name their scripting language JavaScript.

Re: Java 18 / JDK 18: General Availability

#179

Post by signal11 »

throw0101a wrote: post #45
tyingq wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one looks interesting: "JEP 400: UTF-8 by Default": https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/400 It sounds like a good idea, but I can imagine lots of downstream breakage, some of it not immediately obvious, with apps that make bad assumptions. Edit: The risks section of the linked doc above does explain some of that, and there is some notable risk.

> It sounds like a good idea, but I can imagine lots of downstream breakage, some of it not immediately obvious, with apps that make bad assumptions. You're not wrong, which is probably why they did it in this release. JDK 17 was an LTS release, and 18 isn't. The next LTS will be JDK 21 in September 2023: * https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roa... This presumably gives folks times to adjust bef…

Worth noting that if you can, don’t stay on LTS. It adds cost which many modern teams can avoid[1].

It doesn’t mean enabling Java 18 on Production on day 1, but certainly it means adding a Java 18 compiler to your CI, running tests using Java 18, etc.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/o0m6g8/the_state_of_p...

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