It changed a lot, a great lot of things – but internally. Sure, Java 9 did bring one significant change, groundbreaking even – the Jigsaw Project. A new HTTP client, process API, minor diamond operator and try-with-resources improvements. Java 9 appeared 3 years later, in September 2017, and for a typical developer, it changed next to nothing. Lambdas, streams, functional programming, extensive API extensions – not to mention MetaSpace or G1 extensions. Java 8 provided lots of language features that made developers want to switch from previous versions. Why is it, after more than 7 years, still the most commonly used version? There are many reasons for that. Java 8, which was released in March 2014, is currently used by 69% of programmers in their main application. The popularity of Java 8 – a little bit of history Let’s take a look at some of the features.

What does Java 17 bring? How difficult will the migration be? Is it worth it? I’ll try to answer those questions in this article.

It’s the new Long Term Support version, with Oracle Premier Support to last until September 2026 (at least). Especially since just a month ago – on September 14th, 2021 – Java 17 was released. That means there’ll be a good reason to make the move to a new version. It doesn’t mean that it won’t receive any new updates, but Oracle’s effort put into maintaining it will likely be significantly smaller than it is right now. A few months from now – in March 2022 – Java 8 will lose its Oracle Premier Support.

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