back to article Java SE 9 and Java EE 8 arrive, 364 days later than first planned

Java SE 9 and Java EE 8 have arrived. Version 9 of the Java development kit was supposed to ship on September 22, 2016, but delays and a dispute over the "Jigsaw" Java Platform Module System saw the release date pushed out to Thursday, September 21. Which is precisely when Oracle announced that the two new versions of Java …

  1. James 51

    *sigh* Just when I convince my work to let me use Java 8 for one program. Anyone recommend any good Java 8 books?

    1. Steve Channell
      Unhappy

      Don't worry nothing's really changed.

      The module system is a major advance but it'll take 10 years for the toolchains to catch up.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @James

      Why would you want to upgrade ASAP anyway?

      Besides: as others already said, this has never been a problem on Java. One of the reasons I appreciate the language so much is because it's mostly backwards compatible. There are tons of Java applications out there which don't even use the specific features which Java SE 8 has to offer (new in comparison to SE6 for example).

      Quite frankly I think this is one of Java's key strengths; the risk of having to re-design your software whenever a new version hits the shelves is usually neglectable. Which can't be said for a ton of other programming languages (PHP being the most notorious for that).

      Maybe also good to know: most Java IDE's provide support for managing multiple build targets. In other words: using multiple JDK's next to each other (I only have hands on experience with NetBeans, but I know at least 2 other IDE's which also support this). You can easily have a Java SE8 environment while you're still building stuff for Java SE6.

      1. James 51

        Re: @James

        A lot of my work involves file handling and string manipulation, two areas which seem to have had a lot of work put into them.

    3. Beecause

      java 8 for the really impatient

      Good to the point book

      https://www.amazon.co.uk/Java-SE-8-Really-Impatient/dp/9332539081/

  2. petef

    REPL in Java has been available for years using Jython.

  3. cschneid

    Ah, legacy

    Java has enormous user and code bases, [...] and is likely to be with us for decades to come

    Sounds like COBOL.

    [the elided part reads features on many university curricula and certainly does not apply to COBOL]

    1. rmullen0

      Re: Ah, legacy

      Look how long legacy Python has been around.

  4. Hstubbe

    Java is still a thing?

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