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Comment by kasperni | Hacker News Reader

I really do not understand why this is getting so much hate? I really think this new time based release versioning is much preferred to alternatives.

I think the biggest problem is that it is in the nature of most developers to want to live on the bleeding edge. We want to have these new shiny purple things. And it just hurts us deep down inside to go with the safe and mature option.

Again, nobody is forcing you to adapt a new version as soon as it comes out.

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Except you are essentially being forced since the previous version becomes immediately unsupported. By the time you consider and work through all the implications of upgrading to Java 10 it will be September and Java 11 will have come out, and Java 10 will be obsolete and unsupported. That’s a bit crazy for a major version that just came out in March.

You can start testing new release before it is out. E.g. for 11, you get final RC at 8/30, and the release is on 9/25. Which means that you get almost a month while you can be 99% sure that you are testing with the target JDK.

And also, the cadence means that java changes will be much smaller, so no more big bang like Java 9.

The only real problem might be the bytecode releated libraries like ASM/bytebuddy, those need to move faster then previously (and they are, e.g. butebuddy already supports java 11 bytecode version).

"Almost a month" is a laughably short testing period in many of the industries Java is commonly used.

OK, in that case you shouldn't upgrade to a non-LTS version.

If you can do testing in a month than use non-LTS, it is quite simple.

The fast pace is meant for enthusiasts, learners, open source developers etc who don't face massive QA and upgrade costs. Not banks.

You are being forced to use the new version, as support for the previous version ends as the next version is released.

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