Why migrate to Java 17?
In this computing edge and competing era, programming languages are evolving very fast with the trend of the day. The innovation and new features of a programming language get influenced by the trend and technology of the day. For example, Java 8 added the functional programming paradigm as at that time it was a hot topic. Then, Kotlin and Lombok influenced Java to adopt some of the syntax sugar of Kotlin and Lombok which we can see in Java versions after 8. Modularity, Microservices, and cloud-native are the other topics that influence Java and its frameworks to adapt themselves to this trend.
Java is a versatile language that has diverse usage in different domains. One of the main strengths of Java is that it has a huge ecosystem and libraries that made it so popular. Almost all the top companies use Java and its related frameworks or libraries for different purposes. Therefore, Java will be here for a long time.
Java 17 was released on 14 September 2021, and since Java 8, alongside other added new features, improving JVM was the main focus of Java. Here are the main features that have been added into Java since Java 8:
- Modularization
- Local Variable
- HTTP Client
- Text Blocks
- Switch Expression
- Pattern Matching
- Record
- Sealed Classes
- Improving Serialization
- Improving Security
- Improving Collection
- Improving GC
- Improving JIT compiler
- Removing and Deprecating libraries/modules
- and other enhancements…
The above-mentioned points are a simple overview, where if we go into the details, there are lots of improvements and nice features that are meant to show that Java is growing and it’s still on the edge of competition with other languages.
For those who are using Java 8 or 11, there are so many reasons to upgrade to Java 17. Although Migration from Java 8 to 17 involves some changes, incremental upgrading is recommended to upgrade from Java 8 to upwards. Java 17 has the latest and greatest JVM with improved security, efficiency, garbage collection, and many new features that will improve productivity and make your code more efficient and less verbose.
For Spring Boot users, Java 17 will be the minimum version in Spring Boot 3.0 which will be released in the middle or end of 2022. Therefore, it is recommended to upgrade to version 17 if you are willing to enjoy Spring Boot 3.0’s advancement, new features, and improvements.
Java is entering into the exciting phase again where the cycle of LTS release decreased from 3 years to 2 years which makes it more competitive into the current trend and market. Hopeful this fast pace will remain for the future.
Enjoy your journey of upgrading to Java 17.
