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I'm working in a company that has many projects in Java 8. Those projects are valued as old, and our team would like to upgrade the version. However, we need valid points in order to unlock the situation.

Those projects are using Spring and Hibernate (if it's ever useful).

What factual points could we give to our company to upgrade the versions, if any factual points there is ?

Examples of useful, valid points would be:

  • Security improvements
  • Performances improvements
  • New libraries or framework updates which could ease the development process
  • New possibilites/features with an upgraded Java Version
  • ...

Possibly, backed up with documentation or links to useful resources.

Positive Navid
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alejandro juarez
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    You don't. And this question is off topic. – OH GOD SPIDERS Nov 22 '19 at 10:36
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    Who is asking you to update? Ask them for the reason. – Thilo Nov 22 '19 at 10:37
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    @OHGODSPIDERS: I disagree. If the software continues to be used, then they'll have to upgrade eventually. Possibly not right now, but that day is not too far off. – Joachim Sauer Nov 22 '19 at 10:44
  • The new editing may let this question pass the 'opinion-based' threshold ? – Yassine Badache Nov 22 '19 at 14:08
  • On a related note, for information on choosing a Java 11 distribution see: [*How to get java 11 run-time environment working since there is no more jre 11 for download?*](https://stackoverflow.com/q/53111921/642706). There I posted some charts with a list of vendors. – Basil Bourque Nov 22 '19 at 23:10
  • Joachim Sauer, I agree with your comment. I think @alejandro juarez asked a good question. he deserves my vote up. – Bunthai Deng Nov 30 '20 at 07:56

3 Answers3

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  • old Java version will eventually stop getting new security fixes, which will make your software more vulnerable
  • using an old software stack will make it harder to find new developers willing to work on your software. Java 8 probably isn't too old for that yet, but in a few years that will be similar to finding "Java 1.4 developers" right now.
  • using an old software stack can severely limit your selection of useful third-party libraries and/or tools. A given library that you really need might require a more recent Java version or (possibly even worse) a library that you already use increases it's Java version requirement with a new major release (leaving you stuck with an old Java version and an old software version that might be missing important bug fixes).

There are several advantages from switching to newer Java versions, which are probably not the main reason to switch, but could be considered additional incentives:

  • newer JDK implementations might have better optimizations (in JIT and Garbage Collection mostly) that might help you get better performance from existing hardware (or reduce your cloud computing costs)
  • newer Java versions tend to have support for more modern technology, like the newest TLS versions and cryptographic algorithms which can help you data more secure, if you use them correctly.
  • new language features might improve your code style, which makes your developers happier, which means less churn which saves money on hiring new developers.
Joachim Sauer
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The reason to jump from 8 to 11 is the support of Oracle (or other implementation).

You can find the roadmap of Oracle here. For Java8 you are safe up to March 2022 for the premier support and extended support to March 2025. For Amazon Correto they will provide free support and updates for version 8 to (at least) June 2023.

So the major reason to update your JVM version is support and updates. You still have time to update your version but you also have to wait for you 3rd party library to deliver compatibility with Java 11.

If you wonder why from 8 to 11 and not to 9 or 10, the reason is that 9 and 10 are not marked as LTS (Long Time Support) meaning that the different implementation won't provide any support and updates (or not for long) for those version when the next one is release.

Joachim Sauer
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Vincent Lochen
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Security updates for Oracle Java 8 are only provided via enterprise licenses and you could save that amount by using newer stable releases. Apart from that, using newer versions also guarantee better integration with modern JVM tools, like up-to-date build tools.

Jazzschmidt
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