“But even more important,” he said, “is the way complex systems seem to
strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change.
Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call ‘the edge of chaos.'”
Ian Malcolm at the Santa Fe Institute
If you’ve been following the announcements surrounding the Java platform, you may have noticed something peculiar happening with the latest Java SE versions. Hardly has the ink dried on books describing the Java 9 release, and we’re already on Java 10. Even more unusual: if you go to Oracle’s Java downloads, you’ll find sections on Java 10 and Java 8, but 9 is gone already, and that in only half a year! The obvious reason for this is Oracle’s new release cadence, where so-called “Long-Term-Release” versions will still use the 3-year cadence, but between these LTS versions Oracle has moved to a 6-month cadence. The reasoning: “developers prefer rapid innovation”. While on the whole Oracle had been getting a lot of flak for it’s slow pace, the combination of a faster pace with rapid removal of older versions will come as a shock for many.
If you compare this with what has happened in the world of Browsers, then it shouldn’t come as a big surprise, because there we see that “big” release numbers have already vanished into oblivion. Who still remembers the toils of “IE fill-in-your-favorite-number” compatibility, especially when catering to slow-changing corporations? Nowadays browser version numbers are hardly ever mentioned, and they range from 17 for Microsoft Edge to 66 for Google Chrome. Sites like “Can I use?” (https://caniuse.com/) provide detailed analyses of the different versions and how well they support HTML, CSS, and other standards, and specialized JavaScript libraries dynamically add support for missing bits.
So is this increased pace really a Good Thing™, simply a natural and inevitable evolution, or is Gartner finally right with its continuing predictions of doom for the Java platform?