Life beyond Java 8

Wasn’t Java 8 a fantastic update to the language? Lambdas and streams were a huge change and have helped to improve Java developers’ productivity and introduce some functional ideas to the language.

Then came Java 9… and although the module system is really interesting for certain types of applications, the lack of exciting language features and uncertainty around how painful it might be to migrate to Java 9 left many applications taking a wait-and-see approach, happy with Java 8.

But now Java has a new version every six months, and by now Java 14 is here. We’re all still on Java 8, wondering whether we should move to a later version, which one to choose, and how painful it might be to upgrade.