Credit: Dreamstime
Despite arriving nearly eight years ago, Java 8 remains the most-used version of Java among users polled in a recent survey by Perforce Software company. However, many shops have plans to upgrade to the much newer Java 17, the survey found.
Asked which JDK (Java Development Kit) programming language was being used in their main application, 37 per cent of respondents in the Perforce-sponsored survey answered Java 8. The runner-up was Java 11, used by 29 per cent of those surveyed.
The results of the survey of 876 Java development professionals, which took place from October 2021 to January 2022, were published this week in the 2022 Java Developer Productivity Report.
Both Java 8 (released in March 2014) and Java 11 (released in September 2018) are Long-Term Support (LTS) releases, which receive several years of product support from Oracle. Non-LTS releases, such as Java 9, Java 10, and Java 12 through Java 15, receive only six months of Oracle support.
Following Java 8 and Java 11 in usage were Java 12 or newer (12 per cent), Kotlin (eight per cent), Groovy (six per cent), Java 7 or older (five per cent), and Scala (three per cent).
Among survey respondents who knew of their organization’s upgrade plans, 37 per cent planned to upgrade to JDK 17, an LTS release published in September, within the next six months. Another 25 per cent plan to upgrade to JDK 17 within the next six to 12 months. JDK 18, a non-LTS release, is due March 22.
The JRebel-branded 2022 Java Developer Productivity Report focuses on Java technologies and current approaches to developing Java applications. JRebel is a Java development tool developed by Perforce.
When asked which factors influence a decision to upgrade JDK versions, a release having LTS status was the top factor cited (25 per cent), followed by security (23 per cent), and performance (20 per cent). Meanwhile, Oracle’s Java distribution was the most popular, with 36 per cent using it, followed by 27 per cent using generic OpenJDK Java.
Delving deeper, Microservices led the way as the most common architecture for users’ Java applications, with 32 per cent leveraging it, followed by 22 per cent using monolithic applications. Docker was the most common virtual machine platform, for use with Java applications, with 41 per cent using it. Kubernetes was used by 26 per cent of respondents, followed by VMware at 16 per cent.
In addition, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the most commonly used PaaS platform at 31 per cent, followed by no PaaS provider at 24 per cent and Microsoft Azure at 14 per cent.
Apache Tomcat was the most popular Java application server by far, used by 48 per cent, followed by JBoss/Wildfly at 15 per cent. JetBrains IntelliJ was the most popular Java IDE at 48 per cent, followed by Eclipse at 24 per cent and Visual Studio Code at 18 per cent.
