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Comment by shadycuz | Hacker News Reader

If only I could understand the difference between java 1.8, 8 and 18.

Starting from 1.6 they only showed the minor version number. So 1.6 = Java 6, 1.8 = Java 8, etc.

I always assumed this was because .net (arguably it's main competitor) was churning fast through version numbers and they "wanted to keep up".

It was a very Sun-like thing to do. Sun dropped the 2. after their 2.6 release. Solaris 7 was the next release... then 8.

Ahh so 17, is 1.17?

I swear I googled this like 2 months ago and the first 2 or 3 links weren't helpful so I gave up. Thanks!

Effectively yes, but the "1.x" format is deprecated since Java 9 and not used anymore, whereas versions 5 through 8 used both notations.

See https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/223#Dropping-the-initial-1-ele...

And now it is the other way around. C# burning through the versions to catch up the versions (and not so much the content).

PS: had to edit, was really just a note about the numbers not the content of the versions!!!

C# has never had to play catch-up with Java, it's always been the other way around.

Ohhh.... C# was invented as a response to Java... So it had to play catch-up with Java - at it's inception...

Even worse: C# came as a response when Microsoft failed to apply their embrace, extend, extinguish tactic on Java like they did with Netscape[1].

In the end the case was settled out of court and MS agreed to pay more then 1 billion dollar to Sun. MS also agreed to license a whole slew of patents for use with .net.

[1] https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/sun-sues-microsof...

Catch up to what? The JDK 17 JEP list reads like a list of things that were added to dotnet years ago.

Thats kind of a hyperbole.

.net didn't add support for macOS on ARM64 years ago. .net also didn't implement 2D rendering on macOS via Metal. etc. As a matter of fact .net didn't even support any other platform then Windows until recently.

Also hyperbole, dotnet supported other platforms years ago via mono.

I think I would be generous if I stated 10% of the .net applications ran on Mono instead of MS CLR without source modifications. I even doubt more then 60% of the .net applications ran on .net Core (needed for other platforms then Windows) without modifications.

Meaning .net has nowhere near the "write once, run anywhere" support Java has.

Just version numbers, not content :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history

> J2SE 5.0

> […]

> The release on September 30, 2004 was originally numbered 1.5, which is still used as the internal version number. The number was changed to "better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE".

and

> This version introduced a new versioning system for the Java language, although the old versioning system continued to be used for developer libraries:

>> Both version numbers "1.5.0" and "5.0" are used to identify this release of the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition. Version "5.0" is the product version, while "1.5.0" is the developer version. The number "5.0" is used to better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE.

>> — Version 1.5.0 or 5.0?[32]

[32]: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/version-5....

1.8 and 8 are the same thing. Java switched to full version numbers like 9, 10, 11, etc now 17 some time ago.

I wish they would name it 2021, 2022 etc.

They have a 6 month release cadence.

2021.0, 2021.5, 2022.0, … :^)

They tried for a short while (I think Java 10 was supposed to be 18.3) but stuck to incrementing major versions after all.

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