Hacker News Reader

You’re just delaying and making the upgrade worse when the time comes. It’s much easier to upgrade now to 11 and then 17 and then 21 rather than try to upgrade from 8 to 27 when 8 is finally EOL.

Whether you perceive there to be no immediate benefit (hint: there is, Java 8 is an antiquated runtime) or not, delaying upgrading until Java 8 EOL is a way larger risk than upgrading now.

View on HN

I've never done a language upgrade. I don't know what it takes. I've heard 8->11 is painful and 11->17 is not. So doesn't that mean jumping from 8->17 directly is mostly the same as going from 8->11?

I'm not saying there is no benefit. I'm not saying there is no risk. I agree that going from 8->17 would be worse than 8->11->17.

My point is to list out reasons why a team may not be able to just spend a day upgrading (dependency issues) or why someone might not be given the time to do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com