JDK version popularity
in [Java Programming]
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From: Tom Anderson on 22 Mar 2010 14:46 On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Roedy Green wrote: > On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:16:17 -0700 (PDT), Lew <lew(a)lewscanon.com> > wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : > >> 11% isn't quite enough to deter me from targeting Java 5, were I >> developing for the plugin, particularly since Java WebStart lets one >> automate the Java upgrade for the user. If half the folks among that >> 11% saw enough value in my product to upgrade their Java, that gives >> roughly 95% of the available market able to use my product. > > Java 1.5 gives you generics. That is quite a bit to give up. Java 1.6 > gives you annotations. That is not so hard to give up. Annotations came in 1.5. > My rule of thumb is to make new Applets run on 1.5, unless they are so > simple I can take them back even earlier, but desktop apps designed to > be run by programmers run on 1.6. Seems fairly reasonable. A developer can usually manage to have 1.6 as well as 1.5 - the restriction to 1.5 would typically be for the code that is going into production, not the tools they use to produce it. Unless, of course, you're on one of those projects where the client insists you do all the development inside a virtual environment that they manage, and only gives you 1.5. tom -- Once you notice that something doesn't seem to have all the necessary parts to enable its functions, it is going to mildly bug you until you figure it out. -- John Rowland
From: Lew on 22 Mar 2010 16:18 Roedy Green wrote: > Java 1.5 gives you generics. That is quite a bit to give up. Java > 1.6 gives you annotations. That is not so hard to give up. > Correction, Java 5 gives you annotations. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history#J2SE_5.0_. 28September_30.2C_2004.29> -- Lew
From: Arne Vajhøj on 22 Mar 2010 18:27 On 22-03-2010 14:46, Tom Anderson wrote: > On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Roedy Green wrote: >> Java 1.5 gives you generics. That is quite a bit to give up. Java 1.6 >> gives you annotations. That is not so hard to give up. > > Annotations came in 1.5. He has probably been mislead by http://mindprod.com/jgloss/annotations.html ! :-) <quote> These are annotations, a full-fledge feature of Java version 1.6, though they were partly implemented in Java version 1.5 (supporting standard annotations without custom annotations). </quote> which gives the completely wrong impression that Java 1.5 did not support custom annotations. It did. What is new in 1.6 is the "Pluggable Annotation Processor", which is a standard for plugging annotation processors into the Java compiler. Arne
From: Arne Vajhøj on 22 Mar 2010 19:06 On 22-03-2010 12:15, Nathan wrote: > Sigh... forgive my imperfect wording. I did mean the JRE being > targeted, not the JDK - apologies. No need to apologize. We could guess that. > For a Java component developer it is useful information to know which > JRE version is commonly targeted. I am aware that a lot of developers > are working with 1.5 now. I am mostly curious about how many have > switched to 1.6 already. Desktop apps: most, my guess: 75-90% Server apps (Java EE): less, my guess: 20-33% Arne
From: Arne Vajhøj on 22 Mar 2010 19:09
On 22-03-2010 14:16, Lew wrote: > 11% isn't quite enough to deter me from targeting Java 5, were I > developing for the plugin, particularly since Java WebStart lets one > automate the Java upgrade for the user. If half the folks among that > 11% saw enough value in my product to upgrade their Java, that gives > roughly 95% of the available market able to use my product. > > Using the real numbers from<http://www.statowl.com/java.php>, and > even assuming that the 20$ unknown are all on Java 1.4 or earlier, an > assumption I should challenge, there's still 75% of the market who can > run my Java 5 product even if they refuse to upgrade. > > If half the unknown are already at least on Java 5, and half the rest > would accept an upgrade, that's about 87% of the market. > > So for the Java plugin, I deem it safe to target Java 5. That depends on whether 95/87 % is good enough for the business. If the profit on the last 5/12 % is more than the extra cost of using the old Java version, then it is not good business. Arne |