C# dev here: it’s amazing how different this is from a Microsoft release. First off, Oracle are doing versions at approximately twice the cadence. But also, and I’m guessing this is a function of the much larger Java audience: things rarely get two preview versions in a proper release. Updates in beta versions, yes, all the time. It also feels like Microsoft are bundling a lot more into the platform and leaving less to the community. Again, probably an artifact of the different sizes of the communities. Also, the page reads like an open source “We’re finished, we’re tired.” announcement rather than the razzmatazz of a Microsoft release.
> First off, Oracle are doing versions at approximately twice the cadence
Is that actually a good thing?
But Oracle started playing a game, for better or worse, where they decided to couple the "language version" with a single specific runtime's release schedule. For example, in "Java 27" there are exactly 0 language changes and 1 minor feature addition to the TLS library.
Everything else is OpenJDK runtime internals which don't impact the language or how you use it. So if you don't use OpenJDK (such as if you use Oracle's other runtime, GraalVM), then Java 27 basically doesn't even exist at all. Skimming the past couple of C# releases, it doesn't look like Microsoft is playing that game, so the release cadence will of course be different.
There's not really a second C# runtime. Java has several, some based on the Openjdk, but a few that are completely new like OpenJ9 and Graal.
The closest C# has is mono.
This sort of thing is bound to happen with that situation. Heck, it happens with C++ whenever a new C++ version comes out. Some C++11 features took years to make their way into all the compilers.
You’re only counting JEPs, which are only for more involved features. There are lots of changes to the JDK apis that are used by other runtimes. See, for instance: https://javaalmanac.io/jdk/27/apidiff/26/.
Admittedly, the terminology here is almost designed to be maximally confusing, and I’ve never read a good post that laid out how everything relates.
> Microsoft are bundling a lot more into the platform and leaving less to the community.
This is a good thing. In Java everything has multiple community offerings, so before doing anything you have to evaluate the community offerings and decide which one to go with. If you go with the wrong one you may end up having to switch at some point, and that can be painful. This happens so often that most of the time spent when using Java is doing these evaluations and comparisons. With C# you just use the one built into .NET platform. Saves a ton of time.
>> Oracle are doing versions at approximately twice the cadence.
This has nothing to do with Oracle. All good that you hear from Java in the last few years, is the great community and good old people from Sun working at Oracle.
I never thought of Java being the 'move fast ~and break things~' alternative over .NET, but Java has a faster release schedule to get features out sooner.
When building boring web applications with a sizeable team that need to run for a long time. Hiring developers is easy since there are many, there is nearly no magic and the language is quite strict and type safe so it works well with a large team.
And that "team" nowadays may also consist of many AI agents. In my experience Claude Code for example works very well with a typed, slightly boring language with lots of framework and library support. Because it doesn't compile when you get something wrong, instead of getting a vague runtime issue that Claude can't always see.
I agree with the rest, but there's definitely a lot of magic in Java. This is from both what features the languages makes available (many) and how the community uses them (often). I've had so many hard-to-debug issues in Java over the years due to reflection, annotations, and bytecode manipulation shenanigans.
And another positive point for Java: checked exceptions. It's verbose, but knowing exactly in which ways a function can fail is extremely helpful for building robust applications.
Why should anyone use it over Java?
Ms is hostile towards its developers, it creates new versions of things, deprecates previous versions, uses confusing naming for newer versions.. etc.
It's stable to the point of boring, and there's no shortage of people who know the language and can work with it, it's got best in class tooling, decades worth of libraries almost all very mature. Most of the language's issues are from legacy code bases coded in a style that isn't really relevant to a greenfield project.
When you are already familiar with it or work in a Java shop, there are better options if you are starting from scratch, but if you already have 50 guys that know Java it's a pretty big ask for all of them to switch.
java is a great language for server side projects. it is actively maintained, the biggest issues with it have JEPs, and it’s very friendly to AI authors
Golang gives you none of nice features of a modern language while being about the same performance tier as Scala or Java, so there's basically no reason not to use Scala.
I ported a moderate sized java project to golang. Test suite runs order of magnitude faster now. There isn't much change in terms of the architecture. Pretty much the same algos and data structures. The whole dev tooling runs on a 16 gb mac without swapping now. I used vs code for both
Whoever works with, or chooses Java, is not doing it for the language itself, be it beautiful or not. Java has a huge ecosystem, from battle tested integrations to optimized images to build pipelines to whatever, so at the same you're buying access to all this world (yes, more than an environment). And of course transferable skills. I'm not saying Java is alone offering this, also not saying every feature is the best, but you can have them all, and even choose from different options.
"The Java Story" documentary by CultRepo on YouTube is pretty great. A major topic is the release cadence which some other comments here are mentioning / joking about.
I've been using the Vector APIs for years now, and I'm still waiting for them to GA!
They are useful for neural information retrieval (RAG, memory), which relies heavily on content vectorization and similarity matching using their dot products.
Language that runs on the explicit design philosophy of letting other languages experiment first and then incorporating their lessons learned once the dust has settled is late to implement a feature.
universal null type safety has sadly been discarded as a core concept of Valhalla in my Understanding; that being said, the proposals in Valhalla have null-safety as a side effect, but only under certain conditions.
Is that actually a good thing?
But Oracle started playing a game, for better or worse, where they decided to couple the "language version" with a single specific runtime's release schedule. For example, in "Java 27" there are exactly 0 language changes and 1 minor feature addition to the TLS library.
Everything else is OpenJDK runtime internals which don't impact the language or how you use it. So if you don't use OpenJDK (such as if you use Oracle's other runtime, GraalVM), then Java 27 basically doesn't even exist at all. Skimming the past couple of C# releases, it doesn't look like Microsoft is playing that game, so the release cadence will of course be different.
The closest C# has is mono.
This sort of thing is bound to happen with that situation. Heck, it happens with C++ whenever a new C++ version comes out. Some C++11 features took years to make their way into all the compilers.
Admittedly, the terminology here is almost designed to be maximally confusing, and I’ve never read a good post that laid out how everything relates.
This is a good thing. In Java everything has multiple community offerings, so before doing anything you have to evaluate the community offerings and decide which one to go with. If you go with the wrong one you may end up having to switch at some point, and that can be painful. This happens so often that most of the time spent when using Java is doing these evaluations and comparisons. With C# you just use the one built into .NET platform. Saves a ton of time.
This has nothing to do with Oracle. All good that you hear from Java in the last few years, is the great community and good old people from Sun working at Oracle.
I mean it's short and concise and there are additional resources that provide more detail. IMHO it's not a bad thing.
And that "team" nowadays may also consist of many AI agents. In my experience Claude Code for example works very well with a typed, slightly boring language with lots of framework and library support. Because it doesn't compile when you get something wrong, instead of getting a vague runtime issue that Claude can't always see.
I agree with the rest, but there's definitely a lot of magic in Java. This is from both what features the languages makes available (many) and how the community uses them (often). I've had so many hard-to-debug issues in Java over the years due to reflection, annotations, and bytecode manipulation shenanigans.
And another positive point for Java: checked exceptions. It's verbose, but knowing exactly in which ways a function can fail is extremely helpful for building robust applications.
Why should anyone use it over Java? Ms is hostile towards its developers, it creates new versions of things, deprecates previous versions, uses confusing naming for newer versions.. etc.
It's stable to the point of boring, and there's no shortage of people who know the language and can work with it, it's got best in class tooling, decades worth of libraries almost all very mature. Most of the language's issues are from legacy code bases coded in a style that isn't really relevant to a greenfield project.
As for Scala it's pretty much a dead language, no one work with it and it's impossible to find dev for it.
10 years ago I was moving Scala code back to regular Java.
They are useful for neural information retrieval (RAG, memory), which relies heavily on content vectorization and similarity matching using their dot products.
Who's there?
long pause
Java
https://lmax-exchange.github.io/disruptor/
Knock, knock
who's there
It's the 90s, wanting their jokes back
edit: don't get me wrong, i am not here to hate java, but bc i am also ... hm necrophil :)
Now try asking, "When did Java get auto-properties?"
Language that runs on the explicit design philosophy of letting other languages experiment first and then incorporating their lessons learned once the dust has settled is late to implement a feature.
Fingers crossed I'll manage to use null type safety in my lifetime.
Are you sure this egg is actually viable?
I mean, I'd love to see it, but...