Re: JDK version popularity
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Roedy Green wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:16:17 -0700 (PDT), Lew <lew@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