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by breitling 1367 days ago
> legacy Java

I'm starting to feel very old

Is Java considered legacy now?

4 comments

I just recently left a job that had a lot of pre-Java 8 still running.

That’s legacy Java.

Java came out 3 (or is it 4) recessions ago. There are entry level developers who were born after I started using it. It's a legacy technology.
For a technology to be legacy, I think it needs to be stale and falling out of use for new projects. I don't see that with Java. New releases with new language features are being released at a faster pace than ever, and companies are still building new products on it.

Java hits a sweet spot of performance, tooling, and productivity that few other ecosystems can. It's biggest competitors are probably C# and golang, and, for various reasons, it is holding its own just fine against them.

If you remember Duke, you're old. I still remember when Sun was going around holding Java events, touting the advantages of Java, with Duke shirts, mugs, etc.
I didn't mean "Java which is legacy", rather "Java code that is legacy". I think it was also running on old versions, don't remember how old though.
"legacy Java" is legacy, but it doesn't necessarily mean that "Java is legacy"