From the course: Java 8+ Essential Training: Objects and APIs

Which version of Java do you want to learn? - Java Tutorial

From the course: Java 8+ Essential Training: Objects and APIs

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Which version of Java do you want to learn?

- [Narrator] This course is one part of a two-part series that teaches how to use the programming language Java Standard Edition. You may have noticed that there are other versions of the Java Essential Training course available. The course you're watching and the other course in this series were recorded with Java 9, released in 2017. If you're not sure which of these courses is right for you, here's some information to help you decide. Let's go through recent versions of Java, starting with the earliest version that's covered by these courses. Java SE 8 was released all the way back in 2014, but as of late 2020, it was still being used by a majority of Java developers according to various surveys of the developer community. If you're using Java 8 for any kind of application, or if you want to use Java to build Android apps, then you'll want to watch the course that focuses exclusively on Java 8 with Android. That's because the SDK doesn't implement any Java features that were added after that version. But if you're working on enterprise web applications that are based on Java 8, then either that course, or this series should work for you. Java 8 and 9's syntax are mostly the same. Java 9 was the first version that supported modularity, that is the ability to package the Java runtime and only include the APIs that you need for your particular application. But while modularity was a major new feature, it didn't significantly affect the language, which is the subject of these courses. Java 9 was what Oracle calls a non-longterm-support release. Oracle support for Java 9 elapsed a couple of years ago, and Java 11 was released in September of 2018. Java 9's usage rate among developers was very low as of late 2020. So that brings us to Java 11 and more recent versions. As of late 2020, Java 11, the most recent longterm-support release, had support guaranteed by Oracle through 2026. As of this date, Java 11's popularity in the developer community is second only to Java 8. Java 11's syntax can be significantly different from earlier versions due to a new feature called type inference. This feature lets you create variables without explicit type declarations, letting the compiler figure out the types based on the variables initial values. So if you're going to be using Java 11 or any more recent version, you might want to check out this course instead of earlier versions. It was actually recorded with Java 13, but everything in the course applies to Java 11 and later. And in addition to these Essential Training courses, there are also courses covering what's new in more recent versions of Java and also a course that teaches you how to migrate when you decide to move beyond Java 8.

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