As a Java developer who spent years working with Java 8, I was comfortable with the stability and functionality it provided — lambda expressions, Streams and the java.time API felt like revolutionary improvements when they first arrived. But like many others, I stuck with Java 8 for years, not seeing the need to move on. That was, until I had the chance to work with Java 17 and eventually Java 21. In this post, I reflect on the features that truly changed the way I code and why it’s worth upgrading from Java 8 to Java 21.
Why I Stuck With Java 8 for So Long
I stuck with Java 8 for a long time because it just worked. It was stable, widely adopted and most importantly, it met the needs of enterprise projects. Newer versions came out, but transitioning wasn’t always worth the effort — until my personal project pushed me to try something different. As I joined a team using Java 17+ and started working with Java 21 in real-world projects, I began to see just how much had changed.