Should I jump my development from Java 6 to Java 7?

[Koldo Urrutia]

Hey

I kept getting a infection from a virus that was not detected by my antivirus/antimalware system and when I used a tool to remove it, it seemed that Java was the reason. After that I decided to jump to Java 7 and for now, no problems.

I am a active developer in Java (version 6) but because of this security issue, Im thinking of jumping to version 7. Are there any important compatibility problems I should be aware of?

Thanks!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Where did you get your Java™ installation from? Have you tried reinstalling Java6? It seems odd that it should contain a virus; it may have become infected after you installed Java™.

That appears not to be a good reason to move to Java7. There are good reasond to migrate, but that isn’t one of them.

[Mohamed Sanaulla]

If at all you find using the language enhancements or other new features in Java 7 difficult to learn, I think you can continue to code without using them on a Java 7 build. But as Campbell said, you need to download the binaries from a trusted source and who can be more trusted than the source itself (Oracle's website)

[Tim Moores]

Make sure you keep the latest version of Java 6 (32, I think, at the moment for Windows), and you should be fine.

Note that using Java 7 will require you to be on the lookout for not using Java 7 specific features (because in most deployment scenarios you will be deploying to a Java 6 JVM, not a Java 7 JVM), and may also need to take special care that your class files are compatible with Java 6 (using the -source and -target switches of the Java compiler).

[Koldo Urrutia]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Where did you get your Java™ installation from? Have you tried reinstalling Java6? It seems odd that it should contain a virus; it may have become infected after you installed Java™.

That appears not to be a good reason to move to Java7. There are good reasond to migrate, but that isn’t one of them.

I always have and always will download free software from its original trusted source.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

I imagine that you already know this but we know that Java has a large amount of security issues (besides other things) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Java#Security

I had the most update version of Java on my PC and when I was told to verify my version of Java and I was directly told to update to Java 7.

[Tim Moores]

Koldo Urrutia wrote:I had the most update version of Java on my PC and when I was told to verify my version of Java and I was directly told to update to Java 7.

That's not good advice. Java 6 has had its security problems shaken out for years (which doesn't mean it doesn't have any left); Java 7 is rather new, and still has many bug fix cycles to go through.

[Rob Spoor]

Java 6 is still maintained. Java 6u32 has just been released last week (April 26th), together with Java 7u4. As said before, security should not be a reason for upgrading to Java 7. Just make sure you keep your version up-to-date.