Maintaining software may become a challenging task that requires staying up to date with ever-changing trends and outperforming your competitors. Keeping up with new frameworks and migrating to new versions of technologies helps businesses ensure the stable performance of their platforms and remain their business on track.
Together with our software development experts Dmitry Basak and Pavel Lapko, we met in the kitchen during the coffee break to discuss why it is necessary to monitor the relevance of programming languages. Let’s read the results of this meeting.
Why do you need timely updates of your software?
Vendors release updates to programming languages to add new features or solve problems connecting with compatibility, vulnerabilities in technologies, or security gaps.
A timely update to the latest technology ensures that you use the fastest version that saves you from bugs. What benefits will you get from applying new technologies or migrating to new versions of software frameworks?
- Enhanced product
New programming languages or new versions of frameworks provide enterprises with new functionality, allowing them to extend the capabilities of the platform and increase its efficiency.In addition, new technologies or updates simplify and speed up developers’ work, which makes them happier and encourages them to make more stable and faster products. It means that you get a better outcome and provide the necessary level of flexibility for digital solutions. - Better integration and compliance
Modern technologies and their recent versions comply with the new data privacy regulations and use a third-party, specialized API to access certain capabilities.It means that systems based on legacy technologies lack the capabilities to support modern APIs, requiring the creation of custom code and additional time and financial expenses. Outdated systems also require additional work with regulatory requirements to make sure they comply with new privacy and data security laws. - Improved customer satisfaction
Improvements resulting from a programming language upgrade or transition to new technology have a positive impact on the satisfaction of your end-users.
In September of this year, there was the presentation of Java 17. Let’s look at the pros and cons of migrating to new technology using this new version as an example.
What are the potential pitfalls of migrating your software to new versions of programming languages?
Of course, like any major business change, the process of switching to new technology or a new version of frameworks can bring challenges. However, proper preparation will help you make a smooth transition to a new and improved system.
Let’s take a look at the major issues associated with applying a new language version or technology, as well as a few key strategies to ensure your organization is ready for an effective migration.
- Unjustified expenses
Exposit experts assure that upgrading programming languages or switching to new frameworks is almost always worthwhile.However, before making a decision, you need to clearly understand what benefits you will receive. If the effort required for the update exceeds its benefits, it is better to decline changes. - Imperfection of updates
New languages or versions of frameworks may not be suitable for your purposes and may have some bugs. To avoid such troubles, we recommend you to take the time and wait for some patches after the release of the technology.Studying community feedback on the updates will also help you determine if you need the proposed modifications. - Gaps between language versions
Large gaps between language versions can require more effort to migrate data. Some frameworks also do not support backward compatibility, which also makes migration much more difficult.In order to minimize the risk of such problems, we advise you to monitor the relevance of technologies and not delay updates.
In September of this year, there was the presentation of Java 17. Let’s look at the pros and cons of migrating to new technology using this new version as an example.
Java 17: new features
Most of the changes are about increasing the performance of the language and the platform as a whole. Many outdated components and technologies that are no longer relevant have also been removed.
One of the main features of the new version is the termination of support for the Security Manager, which will probably freeze the migration of some applications to the latest version. It is expected that modern security technologies will be used to accomplish this task.
Our lead software engineer, Pavel Lapko, pointed out that the Security Manager is still used in many applications. That is why it will become a reason to rewrite a huge amount of code when this feature is removed from Java 18.
The ahead-of-time (AOT) and just-in-time (JIT) compiler was added to Java™ as an experiment, but it was not very popular. Therefore, it was decided to permanently remove this feature together with such modules as jdk.aot (the jaotc tool), internal.vm.compiler (the Graal compiler), and jdk.internal.vm.compiler.management (Graal MBean).
It should be noted that although Graal has been dropped from Java 17, it is still needed to implement many features, so it will continue to be developed. Graal will be included in builds for native images, such as the Liberica Native Image Kit.
Stay ready for language updates
Business and user requirements change every day, which leads to the need to improve systems. Keeping your programming languages updated or migrating to new versions of frameworks in a timely manner ensures the continuity of your business and increases user satisfaction.
Exposit always checks that our regular customers’ software is relevant and carefully ensures that their systems are updated on time and bring maximum efficiency.
If you are looking for a trusted partner to improve your system performance, our team can help you plan a successful upgrade with less risk, minimal time, and financial costs. Contact us to get more information about the possibility of updating your system.
