When are people going to switch to newer versions of java? I assume that people use Java 8 since its a long time support version of java, but Java 11 that also has long time support and was released in 2018 only has 7.1% usage in minecraft servers according to bStats and java 8 is used by 91.3% of servers. Are developers stuck on supporting Java 8 as we are stuck on supporting minecraft 1.8?
I use it purely due to that some downloaded plugins don't support something above it, but when I find time I plan to edit their code to support newer Java and update my servers.
Honestly, moving from Java 8 to at least Java 9 is so much better performance, at least what I noticed with my setup. Would it solve some issues people have with the latest MC versions? Unsure. I prefer to use OpenJDK 11 with OpenJS9 as this appears to work the best, have not tested JDK 13 yet, and kind of stopped following the new updates recently so perhaps even that is better. Also, FUN FACT: Minecraft client installs its own java version, Java 8 V51, which is not all that amazing. I'd recommend changing the arguments to support Java 9 or higher. I noticed the launcher takes a bit longer to load, but I've noticed less stutters in singleplayer and less memory usage overall. I've done this for my computer, laptop, and a school gaming computer and I've noticed nothing bad that happens with it.
Though do note that Forge mods don't always support versions above 8 and that versions older than 1.12.2 do not support Java 8 and above. Also, update to JDK 13 if you're going to use something above 11 anyways.
The Minecraft community just seems to really like the number 8 and doesn't like letting go of it no matter what.
EssentialsX did something related to Java 9 and broke the plugin on Java 8. https://github.com/EssentialsX/Essentials/commit/fa06cd825343ae8469cb99c0dbdf3c2d9fe4bf3c
Thing is people are updating their java version, so developers are kinda forced to make their plugins on java 8. Also, many minecraft hosting companies only have Java 8 and server owners arent able to install java 9.
so being inspired by this thread, today while switching to new host I tried to update my java from 8 to 11, at first I ran into problems of a few plugins like BuyCraftX not working, but I fixed it after googling, I needed to change some stuff in Java 11 folder. at the end there were only 1 plugin not working out of my 120 plugins: VoxelSniper and I have an idea how I can get it to work. so I'd say it's pretty safe to update now. my server is on 1.12.2 btw (I heard server owners saying that they use 1.12.2 as an excuse to not updating java to 11) EDIT: I have fixed VoxelSniper not working on Java 11, all I had to do is download javax.xml.* library and put it inside VoxelSniper jar. no decompilation or compilation, smooth.
