Survey Surfaces Massive Amount of Java Technical Debt

"A global survey of 2,039 Java developers published today finds 63% reporting that dead and unused code adversely affects their team's productivity, with 22% describing the impact of that technical debt as being severe. Conducted by Dimensional Research on behalf of Azul, a provider of a distribution of OpenJDK, the survey also finds that more than half (56%) now deal with a Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) involving Java on a daily or weekly basis."

"Despite these issues, however, nearly every respondent (99%) is using Java, with 64% reporting that more than half of their applications or workloads are built with Java or run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). A total of 62% work for organizations that now use Java to code artificial intelligence (AI) functionality, with 31% reporting that more than half of the Java applications they build now have AI functions."

"The top capabilities developers said will be important for Java to remain competitive in an AI-enabled development landscape include long-term support for modern Java versions (35%), built-in security features (34%), observability insights (32%), support for large data access (30%), and integration with large language models (30%), the survey finds. Simon Ritter, deputy CTO for Azul, said the survey makes it clear that developers are still committed to Java even in the age of AI. Application developers, despite any ongoing issues and concerns, remain committed to Java, he added."

2,039 Java developers report 63% say dead and unused code adversely affects team productivity, with 22% calling that technical debt severe. Fifty-six percent encounter Java CVEs daily or weekly, and 30% spend more than half their time investigating vulnerabilities that turn out to be false positives. Nearly all respondents (99%) use Java, and 64% say more than half of their applications or workloads are built with Java or run on a JVM. Sixty-two percent work for organizations using Java to code AI, and 31% say over half of their Java applications include AI functions. Developers prioritize long-term support, built-in security, observability, large data access, and integration with large language models. Ninety-two percent express concern about Oracle's employee-based pricing, and 81% have migrated, are migrating, or plan to migrate at least part of their Oracle Java to non-Oracle OpenJDK distributions.

Read at DevOps.com