Is Java 7 at least as stable as Java 6? [closed]

Question

I remember when Java 7 was initially released, there were many suggestions not to use it for anything as there were some bugs in compiler optimizations. This was apparently not merely hypothetical. I haven't followed the situation closely since then; have these issues been worked out and it is generally considered safe to use at this point?

This page from java.com makes me think perhaps it's not quite ready yet, but I don't want to read too much into it. If it is not yet safe, is it sufficient to use -XX:-UseLoopPredicate as a VM argument?

Note that I am not only referring to the specific Lucene issue but the general stability of Java 7. Is Java 7 at least as stable as Java 6?

Answer 1

From the very article you linked to:

UPDATE OCTOBER 28, 2011: As noted on Uwe’s blog, Java 7u1 is documented to include the patches to address these issues.

The article that links to says:

Last night, Oracle updated the release notes of Java 7u1 and Java 6u29, stating that they fixed the three Lucene-relevant bugs (plus another one related to that). Based on this confirmation, it's now safe to use Java 7 Update 1 (and later) with Apache Lucene and Apache Solr.

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Answer 2

The major bug that Uwe Schindler from Lucene and Solr annouced was fixed in Java7u1 (read more from him here. I believe it's safe to use Java7 now, especially given that there has also been a second update released for it that "improves reliability and performance".