Which version of Java should I use for Clojure (performance)?

Question

In order to get the most performance, should I use the latest Java, i.e. Java 8 for Clojure 1.6 development?

Will Java 8 improves JVM performance over Java 7?

Answer 1

Java updates generally optimize and improve performance on the most common operations - allocation, synchronization, virtual calls, etc. All of those are entirely applicable to Clojure code.

Anecdotally, Java 8 seems about 10% faster than Java 7 for me on typical Clojure programs.

My general recommendation is to use the newest stable Java version for Clojure applications.