Fixing version conflicts can be a very annoying process. On a computer, processes usually rely on libraries, and often on specific versions of those libraries. When new versions get released and you upgrade your system, applications that used to work may stop working. This is what became known in the late 1990s as "DLL hell". Since then, operating systems and vendors in general have become much better at limiting this type of conflict. We have containers that host all the required dependencies packaged as a neat little bundle, we have version tags for dynamic libraries, separate folder structures, and update systems that attempt to check compatibility before upgrading things. But even with all this in place, conflicts can still occur. In this post I will go over a recent issue I had to solve regarding a conflicting Java version. The software in this use case ran on a particular Amazon Linux instance and required a recent version of Java. It was running fine, and no update had
Posts about technology, DevOps, the cloud and more.