Java sets upper memory limits, so that shouldn't be an issue.

I was replying to the whole 8GB is enough for typical development. Java is an extremely popular language to develop in and the IDEs alone eat up 2-4GB on their own.

By default a Java app will set its max heap size to 25% of RAM (Java 11 and above). While it may not use all of that, it’s likely to. So, by default, running two Java apps on Java 11 on 8GB of RAM has the likely potential of eating 4GB RAM. Then there’s the OS needs, browser needs, etc.

Clearly 8GB isn’t enough for such a developer. I’ve had this discussion countless times with people over the past two decades. It always ends the same — with people from both sides of the discussion shaking their heads.

The only claim that I feel anyone can make, given enough experience, is that RAM needs vary. So making a claim that N amount of RAM is enough for many or most will always be patently wrong in my view.

Completely agree.

Unless your stack involves 5-10 JVM apps (with the smallest ones generally working at -Xmx512m but some expecting around 2-4 GiB), and your IDE is also a resource-hungry Java app, in which case the bare minimum is 32 GiB RAM + about 10 GiB of swap.

True, if you are trying to emulate an entire cluster of servers on your laptop you are in for a bad time.

I’ve done that! But I also have 32GB RAM in my machine :)

I want 64 GB but I will say for my current needs, 32 GB is the sweet spot. My normal daily use is around 20GB. And it is a MacBook Pro. One day I’ll probably go back to a laptop running Linux. It is the fastest for code compilation in my experience.

Using Linux on a desktop workstation, I'm normally able to get by with half the amount of RAM that my Macbook requires for the same activity. Probably because I'm not having to run MacOS and Linux at the same time to pretend that I'm not running Linux.

But it's not just memory, I find running code on MacOS generates a lot more heat causing the CPU to spike and harder to run in the first place.