A little over a year ago, in April 2019, the way most Java users accessed updates for the JDK changed. The reason for this was a combination of changes made by Oracle to how the JDK is developed and the licensing terms of the Oracle JDK.
The Oracle JDK 11 and Oracle JDK 8 (from update 211) now use the Oracle Technology Network License Agreement. This limits free use to only four cases:
Staring Into My Java Crystal Ball 2020
Happy New Year! As we enter the new decade, I decided it was time to write my now annual blog post giving my thoughts on what this year might hold for Java. I'll also look back on my predictions in the last post to see how accurate (or not) I was.
Obviously, the most significant thing this year will be the celebration of a whole quarter of a century since Java was launched. I plan to write a lengthy missive about the last 25 years of Java closer to the time.
OpenJDK: More Speed, Less Haste
It's now over two years since the release of JDK 9, and with it, the switch to a time-based rather than feature-based release schedule. It seems incredible that it took very nearly eleven years to get from JDK 6 to JDK 9, yet in just over two years, we've gone from JDK 9 to JDK 13.
Each release under this new strategy provides a smaller set of features than we had in the old major release approach. What we're seeing, though, is the overall rate of change is faster than it's ever been, which is a significant advantage for keeping Java vibrant and attractive to developers.
No Longer the Applet of the Developer’s Eye
I recently noticed that applets are now, to use a Monty Python analogy, the Norwegian Blue of client-side development.
If you go all the way back to when Java was being developed, it was an applet that caught everyone's attention.
Love It or Hate It, Java Continues to Evolve
TechRepublic recently published an article about languages that developers love and those that they hate. This produced an interesting set of results since Java was the third most loved language as well as the second most hated. Clearly, Java, as a language, polarizes opinion. When I tweeted about this, I got one reply from Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++:
“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.”
I think he has a point.
39 New Features (and APIs) in JDK 12
I’ve written several blog posts that list out all the changes for each of the most recent releases of Java (JDK 10, JDK 11). With JDK 12 just having been released, it seemed the obvious thing to produce another blog in this series. However, I’ll be looking at the flip side of this latter, focusing on some of the pitfalls that might cause problems, should you want to migrate an application to use this version.
We are now well into the new six-month release cadence and everything is working smoothly. I represent Azul on the Java SE JSR Expert Group, and we decided to switch this version to the revised JSR process. This is not radically different; it's more of a streamlining of the process to fit into the available time more easily.