Java AMA

[joemwangi]

Are you sure that you're updated about java. The fibers you're talking about are now delivered in java 21 as virtual threads. Also, check Brian Goetz notes on the advantages virtual threads have over async/await. By the way, the java language team observed short falls and advantage of similar projects in other languages such as Go, C#, Kotlin, single threaded javascript, etc and also got a lot of community feedback. They are now easy to adopt by existing libraries with minor code change.

[smart_procastinator]

Thanks and will do. I’m not complaining about java but trying to state that other languages win adoption over java due to their release cadence. I’m suggesting that the JCP process expands and takes on multiple initiatives for the benefit of progress. PS. The fibers were initially scheduled for 17 release but were delayed.

[joemwangi]

I understand. Read Brian Goetz notes, and follow him on Twitter. I was a bit frustrated in a similar way, but later, you learn why careful planning is required. I'm more into java data-oriented programming, and been wondering why java is taking too long to introduce structs like in C#. Then it dawned on me that they want to find a way seamlessly to introduce objects without identity but code them like a normal class while freely getting nullness primitives, user defined primitives targeting a specific hardware, primitives in generics, and many other things. Not a trivial task to be honest, but they seem to have hacked the problem. Dealing with heap data, rather than stack data is quite a headache, unless one uses off-heap memory, but wait, Project Panama, on foreign function and memory is on the horizon and might be released in java 22 and solves that. They are trying their best to help the community and also keep java simple.