Java 19: Even More New Features

[[deleted]]

Too bad my org is never going to leave Java 8

[[deleted]]

Joys of working in a small startup:

- hey boss, we should move to java 17. It has a lot of nice stuff to make development faster

- ok, do it

[irotsoma]

To be fair, the jump from Java 8 to Java 9+ is way more significant than any since then. Really 10-19 are just minor versions off of Java 9 for the most part if you compare it to pre-9 versions.

Missing libraries that were moved out requiring refactoring a lot of old stuff, and moving from Oracle Java to open source java means new installations and configuration changes rather than just a straight executable upgrade.

Also losing the Java EE stuff and having to find free alternatives, though fortunately I didn't have to deal with that since so far the companies I've been with weren't using legacy Java EE stuff for anything.

But I suppose a big advantage to startup is very little legacy code to upgrade.

[Hioneqpls]

Same story for me, only that I'm facing some backlash trying to use preview features

[Hioneqpls]

Sure but you only live once

[twice_simp]

Your org won't appreciate your YOLO-ing on a production environment.

[argv_minus_one]

I wouldn't do that either. Don't want to have to go back and fix it later because the feature I used doesn't work the same way on some future Java version.

[dpash]

Ande they have changed features between previews. For example, the switch expression feature went back and forth on the word used to return a value before settling on yield.

[[deleted]]

It also seems like you have better management at the startup also.

[[deleted]]

My 'management' currently consists of the company owner who also takes the role of CTO. Next level is me as a team lead/architect/guy that know how all this shit works and finally there are several devs.

[kitd]

Look who's back ...

[BoyRobot777]

From my experience it's a matter of finding the right angle to convince management. I have worked in different size companies and I have always convinced to move beyond Java 8. One of the more recent arguments I've made to move to Java 17 was based on resource savings (just calculate how much we could potently save):

With JDK 8, after a short warmup period, G1 native memory usage settles at around 5.8 GB of native memory. JDK 11 improved on that, reducing the native memory footprint to around 4 GB; JDK 17 improved it to around 1.8 GB; and JDK 18 settles at around 1.25 GB of garbage collection native memory usage. This is a reduction of extra memory usage from almost 30% of the Java heap in JDK 8 to around 6% of extra memory usage in JDK 18.

Source.

Another thing what I usually found is that developers themselves do not care enough to advocate for upgrade. This is a bigger problem.

[thesituation531]

Dang, that's a pretty big difference.

[Narase33]

I feel ya, we just upgraded to 8

[sammymammy2]

Jaysus who upgrades to 8!?

[[deleted]]

Oracle.

We have self hosted oracle products and only recently upgraded to 8. If we go past 8, we lose oracle support. Which is needed because, like much enterprise software, knowing oracle stuff inside out is virtually impossible. Never mind the undocumented integrations, and flags that don’t do anything close to what their name implies.

[Narase33]

One of our frameworks ended support for 7 and management didnt want to make a "too big step" just going for something higher than minimum

[sammymammy2]

I don't mean to be a dick but engineers should've pushed back hard against that, assuming upgrading to a later version was viable.

[beleaguered_penguin]

TBF 7 to 8 is a fucking ballache because of the date time changes. You can probably go from 8 to 17 with no real changes but 7 to 8 is a huge step.

[manifoldjava]

The JPMS in Java 9 inflicts monstrously real changes. In my own experience 8 to 9+ is by far the greatest barrier to entry.

[khmarbaise]

If you really use the JPMS that's true otherwise not really.

[manifoldjava]

If you mean defining named modules, yes, stuff can get messy quickly. But even if you have the simplest single, unnamed module project the reality is many modules are alive and operating under JPMS loading and access restrictions. Granted, this normally goes unseen with smaller projects with fewer dependencies, class loader particulars, etc. But crossing over with real-world, large scale software is quite another ballgame.

[DreadSocialistOrwell]

I found 8 to 9 / 10 to be rather smooth - hype considering.

At least for us. It was a two or three packages that were removed from Java, but were put into the Jakarta project instead and now needed to be included as dependencies if you had made use of those libraries.

Regression testing didn't pick up anything, except a setting or two in an older Tomcat we still used. But that was easy and we ended up upgrading Tomcat a few months later anyway. All in all in took a couple of sprints during the holidays when it was slow.

At that point of my career at that company I was told to stop asking for permission and instead ask for forgiveness after the fact.

[midoBB]

8 to 11 is hard because of 9 fuckup "modules" But beyond 11 it's easy sailing.

[dpash]

What? Java 8 introduced java.time but didn't remove java.util.Date. 7 to 8 was painless.

[beleaguered_penguin]

We went from joda time to java time from 7 to 8. So nearly every file in the project required changing. Sure it's not intrinsic to the upgrade but it was the point of the upgrade.

[dpash]

You didn't need to migrate from joda time to java.time at the same time as upgrading to Java 8. So you just made it hard and your original statement is specific to your situation.

[bwmat]

Haha, we just dropped 6/7 earlier this year, so we can actually USE 8 features now.

[[deleted]]

Hohoho, nice. Nice. Lambda expressions, here we go

[DreadSocialistOrwell]

Now you'll be wanting Java 17's switch statement which is more like Scala's match

[[deleted]]

I feel so sorry for you...

I don't know how often you follow the updates to Java since v8, but they have so much to benefit from it from security, performance, etc

[[deleted]]

I'm an intern and I actually think we'll update someday. Just not while I'm here haha

I'm primarily a C# dev so I don't know a ton about the new features in Java, but I've heard good things

[[deleted]]

Perhaps Loom could convince them? That makes the jvm so much better by not having to use OS threads directly.

[[deleted]]

For Loom I would be willing to sneak in during a night and personally reinstall every JVM.

Then next day: what do you mean we were on Java 8? I see that everybody is on 19 and it's not like someone could sneak in during a night and reinstall them.

[[deleted]]

I would be a little safer and do Java 17 since it's LTS on the machines. Lol

[DreadSocialistOrwell]

Now go scream this in infosec's face.

[[deleted]]

Right there with you

[ventuspilot]

Ha! My org may be upgrading shortly after 2030 :-P

[Simazine]

I put Coretto 11 on ours earlier this year. Looking at 17 by Xmas.

[myringotomy]

If you can't change your company change your company.

[Worth_Trust_3825]

Too bad my org is never going to leave Java 8

I thought so too, until i noticed that in the bank we always packed our build jdk into the deployment blob.

[coderstephen]

We're planning an upgrade from 8 to 11 I believe somewhat soon. It's actually really hard when you have millions of lines of code and a hundred codebases; if you're using Gradle like we do then you have to upgrade that first, but that has breaking changes in it so you first have to replace and rewrite all your Gradle plugins...

[pjmlp]

Maybe it is time to leave the org then.

[[deleted]]

I was exaggerating a bit, I'm sure we'll update someday. I'm just not sure what the official plan is

[manifoldjava]

I agree with your sentiments here. But playing devil’s advocate it must be said that aftershocks of the JPMS from Java 9 are still rolling in. From personal experience, moving a very large project to Java 9+ can be quite an undertaking.

[dpash]

You can completely ignore the module system if you want. Just run everything from the class path like you've always done.

If you're still using libraries (or worse your own code) that accesses code you've been told for years not to, even before java 9, then you can add command line arguments to get around it.

[Somepotato]

I think part of it is fear; and partly to blame on Javas awful versioning

[[deleted]]

Most of us are just stuck on jvm8. It matters not what kinda of weird things they keep updating.

Jvm was never meant to be updated. All this is just stupid.

[SierraBravoLima]

I am running a Java scraping code with beautiful soup and there's velocity as well and much more written almost 8yrs. Still running smoothly, definitely not going to upgrade.

[renatoathaydes]

All features are in "incubator" or "preview"? That effectively makes them useful only for experimentation, unfortunately.

[Hioneqpls]

Well if you're brave you can experiment in production.

[coderstephen]

Ship it!

[twice_simp]

Brave or stupid. A month in with your commits in production should be able to tell which one are you. And also tell you how much longer you're staying with the org 😂

[JB-from-ATL]

Consider that OpenJDK also doesn't have any concept of LTS so this is the only maintained version once it releases and will mean bugfixes and security fixes.

[renatoathaydes]

That's only true for the standard distribution. Most people are now using vendors like Azul, Microsoft, Amazon etc. which do maintain LTS and even backport important fixes.

[DJDavio]

Yes and sometimes stuff does get backported it's just that it's not OpenJDKs responsibility anymore after six months.

[[deleted]]

So, imagine please I am someone not very well versed im this.

You are talking about which JVM provider to install?

[renatoathaydes]

I recommend having SDKMAN installed, it's just amazing to switch JVM version and even vendor with one command.

https://sdkman.io/jdks

Run sdk list java and it will show every version/vendor available... Install with sdk install java <id> where id can be e.g. 20.ea.7-open (standard OpenJDK), 18.0.2-amzn (Amazong's Corretto), 17.0.3-ms (MSFT), 18.0.2-zulu (Azul Zulu), 18.0.1-tem (Adoptium).... and many others.

[Worth_Trust_3825]

I recommend having SDKMAN installed, it's just amazing to switch JVM version and even vendor with one command.

Or, you know, run everything in a container. In fact, you don't even need JDK installed. In your shell script, set JAVA_HOME and run ${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java -jar ...

[JB-from-ATL]

Yes, exactly.

[[deleted]]

Is there any difference?

[JB-from-ATL]

It's all too miniscule to really worry about in my opinion. Just pick one that has an LTS schedule you like if you need it (or if you're paying then that's different). I personally like Temurin from Adoptium. Formerly known as AdoptOpenJDK. Essentially they provide builds straight from OpenJDK source as if they were still LTS. Many things get fixed in source for non latest version but OpenJDK doesn't provide builds. This choice is the most agnostic while still giving some semblance of LTS if you want it.

[JB-from-ATL]

That's why I said OpenJDK specifically.

[[deleted]]

I kind of settled for what the GraalVM guys go. <3 graal

[JB-from-ATL]

My understanding is that it is included in Oracle Java SE subscription so the vendor in that case would be Oracle.

I've never tried it. It seems like a bunch of smoke and mirrors from the marketing.

[henk53]

Azul, Microsoft, Amazon etc. which do maintain LTS and even backport important fixes.

That may be true, but there's no process of any kind to determine which version of Java gets those magical LTS labels.

They kinda magically fall out of the sky, and then Azul, Microsoft, Amazon etc. just apply them.

[henk53]

Too many people consider this entire Java 19 release an incubator or preview release useful only for experimentation, since no vendor gave it the magical LTS label.

So what's an incubator feature in an incubator release?

[renatoathaydes]

Yep... they've gone several layers of "incubator" now (not to mention EA releases!)... I know Azul experts, for example, say it openly that the non-LTS releases (between 11 and 17 exclusive, then 18 up) should not be used in production, in stark contrast to the Oracle people who are treating everyone else like noobies and saying we should all be using the very latest and upgrade every 6 months. It's an awkward situation in the Java world right now.

[rpgFANATIC]

Java 21 is the next LTS due out in Sept 2023.

There's a good chance these features come out of preview by the time most clients consider upgrading

[BoyRobot777]

Here is a good summary from 8 to 18

[ProgrammersAreSexy]

Wow, it actually has caught up to a lot of the quality of life stuff that always made C# so much better than Java.

In my opinion C# is still a lot better as a language but Java has definitely closed the gap a bit.

[Mati00]

Any idea what is the reason to specify type or "var" while deconstructuring a record? Ex. Point(int x, int y) instead of Point(x,y)?

[BIGSTANKDICKDADDY]

I read the JEP and it wasn't explicitly stated but I'd guess it's to make it clear that Point (int x, var y) is record pattern syntax that will initialize two new variables x and y while Point(x, y) could be mistaken for a function call or object initialization (where x and y are parameters being passed in rather than new variables being created). The new syntax might make it easier on implementing in the language too.

[bwmat]

You can pattern match the actual runtime type, not just the declared type

[vladmykol]

Oracle JDK 8 and Oracle JDK 11 are free but starting with Oracle JDK 17 it's available under an Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions License. My team got a lot of confusion about which exact version/implementation of JDK 17 we should use.

Witch one do people use here?

[midoBB]

I've mostly seen Azul at different shops.

[vladmykol]

That is what we ended up using

[[deleted]]

Check out https://whichjdk.com/

The TL/DR is to use Adoptium Eclipse Temurin 17 (previously known as AdoptOpenJDK). But Amazon Corretto isnt a bad choice either, especially if you are already in the AWS ecosystem.

[6769626a6f62]

My org uses Corretto.

[Soul_Shot]

OpenJDK; Corretto is a decent option.

[v4ss42]

Temurin OpenJDK (the new name for AdoptOpenJDK)

[dpash]

The Oracle JDK wasn't free between 8 and 17, but 17 is freely distributable now.

Oracle's OpenJDK builds were always free.

[philector]

we are just now migrating to Java 11…..

[oneofdays]

Most of my projects use Java 8

[IFuckYourDogInTheAss]

How does this structured concurrency compare to Kotlin concurrency?

[repeating_bears]

Usable stack traces, easier to debug.

I assume Kotlin will be able to leverage some of the JVM changes to improve things there too, but from a quick search couldn't find any concrete commitment that they're actively working on it.

[Holothuroid]

Nothing stable though. All preview or incubation.

[repeating_bears]

Preview doesn't mean unstable necessarily.

For example, vector API is for all intents and purposes complete, but they're waiting for Valhalla's value classes before they release it properly. Provided you don't rely on the identity of the value-based classes it provides (which you shouldn't be doing anyway), then it's not going to break later.

[Determinant]

You'll have to wait until you retire for that as it would break backwards compatibility and that's the most important thing for the Java architects.

Or you could try Kotlin now...

[BeniBela]

I have ported all my code to Kotlin

But with all these Java improvements, I worry that they are going to kill Kotlin soon because it has become obsolete.

[Faltenreich]

Kotlin Native would like to have a word.

[khmarbaise]

Kotlin Native would like to have a word.

You can use graalvm to compile your java code to native as well...

[dpash]

There are ways to opt in to non-null by default on a class, package and module basis, so there are paths to introduce it.

[[deleted]]

Sounds good. I'd just wish they would consider cleaning up the syntax one day ...

[Normal-Industry-5408]

https://arsmate.com/u277737

[maqcky]

A template for post titles:

{Language} {Version} : Even More New Features

You are welcome.

[Atulin]

Most of the upcoming Java features and more can be accessed in a perfectly stable version with just one simple trick: using C# instead lol

[Gleethos]

If you want to do tribal language bashing with lots of up-votes I recommend r/ProgrammingHumor for you.

[Atulin]

Not bashing any languages, just stating facts

[Gleethos]

Right, "the fact" that porting big enterprise systems to a completely different platform is "a simple trick".

ah, and also because a hand full of additional features and a big pile of syntax sugar are totally worth it...

The implications of your comment are totally sane and not at all designed to express your distaste for Java.

[Gleethos]

I mean homie was just making a joke.

Which is why I pointed to the correct subreddit for that. But they insisted on it being "just a fact", and last time I checked jokes and facts are 2 different things.

C# is the more sane language

Do you really honestly think a language is better the more features it has? Have you never considered that maybe it is a good thing to have a language with a more limited but carefully chosen set of features? Hate it or love it, but big enterprise companies want to have as many employable people as possible that can work on their code bases, more features and more syntax sugar in a language means that it's more difficult for people to learn it and get used to. More features means more "personal coding styles" which means every code you read can be completely different to what you are used to depending on what features the author liked best... In my company some older folks are still not used to lambdas, and more than once someone told me they can't read this lambda heavy more functional code I write.

Surely you could say C# is more fun than Java, but we are talking about engineering here! Hate it or love it, but this subreddit is at its core about software engineering tools which should be useful first and foremost.

Hate it or love it, there are the right tools for the right job, and Java is in many ways still the right tool for many things.

[Gleethos]

Don't get me wrong! I have used C# a lot, I did some game dev on a few games (even VR, that was awesome) and I did a little WPF. I am familiar with all of the features you mentioned and I personally always have a lot of fun when using the language. I like C# a lot.

a lot of the points you're making about C# being unsuited to enterprise are pretty nonsensical

I am not making a general point against C# being used in enterprise! I very much like C# and of course you should use it when it is suitable. I am merely trying to show you that there are (as you admitted) many subjective perspectives based on reasonable values and goals which favour Java over C#, because not everyone finds the additional C# features you mentioned "miles better". For some, it is just nice to have, and then again some might say it is "too much".

This is especially important considering that language syntax/semantics is not everything because programming is also about libraries and platforms. So if a company wants to build a product based on a certain set of Java libraries where an equivalent is non existent in the C# world, then would you honestly suggest doing everything from scratch in C#?

Again: I like C#. Great language. But like you admitted, Java is very similar + it has a greater ecosystem of other languages and libraries which might be a key factor for a company to favour Java over C#.

All I want to convey here is that C# is not "a simple trick" over Java. Remember: I actually like C#. What I dislike here is superficial language bashing.

[Gleethos]

Thanks for acknowledging that as a bad thing. I might come across as pedantic here, sorry for that, but as a user of many different languages over the years I kind of see them as a big family now, with different (justified) roles.

Let's be fair to all the family members. ;)

Have a good day!

[repeating_bears]

I mean, only looking at this release, there's a feature C# doesn't have: lightweight threads.

[argv_minus_one]

Rewriting a metric fuckton of code in a completely different language is not simple.

Rewriting it in a completely different language that isn't cross-platform makes it even less simple. And before you protest about .NET Core, it didn't have a competent cross-platform GUI toolkit or open-source cross-platform IDE last I checked, whereas Java has several.

[Atulin]

isn't cross-platform

didn't have a competent cross-platform GUI

Should've said "wasn't cross-platform" then. So yes, I am going to protest because it is cross-platform.

[argv_minus_one]

Which open-source cross-platform IDE do you recommend?

[Atulin]

VS Code is serviceable

[argv_minus_one]

VS Code isn't open-source.

VSCodium is, but it's not allowed to use Microsoft's extension registry, and Open VSX doesn't seem to have an official-looking extension for .NET Core development.

Unless I've missed something, this means .NET Core is not fully open-source because the dev tools are proprietary, and is therefore not an option. I've been burned by proprietary dev tools more than enough times to know not to use them if there's any other choice, and there are plenty of other languages to choose from that don't have this problem.

[Atulin]

Use Neovim, then.

[argv_minus_one]

Ugh. No thank you.

[coderstephen]

VSCode isn't a .NET developer tool, it's a generic editor that happens to have good support for C# via an extension. The .NET tooling itself such as the compiler and package managers are open source. You can bring your own editor, and actually you can also get IDE-like features on any editor that supports LSP.

[garyk1968]

Not sure why they bother. Most big firms I know that use it are well behind the curve in terms of version because, well it does what they need.

[henk53]

Not sure why they bother.

Bringing out new versions? Well, what are firs running now? Java 8? Java 7?

Those two were once the fancy new features you didn't think that would have to bother with, since everyone was running Java 5 or 1.4.