Java – challenges, perspectives and historical twists
We would get no sleep if we had a cup of coffee every time someone
announces the death of Java. Years go by, and it is still top of all the
popularity rankings. Enough to say that in this year’s Stack
Overflow Developer Survey[1], the biggest poll regarding programmers’ opinions.
Java is closing the top three of the most popular programming languages. However,
that doesn’t mean that it does not face challenges, perspectives and experience
historical twists.
Java 8 – what more could you ask for?
The aspect of technological development that can be observed within the context of the dynamic development of utility electronics or enormous enterprise services encourages an indiscriminate enthusiasm towards progress. It strengthens the belief that progress is natural and that it takes place almost automatically, being explicitly positive. The example of Java shows that it is not always the case. One can confirm that by talking to the majority of software houses or by reading the discussion on Stack Overflow or Reddit. Among the aforementioned challenges that Java must face is its past. Java 8 to be specific.
Currently the release schedule of Java is clear and in tune with the cycle adopted by an increasing number of the industry companies. Regarding the process of developing a major product, e.g. Microsoft and Windows 10, Canonical and Ubuntu etc. Obviously the schedule comprises of two releases a year in six-month intervals. Therefore, in the current year we’ve already had the Java 12 release. With such updates as the implementation of switch expressions (JEP 325) the new memory garbage collection algorithm (JEP 189) or microbenchmarks (JEP 320). In September Java 13 will be released including the CDS Dynamics (JEP 350) or the reimplementation of the Legacy Socket API (JEP 353).
The problem is relatively few developers express any interest in these updates. The reason is they still work on software that prevents them from discarding Java 8 released in March 2014. It was the last release before the implementation of the aforementioned schedule with six-month intervals which, simultaneously offers numerous APIs that were disregarded later on. Despite the cult of progress, Java seems to follow a completely different path – enough to say that following this year’s Qcon conference in a poll regarding the currently used release of Java, 78% of respondents claimed that it was Java 8.
Licensing changes to the rescue
It may seem that no one – particularly Oracle – knows what to do about the continued popularity of Java 8, an entity definitely too big and too important to be branded as abandonware. There’s still time to think it over – the expanded support will be provided until 2025 and AdoptOpenJDK will be updated until 2023. However, it may turn out that the leadership of Oracle regarding the development of Java and the official release schedule won’t matter to anyone, and the issue of the immortality of Java 8 will solve itself. All this is due to the licensing changes that occur this year, this in fact will allow anyone to develop their own Java in its own way, based on OpenJDK.
Such solutions are already adopted by the biggest moguls in the industry, without the services of which it is difficult to imagine the functioning of the Internet in its current shape. Therefore Amazon is developing its own Java implementation called Corretto – it is worth mentioning that here, Java 8 still prevails. However, Coretto 11 is also available and it is based, obviously on Java 11. The corporation of Jeff Bezos is not alone in such practices. Red Hat recently acquired by IBM is also working on its own Java (note that IBM is also offering its proprietary SDK) and the Chinese company- the Alibaba Group is doing the same.
So, is the pluralism based on licensing changes and OpenJDK the future of Java? Considering the interest of large IT corporations in a turn of events – it cannot be excluded.
[1] Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2019, source: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019
