Top 5 Java trends in 2021
As we are approach the end of the year, it’s time to make predictions about the technology that will be prevalent in the coming 12 months. Regardless of whether you are an expert or just beginning your journey, knowing these Top 5 Java trends will help you to thrive in the competitive world of software development helping you to achieve your business objectives.
Top 5 Java trends
1. Java releases
According to a survey conducted by JetBrains, despite its age, Java 8 is still the most popular version (75 % of respondents), whereas Java 11 occupies the second place (32% of respondents). Is this trending going to last in 2021?
So far, nothing indicates any major changes. It’s worth noting that Java SE 15 is the latest release which comes with a list of upgrades. As another non-LTS release SE 15 will have support for another six months.
- Text blocks. Text blocks arrived final and permanent functionality of the language. A preview version appeared in issue 13, then after suggestions from developers, new escape sequences were added to the second preview of version 14.
- Records (Second Preview). Thanks to records we can very concisely declare a class to which will be automatically added: constructor, getters, equals methods, hashCode and toString.
- Hidden Classes. These classes are generated dynamically at runtime and cannot be directly linked to the byte code of other classes. Such classes will not be accessible by name and will be aggressively kicked from memory.
Bear in mind that JDK 16 is currently under development and is planned for release in March 2021.
2. Spring
Spring by far is the most popular Java framework, and is used almost everywhere – from streaming platforms to online shopping. It is designed to create a backend for Java applications to the Java Enterprise Edition platform.
The framework is based on the function called the dependency injection (a part of the inversion of control). It is the perfect solution for building business applications in Java: microservices, complex data processing systems, cloud applications, or fast, safe and responsive web applications.
Due to the fact Spring is lightweight and relatively easy to implement, we expect its popularity to be even stronger in 2021. If you are looking to develop your skillset in the coming year, Spring would be a great bet.
3. Serverless architecture
Another ongoing trend which is going to be even more prevalent in 2021 is the migration to serverless architecture. But what does Serverless mean? It is a cloud service model where the developer focuses solely on coding, not infrastructure. The term serverless architecture may be misleading, implying that there are no servers. Of course, the solution is built on servers.
In this scenario, the programmer using serverless architecture does not have to deal with setting up machines, updating operating systems, network configuration, or scaling the application. These tasks belong to the provider of the serverless service, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google. Each of the large public cloud providers offers services that can be called serverless.
Why is it going to gain ground in 2021? There are many advantages over microservices, including reduction of operating costs, greater flexibility and dynamics of the software development process, and thus faster value delivery in the form of new system functionalities.
4. Big Data
There is no doubt that Java is the most popular language used for developing big data projects. Bearing in mind the pace of its growth, we can easily predict it will dominate the technology in future too. If considering a career in this subset of data science it is worth to familiarising yourself with the most popular tools for Java implementation in big data.
- Xplenty is a cloud-based, easy-to-use data integration service that helps you move, process, and transform more data faster, reducing set-up time so businesses can unlock data quickly.
- Apache Hadoop is an open-source framework for distributed computing and big data cluster analysis. The Hadoop ecosystem includes related software and tools, including Apache Hive, Apache HBase, Spark, Kafka, and more.
- Cassandra (Apache Cassandra) is an open-source (NoSQL solution) distributed data management system. It was designed to handle large amounts of distributed data across multiple servers, which will continue to function even if one of the servers fails.
5. Integration testing
Unit tests focus on units of code, usually individual methods or lines of code. They only check local execution of methods, and it is not recommended for external and remote resources.
On the other hand, integration testing is a type of test in which the software operation is checked in the context of interactions between modules to confirm it is working correctly. This method is still a little underappreciated, but due to the possibility of conducting integration tests (Testcontainers or JUnit 5) using database containers, queues, etc., it will gain in popularity during 2021.
