Oracle's GraalVM team has announced the release of GraalVM for JDK 24, introducing a range of new features aimed at boosting performance and improving efficiency for developers using Java. As with previous updates, GraalVM is launched alongside the Java 24 release, providing users with a seamless integration of the advanced Java Development Kit (JDK) and GraalVM's capabilities.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on March 26, 20250 comments
JavaOne is back, baby! And by that, I mean, back in the Bay Area. It was part of a little trade show diaspora that saw Oracle OpenWorld, among others, decamping to Las Vegas, but it returned this week as a stand-alone event to what is sure to be a packed conference facility at Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores.
For a language that’s been around since the dawn of the dot-com boom, Java is evolving faster than ever. The release of Java 24 isn’t just another notch in the six-month update cadence; it’s a statement of intent—a move toward an AI-ready future, stronger security against quantum threats, and a development experience built for the modern world.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on March 18, 20250 comments
If you haven't seen the latest Java developer productivity report from Perforce, you should check it out. Written by Perforce CTO Rod Cope and developer tools exec Jeff Michael, the "2025 Java Developer Productivity Report " reveals a landscape undergoing significant shifts, particularly in hiring trends, tooling budgets, and the adoption of new Java versions. Although enterprises continue to prioritize Java for their mission-critical applications, the report's authors found, economic headwinds and the complexities of modern development environments are pushing teams to do more with less.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on March 4, 20250 comments
I've been thinking about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto of Senate Bill 1047 (SB 1047), the proposed regulation aimed at safeguarding against the misuse of artificial intelligence. I was surprised by the veto, because of its popularity in the legislature, but I probably shouldn't have been. Newsom has long positioned himself as a champion of innovation and economic growth, especially in California’s tech sector. And he has historically favored policies that foster innovation and economic competitiveness over early-stage regulatory interventions.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on October 9, 20240 comments
Oracle announced the general availability of JDK 23 this week, a feature release with enhanced capabilities focused on cloud-native applications, enterprise performance, and the growing demands of AI.
Available now, this release of the Java dev kit includes 12 new JDK enhancement proposals (JEPs), as well as thousands of smaller performance, stability, and security updates. It builds on its predecessors, of course, with updates in areas such as concurrency, memory management, and language simplicity, ensuring that Java—which just passed the three-decade mark—remains one of the most popular and widely-used programming languages in the world.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on September 18, 20240 comments
Open-source Java platform provider Azul just announced the winners of its first-ever Azul Java Hero Awards, which recognizes exceptional achievements in Java deployments worldwide. The company named 17 organizations and individuals who "who achieved innovative world-class results with Java to help their businesses become more cost-effective, successful and efficient."
More
Posted by John K. Waters on September 3, 20240 comments
Low-code/no-code AI platform provider Sway AI announced this week the integration of its namesake offering with Microsoft Azure, giving Azure customers a unique way to build and deploy secure AI and machine learning (ML) applications directly within the Azure ecosystem.
Sway AI is a fascinating application of low-code/no-code (LCNC) development. It's not a traditional development environment used for writing and managing code. Instead, it serves as a dev platform specifically for creating AI-driven solutions. It's not about coding, debugging, or version control, but developing AI models, performing data analysis, and deploying AI applications. Users can develop AI models by selecting pre-built algorithms, configuring them, and training them on their data, all without writing code.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on August 20, 20240 comments
It has been said that coding can sometimes feel like trying to explain quantum physics to a cat. If any dev tool maker understands this, it's JetBrains, which is no doubt why they’ve supercharged their AI Assistant in the 2024.2 updates for their suite of IDEs. The latest version introduces advanced and faster code completion for Java, Kotlin, and Python, alongside a smarter AI chat powered by GPT-4o.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on August 6, 20240 comments
I read a lot of industry reports based on surveys of one group or another, mostly developers, but it's not often I lay my eyes on one that makes me laugh and shudder at the same time.
The report, "Know the Enemy: What Execs Need to Understand to Secure their Software Supply Chain," was sent to me by the folks at JFrog, best known for Artifactory, a universal DevOps solution for hosting, managing, and distributing binaries and artifacts, but currently billed more expansively as a universal software supply chain platform for DevOps, Security, and MLOps. The report organizes the findings of a global survey of C-level and senior executives, managers, and individual contributors (analysts, specialists, developers, programmers, engineers, etc.) conducted by Atomik Research on behalf of the company.
More
Posted by John K. Waters on July 24, 20240 comments