Hazelcast IMDG Provides 'Near Cache' Beyond Java Clients

In-memory data grid (IMDG) specialist Hazelcast Inc. today announced the release of the latest update of its namesake product. With Hazelcast IMDG 3.9, the company continues to expand its traditional focus on Java to provide near cache capabilities to all clients, including Scala, .NET, C#, C++, Python and Node.js.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 25, 20170 comments

Java EE: What's in a Name?

The news that the Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) would be moving to the Eclipse Foundation broke about two weeks before this year's JavaOne conference, and the event, held last week in San Francisco, was buzzing with the news. The community appears to be mostly happy about this development, and hopes are high that, finally, enterprise Java will get the attention it deserves.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 10, 20170 comments

Oracle's Saab on Faster Java SE Release Cadence

Last week, Mark Reinhold, chief architect of Oracle's Java Platform Group, proposed a new, time-based release schedule for the Java SE Platform and the JDK that would provide a feature release every six months, update releases every quarter, and a long-term support release every three years. He also outlined some changes his team at Oracle plans to implement around OpenJDK. (Details here.)

After the annoucement I had a chance to talk with Georges Saab, vice president of development for Oracle's Java Platform Group and chairperson of the OpenJDK governing board, about what Reinhold proposed and what it means for the Java community.

"No one should be too surprised by this," Saab told me. "We've been talking with lots of people about a new release cadence and how that might work -- folks in the Java ecosystem, members of the [Executive Committee of the Java Community Process], people in the OpenJDK community, and just lots of developers. Many of the things we've been doing in Java SE 9 have actually laid the ground work for this change. We feel the time is right for the Java ecosystem to make this work."

Posted by John K. Waters on September 11, 20170 comments

Oracle Proposes 6-Month Release Cadence for Java

Mark Reinhold, chief architect of Oracle's Java Platform Group, says "Java needs to move forward faster" if it's going to compete effectively with other software development platforms, which are evolving at a more rapid pace. He made that rather non-controversial declaration this morning on his personal blog, but he also offered a strategy for making this happen that might stir some debate.

Posted by John K. Waters on September 6, 20170 comments

Java Popularity Slips in TIOBE Index

Java earned an "all-time low score" in the latest TIOBE Programming Community Index, along with C, and yet the two programming languages retained the top two spots, ranking first and second, respectively.

In fact, all the top 10 languages in the TIOBE index except one (Visual Basic .NET) slipped in the rankings, year to year. TIOBE researchers credit this shift to the rise in popularity of a group of leaner languages that includes Crystal (No. 32), Kotlin (No. 41), Clojure (No. 42), Hack (No. 43), and Julia (No. 46).

Posted by John K. Waters on August 7, 20170 comments

Latest Oracle CPU Sets Another Record, Addresses 32 Java-related Vulnerabilities

Oracle set another record with its latest quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU), which included 308 vulnerability fixes, 32 of which were Java-related. Released earlier this month, this CPU more than doubles the 136 fixes issued just over a year ago.

Posted by John K. Waters on July 26, 20170 comments

Jigsaw Gets Approved on Reconsideration Ballot

Did you hear that, a kind of whooshing sound coming from the Java community? It was a collective sigh of relief as word got out about the results of the Public Review Reconsideration Ballot for JSR 376, the Java Platform Module System (JPMS) specification, better known as Jigsaw. In case you missed it, the votes were 24 in favor with one abstention (Red Hat). No "no" votes this time around.

Posted by John K. Waters on July 17, 20170 comments

JDK 9 Now in Initial Release-Candidate Phase

As JDK 9 enters the Release-Candidate Phase, it's worth noting exactly what that means for this oft-delayed release. In a nutshell, the Initial Release Candidate phase, which started on June 22, is about fixing "showstopper" bugs and building momentum toward the Final Release Candidate milestone, currently scheduled for July 6.

Posted by John K. Waters on June 28, 20170 comments

Jigsaw Issues Delay Java 9 Release (Again), But EC Concerns Addressed

Although he wants to continue pushing for a June 22 Release Candidate build, Mark Reinhold has announced a Sept. 21 General Availability release for the JDK 9 project. That's eight weeks past the previously scheduled July 27 GA release, which is going to be frustrating for many in the Java community. But there is reason to hope that this will be the final delay.

Posted by John K. Waters on June 14, 20170 comments