Well, 2020 has proved that making predictions is at least naive today. But when it comes to the mid or long-term investment decisions, things are getting more serious. It is also crucial for developers to plan their careers and invest time efficiently. So please welcome the most significant trends of Java that will help you stay tuned up.
Java remains among the most popular languages for web, desktop, and mobile development and embedded software. It was the only official language for Android development until 2017 when Kotlin entered the picture. Simultaneously, it is not that easy to find out what share of apps on the Google Store uses Java. For instance, hybrid applications like React Native, Cordova, PhoneGap, and Iconic have Java under the hood having the business logic of JS.
Also, it is not easy to refer to the robust statistics, but eight of the eleven most traffic-generating websites worldwide are using Java, at least for the back-end programming. That fact gives us a clear vision of its strength and popularity. Moreover, Tomcat and Elasticsearch, among the most popular web servers and search engines for enterprises, are also using Java. Meanwhile, despite being one of the favorite choices and time-tested, Java is also adopting megatrends like cloud deployment and containerization. We are delving into it step-by-step.
The trend of cloud computing emerged even before the Covid-19 pandemic, but now things are accelerating. On average, every person uses 36 cloud-based servicess every day, and 81% of all enterprises are working on their multi-cloud strategy. Per Gartner, spending on public cloud services will grow from $270 billion in 2020 to $332.3 billion this year, which is more than 23% higher.
But how Java space has already reacted to it, and what comes next? You probably have noticed the increased adoption of AWS and some other cloud services due to the rise of containerized workloads. Thus, cloud-native and Kubernetes-supporting frameworks like Micronaut, Quarks, and Spring Boot become even more popular.
Spring Boot, the leader of this domain, eliminates boilerplate configurations required to set up Spring applications. It has features like an embedded server opinionated “starter” dependencies that lead to the simplified building and configuring of the applications. Health checks, metrics, and externalized configurations come as a pleasant bonus.
Micronaut is reported to be the first platform in Java that is efficiently working in a serverless architecture. It can’t compete with Spring Boot in popularity but holds about 5k stars on GH as per writing. Though Micronaut has some features resembling the Spring, it boasts of the compile-time dependency injection mechanism. This framework builds its dependency injection data at compile-time, differing from the majority of frameworks. As a result, you can enjoy smaller memory footprints and faster application startup.
Moreover, Micronaut also boasts great support for reactive programming for clients and servers. Both RxJava and Project Reactor are supported. It also supports multiple service discovery tools like Eureka and Consul, and different distributed tracing systems like Zipkin and Jaeger.
Quarkus released by Red Hat in 2019, is holding about 8k stars on GH as of the moment of writing. Erik Costlow, Java Editor at InfoQ, pointed out that Quarkus is using the best parts of the cloud, Jakarta EE, and GraalVM. It automates container creation and has a rapid reload. Moreover, Quarkus uses its plugin ecosystem that connects to the other systems. When needed, you also can turn for detailed documentation for each plugin. It supports Kubernetes, Hibernate, OpenShift, Kafka, and Vert.x.
With Quarkus, developers can concentrate on code instead of technical work and interaction with resources. Moreover, it is built on top of the standards, so you should not learn anything new.
GraalVM and static compilation are the crucial building blocks of the going cloud. GraalVM boasts of features like ahead-of-time compilation (AOT), uses features and libraries of the most popular languages, and provides debugging, monitoring, profiling, and resource consumption optimization tools. Spring, Quarkus, Micronaut, and Helidon frameworks are integrated with GraalVM.
Java 8 and 11 are still the most usable updates at the moment. As per the JetBrains 2020 survey, 75% of the respondents are opting for Java 8, leaving another update in second place.
The newest update on the SE platform, as of the moment, JDK 16, was in March 2021, making it the latest Java trend. It boasts 17 enhancements like JVM improvements, new tools, libraries category, incubator, and preview feature to improve your productivity. The SE 15 includes improvements like:
Records to declare a class since it is added automatically: toStrings, hashCode, getters, equals methods, and constructor.
Hidden classes, usually dynamically generated at runtime, can’t be accessible by the name, and you can not link them to the other classes’ byte code.
Also, JDK 17 is likely to enter the picture in September 2021, so stay tuned.
Since Oracle does not provide Java binaries at zero cost longer than six months after release, the market is opting for non-Oracle providers like AdoptOpenJDK, Azul, and Amazon.
Java also follows megatrends like cloud computing and serverless architecture, so cloud-native supporting frameworks are gaining momentum. Micronaut, Quarks, and Spring Boot are among them, letting developers concentrate on the code instead of infrastructure. Java 8 LTS is still the most popular, but JDK 17 is likely to enter the picture in September 2021. Meanwhile, there is no trend to beat Java 8 so far.
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