Mythbusters: 5 Myths About How Java Is Getting Better

Java was originally design for interactive television, but it was too advanced of technology for the cable television industry at the time. The history of Java starts with a team called Green Team, who initiated this project to develop a language for digital devices, such as set-top boxes, televisions, etc. However, it was suited for Internet programming. Later, Java incorporated by Netscape.

The main reasons for creating Java were simple: we needed a language that was robust, portable, platform-independent, secure, high-performance, multithreaded, architecture-neutral, object-oriented, interpreted, and dynamic.

In this fast, competitive world where Java programming development has reached the next level, Java has evolved over the years. With the emergence of AI and ML, Java has shifted its focus towards security, secure transactions, and becoming an authentic tool for enterprise networks.

Is Java Changing?

Many things changed in the Java ecosystem last year. Oracle's stewarding has delivered the focus on the ongoing completeness of the platform and made the Oracle code one Maran Reinhold's main note clear that Java has been turned on and free.

Oracle principal architect of the Java Platform, Mark Rainhahle, assured the faithful that Java is better than ever before, with the full community of active and commercial and open-source JDK (Java Development Kits). Mark Reinhold said, "Don't worry - Java is still free."

A letter to Java from Matthew McCullough, vice president of field services, proves that the maxim “when web companies grow up, they become Java shops,” Reinhold took to the stage for a demo of its new features.

Three Biggest Changes of the Year

Reinhold said that we are splitting the 23-year-old platform into 26 standard modules. To help developers move their platform faster in areas that are relevant to Java developers, Corba and Java Enterprise Edition (EE) modules that were part of the Java Standard Edition removed. Finally, Reinhold breaks his silence and explains how the replacement of the multi-year release model with a rapid six-month cadence announced last year benefits Java developers.

If participation is a measure of health, then JDK 11 is thriving. Reinhold said, “JDK 11 has had the most outside contributions of any release we’ve seen.”

Five Myths About Java

Mark Reinhold addressed the top five misconceptions (otherwise known as fear, uncertainty, and doubt, or FUD) about the new Java release model:

1. Feature releases will be disruptive for past releases - not true. Mark Reinhold said, "The rate of innovation has not changed, the rate of innovation distribution is changing."
2. For removing an old feature, it must be deprecated three years in advance. “Not true, for removing a deprecated feature, it requires a production-ready build that issues a suitable warning at either compile-time or runtime because a working build, after all, is the ultimate release method.”  
3. Your support will end for any non-LTS release after six months and not more than three years for the LTS release. "That's not true; it depends on what the non-Oracle members of the JDK community decide to do. Oracle has a proven track record and is already discussing how best to support JDK 8 and JDK 11 for the long haul.”  
4. Non-long-term-support releases are just another name for a beta. “No, the only difference with an LTS release is that it has a longer support timeline,” Reinhold said, “You can still use a non-LTS release in production if you like, but you’ll have to update it in six months or find someone to support it or support it yourself.”
5. If you maintain an infrequent migrated system, you can ignore non-LTS releases, " Reinhold claims this is also not true, claiming, "if you test with each feature release, then you are ready to migrate to the next long-term support release.”  

What do you think about the new release cycle? Let us know in the comments below!