Java Annotated Monthly — July 2019

Welcome to summer! In Europe, we had a huge heatwave in June, except, apparently, here in Seville (Spain). Looks like we donated our unwanted heat to the rest of you. You're welcome!

This month, we've got a bit of light reading for the beach. Or, you know, you could read a novel. Or try to stop the kids from drowning. Whatever works for you.

Java News

• Java 2019: The state of Developer Ecosystem in 2019 Infographic – JetBrains Java developer survey results
• Java 13 Text Blocks, Switch Update, Micronaut, Quarkus – coverage of the two interesting preview features in Java 13. Also, Quarkus is one of those things I heard of once last week and now I see it everywhere
• Towards Better Serialization – because Java’s serialization is one of the main sources of security issues
• Want to take over the Java ecosystem? All you need is a MITM! – speaking of security… Do not fear though, JetBrains has taken action.
• OpenJDK Docker Image Served Mis-Labeled Vulnerable JDK – more security, or lack of it. We don’t always know what software we’re running. Eeeek.
• Moving Jakarta Forward: Jakarta NoSQL Approved as an EE4J Project – looks like NoSQL is mature enough for a standard API
• Shenandoah GC in production: experience report – one of three new garbage collectors for the JDK
• Azul Systems Discuss Java’s Present and Future
• Java 13 Enters Feature Freeze and Rampdown
• JDK 14 Early-Access Builds – yep, Java 13 is not even out yet, so it’s time to try Java 14
• Why Continuations are Coming to Java (video with transcript) – includes information about things a certain set of developers always ask about: “delimited continuations, fibers, and tail-calls”

Java Tutorials & Tips

• Introduction to Java Programming — I’m always asked for introductory training courses. This is given by the awesome Angie Jones, feel free to forward to anyone and everyone who might need it.
• Streams in Java 8 – Part 1 – Bit misleading, it means “Input/Output” streams, not the Java 8 Streams API
• Streams in Java 8 – Part 2
• Stop Writing Code Comments – Code comments aren’t always bad, but this article does a great job of covering the “smells” of code comments
• Guide to Java Parallel Collectors Library – Usual caveat: If you’re making a choice based on performance, don’t forget to test it actually is better performance!
• The Java Platform Module System – Java 9 is old news, but of course, understanding the module system is going to be useful for making the jump to any version later than Java 8
• Reactive REST API Using Spring Boot and RxJava – This is a short tutorial that assumes a certain level of understanding, but useful if this is an area you’re getting to grips with

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries, and Technologies

• CQRS and Event Sourcing Intro For Developers – A useful overview for developers
• Distributed Locks are Dead; Long Live Distributed Locks! – Or, distributed computing is hard.
• 5 Minutes or Less: ActiveMQ with JMS Queues and Topics
• Angular 7 + Spring Boot JWT Authentication Hello World Example
• Angular 8: All You Need to Know – I blinked and Angular 8 is out. Last time I was using it, we were on 6, and getting my old Angular app to that was challenging.
• Eclipse Introduces New IDE-Agnostic Tools for Building and Deploying Cloud-Native Applications – It says “IDE-agnostic,” so I’m allowed to include it here.
• Unit Testing With @Async Calls – testing Async Spring functionality.
• Running Kotlin Tests With Gradle
• What Java skills do you need to boost your developer career in 2019? – I’m not sure I agree totally with the method or conclusion (separating JPA from Hibernate misses the overlap in skills here) but it’s still an interesting and valuable read.

Culture & Community

• The programmer as decision maker by Mark Seemann – we’re not just typists or code monkeys
• Keep Your Finger on the Pulse– I was invited to contribute to 97 Things for Java developers, so I wrote this and the following two posts:
  • Learn Your Tools to Reduce Cognitive Load – i.e. learn IntelliJ IDEA, wink wink
  • Technical Interviewing Is a Skill Worth Developing
• The Code Restorer – a nice way of thinking of software development
• It’s Time for Conferences to Stop Underpaying Women Speakers – I came across this looking for another article (which I didn’t find) about why under-represented groups find it harder to get time/expenses for attending or speaking at conferences.
• Workism Is Making Americans Miserable – Work is the new religion.
• 60 percent of male managers now say they’re uncomfortable participating in work activities with women — This is interesting.
• Mentoring – and why it’s valuable.
• 12 Tips For Tech Pros Who Are Mentoring Or Training Newcomers To Coding – “Be Humble And Patient”
• How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably – a valuable mindset.
• The Trident Model of Career Development – a useful model.
• Knowledge resides in teams – which reminded me a bit of this minibook: High-Performance Teams: The Foundations.
• The 10 commandments of navigating code reviews – another great thing from Angie Jones!

And Finally

Here's a chance to catch up on the IntelliJ IDEA and other JetBrains news that you might have missed.

If you have any interesting or useful Java/JVM news to share via Java Annotated Monthly, leave a comment or drop me a message via Twitter.