Not an off-by-one error: Java 16 brings 17 enhancements to Oracle's JDK. We chat to Big Red about what's new Oracle on Tuesday plans to release Oracle JDK 16, Big Red's implementation of the Java 16 specification for the Java SE platform, sporting 17 distinct enhancements. For Chad Arimura, veep of Java developer relations, it's an occasion to celebrate the programming language's enduring popularity and Oracle's steady stewardship …
Was skimming that list and, like most Java releases, it's the usual round of internal changes and syntactic sugar. Nice for Oracle, not so useful for developers.
But then I saw the Vector proposal! Yes! Now this one has potential - we do a lot of image processing in Java, and this could definitely lead to speed improvements. I investigated the HotSpot auto-vectorization a few years back, things need to be done just-so to take advantage of it. Making it explicit, with a non-vectorised fallback if the architecture doesn't support it is a great idea.
As for people "adapting to the accelerated release cadence": bollocks. We don't even test on the non-LTR releases because none of our customers use them. I'm not sure which "Java-oriented enterprises" have decided to adopt a JVM that's only supported for 6 months - the ones we deal with would take that long just to make the decision to upgrade.
I notice they added 'Records' in the latest raft of features. For when you just can't be arsed to type a class. Java is now chock full of these keystroke saving features. Aside from the fact that most half decent IDEs will literally write code for you, it's almost as if they are striving for the language to be much slimmer. But unfortunately they have too much baggage.
<I'm off to write some Go code..>
That's the only other one that developers will even notice I expect. But how long do you have to be programming in Java before you get fed up and develop your own generic Record or Tuple type class? We've been using one for years.
Like you say, it's all keystroke-saving features - syntactic sugar. I'm personally alright with a few more lines of code if it makes the intent clearer, but Oracle seem to have gone off in the other direction (exhibit A, the streams interface)
They had to do streams to appease the functional programming zealots.
Now I rather do like streams, but many people use them excessively and unnecessarily and in ways that have terrible performance. Just because you can use a stream doesn't mean you should use a stream
Totally agree there re: streams. They have their place, but sometimes people get obsessed with using them.
I once had a technical interview, where a piece of code I'd written used an enhanced for loop and it worked perfectly. However the interviewer was hell bent on using Java 8 features and asked me to convert the code segment to use a streams approach. Ok so I made it use a foreach loop. The resulting code was harder to read (IMO), and had to be hacked around to make it work.
Just because the language provides these features, doesn't mean you *have* to use them.
And yes, functional programming is the current fashion, so chaining stream methods together on one line is the popular style. Does it make code more, or less readable. And how do you debug that when it doesn't pop out the correct results?
I really hate this “key-stroke saving” syntax sugar. It always makes the code less readable.
Take the tuple. Someone was lazy to create a class with two fields. So now instead of well-names class you have to figure out what “tuple” contains in someone else’s code.
And don’t even let me start on “vat”, something unavoidable in C++ but just a tool for lazy gits in Java.
When I first programmed in Java when it was 1.0.2 on my Mac, it was very simple and straightforward - seems most syntax are there for a reason. Then there was varargs, generics, etc. which is still sane additions to the language. But under oracle stewardship, seems they are changing for the sake of changing. I think, syntax-wise, Java 8 has been the apex where even if they don't change the syntax for another 20 years it would still be fine. They should really focus on the standard library and work from there.
I started my career as a coder spending most time on the UI side - and I think the swing and javafx libraries - they need much more love than oracle gives them and it would be more purposeful if oracle work on them instead of adding syntactic sugars which makes everyone diabetic.
It is like working as a data-entry clerk with the keyboard layout changing every year with the benefits that can only be felt by the keyboard maker.
Btw, I think the changes that is really essential at Java 9+ is the module system and the native packaging of Java 16. Other coders may be attached to other parts of the Java language/library but just, slow down the pace of changing the god damn syntax - (1) the more freedom in the ways the user codes, (2) the more styles the application would be coded in and (3) the less readability of the code in the long run. The readability factor alone is justified of using Java instead of C++, in my experience, if oracle would just keep Java simple.
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