Developers often need to perform programming operations such as retrieving the current date, manipulating dates, and formatting dates in their applications. While Java's traditional java.util.Calendar class had its day, the newer LocalDate class does more with significantly fewer lines of code. This article introduces you to LocalDate and the java.time API for using dates, times, and durations in your programs. Note: Introduced in Java 8, java.time standardizes many elements of the popular Joda-Time library. Concepts introduced here can be applied to either library but ..read more

Java 17, a Long Term Support (LTS) version of the Java language released in September 2021, has become the most-used Java LTS version, according to New Relic’s 2024 State of the Java Ecosystem report, published April 30. Java 21, an LTS version released in 2023, also is seeing higher adoption. More than 35% of applications are using Java 17 in production this year, compared to 9.1% in 2023, observability provider New Relic reported. Java 17, also known as JDK 17, has overtaken Java 11, from September 2018, as the most-used LTS version. The adoption rate of Java 21, though, was 287% higher in t ..read more

JavaScript statements control the overall flow of JavaScript programs. Statements are used to declare variables and manage iterative processes, and they can also be used to declare classes and functions. Unlike properties, methods, and events, which are inseparable from the object that owns them, statements work independently. That means you can use a statement in any context, whether you're programming a client-side or server-side application. As a language, JavaScript supports relatively few statements—just enough to construct functional applications. About the authors An earlier version of ..read more

Oracle has released JDK Mission Control (JMC) 9, an update to the tool kit for monitoring, managing, profiling, and troubleshooting Java applications that adds a dark theme and makes the frequency of JVM checks configurable. The most significant change is that JMC now must use JDK 17 or later to run. JMC 9 was unveiled on April 21. Binaries can be downloaded from oracle.com. While JMC 9 requires JDK 17 or later, it still can read Java Flight Recorder (JFR) recordings from JDK 7u40 or later. JMC and the JFR profiling and event collection framework together offer a tool chain to collect runtime ..read more

The readability, maintainability, and usability of switch statements and expressions in Java would be improved by a proposal to allow exceptions to be handled in the switch block. The current OpenJDK proposal, “Exception handling in switch (Preview),” would be part of the Standard Edition of Java, although no specific version Java SE has been designated yet as the recipient. Specifically, the proposal calls for enhancing switch so that exceptions thrown by the selector (the e in switch (e) …) can be handled in the switch block. Goals of the plan, which was created January 12 and updated April ..read more

Java would be enhanced with the ability to succinctly import all packages exported by a module, under a proposal floating in the Java community. The plan would simplify the use of modular libraries in Java. The preview language feature for Java SE (Standard Edition), called Module Import Declarations, has been filed as a JDK Enhancement Proposal (JEP) in the OpenJDK community. Goals of the plan include simplifying the reuse of modular libraries by allowing entire modules to be imported at once, avoiding the noise of multiple type-import-on-demand declarations when using diverse parts of the AP ..read more

Java services are the most-impacted by third-party vulnerabilities, according to the “State of DevSecOps 2024” report just released by cloud security provider Datadog. Released on April 17, the report found that 90% of Java services were susceptible to one or more critical or high-severity vulnerabilities introduced by a third-party library. The average for other languages was 47%. Datadog’s report analyzed tens of thousands of applications and container images and thousands of cloud environments to assess application security. Following Java in the vulnerabilities assessment were JavaScript ..read more

A change to Java’s G1 garbage collector would lower the memory and processing overhead and speed the execution of Java’s C2 optimizing JIT (just-in-time) compiler, benefiting cloud deployments, under a proposal in the Java community. The OpenJDK proposal would simplify the implementation of G1’s barriers, which record information about application memory accesses, by shifting their expansion from early in the C2 JIT's compilation pipeline to later, the proposal states. Underlying this proposal is the increasing popularity of cloud-based Java deployments, which has led to a stronger focus on re ..read more

JetBrains has added full-line code autocompletion to its family of IDEs (integrated development environments), powered by locally run AI models. Full line code complеtion is available for Java, Kotlin, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, PHP, Go, and Ruby with the 2024.1 versions of the respective IDEs. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more

Java Development Kit (JDK) 23, the next planned version of standard Java, is off and running, with two features now scheduled for the release. Due September 19, JDK 23 has just added a second preview of a class-file API, providing a standard API for parsing, generating, and transforming Java class files. This feature was previously previewed in JDK 22, which was released on March 19. Previously slotted for JDK 23 was a preview of primitive types in patterns, instanceof, and switch. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more