Java Annotated Monthly – February 2021

Trisha Gee

This month, we have quite a bit of news on Java 16, since the first release candidate build is out. We also cover the sunsetting of Bintray and JCenter, as well as including the usual mix of Java-and-related-technologies news, articles and tips.

Java News

We have our first release candidate of Java 16, so of course there’s a bunch of articles covering the features in this release.

• Interview with Brian Goetz – by Manning, includes a bit about his career/background, as well as Java-related topics. See also out JetBrains Connect Interview (video) with him.
• 21 Tech Skills Java Developers Can Learn in 2021 – a sane list here, includes (interestingly) Java EE & Jakarta EE, the death of Java EE has been highly exaggerated. Oh, and we have a video for Jakarta Persistence, if you’re interested.
• Enhanced javadoc support for code samples (snippets) – not currently scheduled for a version, but interesting
• Java on Arm processors: Understanding AArch64 vs. x86 – "The upstream Arm 32-bit and ARMv8 Java ports are ready for production use, and all of the relevant features are on par with those of x86 platforms."
• JEP 356: Enhanced Pseudo-Random Number Generators – coming in JDK 17?
• Stream.toList() and other converter methods I’ve wanted since Java 2 – coming in JDK 16. Also some concerns on the naming of the method
• Java 16: What’s new? – also in French
• JDK 16: The new features in Java 16
• IntelliJ IDEA 2021.1 EAP 1 Supports Java 16

First JDK 16 Release Candidate: https://t.co/SCeksR6bJ0; downloads: https://t.co/Uvh12FvDc1 #jdk16 #java16 #openjdk #java #testItNow

— Mark Reinhold (@mreinhold) February 4, 2021

Java Tutorials & Tips

• Closing Java Streams with AutoCloseable – using Streams with try-with-resources, for example for I/O
• Going inside Java’s Project Loom and virtual threads – an early look at Loom (lightweight threads on the JVM), including some examples and tips
• Creating JavaFX Applications – my experience report creating and upgrading a bunch of JavaFX applications
• Java basics – the Java environment, object references and primitives, class structure, garbage collector – useful if you are studying for the certification
• The Future of Java: Will You Have to Pay For It? (video) – an interview with me and Daniel Bryant from 2019 that just got published! But the topics are still relevant.

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries and Technologies

• Generating Code with IntelliJ IDEA – tips for different types of code generation, from my colleague Helen
• Continuous Delivery Pipelines – this is a (paid) LeanPub book, I normally don’t include links to paid content, but this is from Dave Farley, the author of Continuous Delivery, and the book contains a step by step guide on how to create a deployment pipeline, which I know is something lots of organisations are interested in doing
• The Top 12 IntelliJ Plugins for 2021 – includes Key Promoter X, my favourite plugin for forcing you to use keyboard shortcuts
• Secure Code Warrior – includes a look at IntelliJ IDEA inspections and how they can help code quality
• Open Sourcing the Netflix Domain Graph Service Framework: GraphQL for Spring Boot
• Full Stack Java development with Spring Boot and VueJS – walkthrough
• Spring Time in Kotlin. Episode 1: Getting Started (video) – Anton builds a Spring REST service with H2 database in Kotlin.
• Deploying server-side Kotlin Ktor applications on Dokku – a tutorial
• Kotlin Standard Library Safari: Strings – "In this series, we’re going through the useful functionality the standard library in Kotlin has to offer"
• Spring Boot with Kotlin & JUnit 5 – Part 1 – Introduction (video) – this first part is just about creating the skeleton of the app, but there are 15 videos on the playlist
• Nested tests with JUnit5 – I love nested tests in JUnit 5, they allow us to structure our tests in a really helpful way. This example is Kotlin, I’ve covered the same feature in Java in this video
• Tutorial: Spock Part 1 – Getting started – I wrote a 5 part tutorial on getting started with Spock, based on the tutorial video
• Into the Sunset on May 1st: Bintray, JCenter, GoCenter, and ChartCenter – important! If you’re using JCentre (or any of the other repos mentioned in this post) either as a repository to get libraries from, or as the place where you publish your artifacts, you need to have a migration plan in place.
• JFrog to shut down JCenter and Bintray – including tips on what to do
• Tweet thread with some tips for deploying to Maven Central:

If you’re freaking out because of the Bintray / jcenter announcement and need to get your Java components into Maven Central, don’t worry, we’ve got you. Here are a few things to know:

— Brian Fox (@Brian_Fox) February 4, 2021

Conferences and Events

• IntelliJ IDEA Conf is this month! Register now

✨Let’s celebrate IntelliJ IDEA’s 20th anniversary together!

🗓️Join us for #IntelliJIDEAConf, a free virtual event February 25–26, 2021!

🎙️Learn more about IntelliJ IDEA from our experts and discover secrets of the IDE from the creators themselves.https://t.co/Aa3eh2txHj pic.twitter.com/vUDqtCdvZW

— JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA (@intellijidea) January 18, 2021

Culture & Community

• How to Start Contributing to Open Source – nice step by step guide from someone’s experience contributing to open source
• My coworker hijacks our meetings with endless questions — Ask a Manager – I’m sure we’ve all been there
• Why you shouldn’t work from bed (and a guide to doing it anyway)
• The office as we know it is over—and that’s a good thing – not sure I agree with the conclusions but it’s an interesting topic to consider
• The Real Reason Women Quit Tech (and How to Address It) – "Researchers at Deutsche Bank hypothesized that women… were leaving the firm to work for competitors because they were seeking greater work/life balance. However… women were leaving because they were being offered higher ranking jobs by competitors." Interesting article with stats, links, and action points
• Brain activity while coding differs from processing language or doing maths – Quite Interesting

And Finally

A round up of blog posts and videos from IntelliJ IDEA and JetBrains. January was a busy month, and there’s a lot here!

• IntelliJ IDEA 2021.1 EAP out now!
• What Developers Say About IntelliJ IDEA. Angie Jones (video) – we’ve started a new video series of interviews with awesome people in the community, take a look
• How IntelliJ IDEA is built – CI From The Trenches #2 (video)
• Run Targets – includes running via Docker
• Tips and Tricks for the Project Tool Window
• Live Stream Summary: JavaFX, the Cross-platform UI Development in Java – and we have a quick guide to Getting Started with IntelliJ IDEA and JavaFX
• Join us for this month’s Live Streams:
  • Live Stream: Using Maven in IntelliJ IDEA – which reminds me, we just published a new video for Working with Gradle in IntelliJ IDEA
  • Going Reactive With Spring WebFlux, Kotlin Coroutines, and RSocket
• IntelliJ IDEA Turns 20! – yes! Twenty years old. That page has a nostalgic look back at the UI over the years, and you can register for IntelliJ IDEA Conf, our online event packed full of inside information on the evolution of IntelliJ IDEA.
• JetBrains 2020/21 Annual Highlights – I always find this fun to skim, but then I do work here.

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.

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