Java Annotated Monthly – March 2019

Trisha Gee

How did we get to March already? Where is 2019 going?? This month’s Java Annotated Monthly has a nice wide range of Java news, tutorials and tips, along with a bunch of articles on related (and not-so-related) technologies. And since today is International Women’s Day, you’ll find there’s a #IWDay2019 theme.

Java News

Guess what? Java’s dead again! Oh wait, no it’s not. And Oracle and Google are still fighting? What year is it?

• HackerRank: JavaScript overtakes Java as most popular programming language – oh no, my world is over? (note: sarcasm).
• 3 emerging trends tech leaders should watch – Java still doing well. Phew.
• Oracle v. Google and the future of software development – this is still going on??
• Java is Still Free 2.0.1 – the Java is Still Free document (which I am a signatory of) has been updated to include all recent news.
• Enhanced-For Statement Should Allow Streams – an interesting proposal that might add a nice readable way to work with Streams
• Data Classes for Java – this outline of possibilities for Java has been updated.
• Devnexus 2019 live blog index – I love Jeanne’s live blogging, it gives me a real sense of what it’s like to be at the conference talks

Java Tutorials & Tips

This month we have a mix of really deep dive stuff, stuff-you-just-need-to-learn-for-interviews, interesting things you may not have known that might help you, and some solid how-tos.

• Threading Questions in Job Interviews (2/2) – I really hate these types of interview questions because they test your memory and not your ability to program. But go ahead and learn them anyway, you can prove your programming ability when you get the job
• A Bird’s-Eye View on Java Concurrency Frameworks – with actual performance test results
• Beware of computation in static initializer – because apparently it’s very very slow.
• Null is your friend, not a mistake – but use it wisely
• Dealing with absence of value – a follow up
• Multi-Release Jar Files – these are super useful for library developers, for example JUnit 5 ships one jar that works on all Java versions.
• Improve Java Code Coverage and Quality with Unit Tests and JaCoCo – this is a nice real world example of how to use various code metrics to improve your application code
• JVM Anatomy Quark #23: Compressed References – another nice deep dive on what’s going on under the covers inside the JVM
• Building Self-Contained, Installable Java Applications With JEP 343: Packaging Tool – we covered jpackage last month, I think this tool is going to be very useful
• Lost in the Source: Let’s Get Lost in Types – a good reminder to those of us who work with Java all the time that what makes sense to us about a language may be habit and familiarity, and doesn’t meet everyone’s expectations

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries and Technologies

Today’s developers aren’t just an expert in one language. We need to be familiar with a wide range of tools to do our day job, and we need to be aware of infinitely more.

• Enterprise Systems Built with Microservices are Designed to Expect Failures, but Then What? How Do We Handle Failures? (video) – failure is a first class citizen that needs to be considered
• Five Benefits of DevOps for Database and How to Achieve Them – DevOps only gives real benefits if it’s applied end-to-end
• 51% Attack Proves Blockchain Is ‘Unhackable’ The Way The Titanic Was ‘Unsinkable’ – a “perfect” technical solution found to have flaws? I don’t believe it…
• Mu-RPC: defining messages and services – a Scala article, but I like the way it talks about different types of client/server communication
• Using Case Classes to Structure Your Data – given the link above about Data Classes for Java, it’s interesting and useful to understand similar structures in other JVM languages to see what they give us
• Jakarta EE Developer Survey 2019 – “Your input will help Java ecosystem stakeholders better understand the requirements, priorities, and perceptions of enterprise developer communities.”

Culture & Community

It’s International Women’s Day today.  Regular readers should know that I do make a conscious effort every month to search out and feature women’s voices and the voices of other under-represented groups, and also to actively challenge stereotypes perpetuated in many articles (e.g. I take a very dim view of authors who assume that a developer is a “he”). This month I have looked beyond “traditional” sources to include a wider range of topics and voices. I learnt something new from every one of these articles.

• Moving Past Tutorials: a course on problem solving for programmers – I love this idea!
• Want to master a programming language and become a 10x developer? – A clickbait title for a discussion about pair programming based on something I said during a presentation on Career Advice. Yes, I’m including it because it features me.
• Why You NEED To Be On Twitter If You Identify As Part of the #womenintech Movement – on a related topic, you should follow some or all of the amazing women in tech in this list.
• Also related, I dug up an old series of interviews with awesome women in Java: Coleen Phillimore, Angelika Langer, Agnes Crepet, Fabiane Bizinella Nardon
• My Journey to Keynote @ DroidconSF – you might not think you can present at a conference, let alone give the keynote, but I promise you can! I address some common doubts on this topic in an old blog post. I also really like this sketch on How to Prepare a Conference Talk.
• Trust and Integrity – I wonder how this overlaps with Psychological Safety?
• Why not to say “it’s easy”; 8 interpretations – always be aware that one person’s easy/simple is not the same as another’s.
• The one who writes articles as she learns – this article looks at how learning and writing can help you develop your career
• ‘I felt so alone’: What women at Microsoft face, and why many leave – a case study, but of course Microsoft is far from the only company that experiences these issues.
• Gender equality is not a ‘women’s issue’ – it’s good for men too – it’s not a zero sum game
• Gender data gap and a world built for men – Science Weekly podcast
• Five innovations that have advanced women’s rights – some of them will surprise you
• 25 places where women are in charge – “surprisingly” Silicon Valley is not in this list…
• Is your workplace as diverse as you think it is? – “I don’t see a problem where I work” is often not a true reflection of the way everyone sees it
• 15 unsung women in tech you should know about – some of these people you will be familiar with, but there are many women behind the technologies we use that we have never heard of
• The mentors and the role they play in Silicon Valley – not all the big names are men
• 4 Reasons Your Remote Team Needs Extra Empathy At Work – it’s hard working where you can’t see people most of the time
• 5 Ways To Process Feedback At Work Without Triggering A Stress Response – I leave this as the last piece relating to International Women’s Day, I believe we can all learn from listening to the things other people are trying to tell us.

So today I found about the super dope scientist that was Mileva Marić (Einstein’s first wife). Let her name be remembered because sis went through the most to just to study physics .
She was one of the first women to sit in an all male physics lecture🙆 #InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/bYgcZkHqOE

— Thank You 💖😭 (@la_tranquilita) March 8, 2019

And Finally

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

• As you’d expect, IntelliJ IDEA already supports Java 12
• IntelliJ IDEA 2019.1 hits Beta

There is no better day for us to let you know the results of #IJ18Bday. The love goes to Refactoring, Code completion, Search Everywhere, VCS support, and Spring integration. Thanks for taking part! #happyvalentines

— IntelliJ IDEA (@intellijidea) February 14, 2019

— IntelliJ IDEA (@intellijidea) January 31, 2019

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.  If you know of a woman who’s work I should be including in Annotated monthly I really want to know about her.

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