Contents
JAVAPRO
▪️ 30 Years of Java – How the Language Has Evolved
▪️ Java Through the Decades: From Applets to Microservices
▪️ Java: Let’s Do a SWOT!
▪️ Revitalizing Legacy Code
CORE JAVA
▪️ From Reactive Streams to Virtual Threads
▪️ Brain-Friendly Programming: Why the Latest Language Features Matter
▪️ Structured Concurrency
▪️ Hitchhiker’s Guide to Java Performance
▪️ Modern Java
AI
▪️ AI Tools for Jakarta EE
▪️ Securing the Future of AI: Authorization for Java RAG Systems Using LangChain4j and OpenFGA
▪️ Build AI Apps and Agents in Java: Hands-On With LangChain4j
▪️ LangChain4j Musings
FAMEWORKS & API
▪️ Adapting Java for Modern APIs: REST, GraphQL, and Event-Driven Innovation
▪️ The Long History of Log4j
▪️ A Journey Through 30 Years of API Evolution
▪️ A Passwordless Future: Passkeys for Developers
▪️ Best Practices for API Design in Java
▪️ Under the Surface: An ‘Iceberg’ Journey Through the Lesser-Known Faces of Java
▪️ 30 Years of Java, 25 Years of Enterprise Java
▪️ Policy and Process: Thinking Differently About Modern Java API Design
▪️ EclipseStore: The Evolution of Java Persistence
DATA
▪️ Java and Databases: From SQL to Hibernate and NoSQL
▪️ A Look Back at Java’s 30-Year Journey With Databases
CLOUD
▪️ Platform Engineering 101 for Java Developers
▪️ Greener Code: Sustainable Java Deployments With Native Builds and Knative Serverless on Kubernetes
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
▪️ From Silent Coder to Respected Leader
▪️ Should We Stop Discussing Technical Debt… With Top Management?
Details
Page count: 156
Authors: Pablo Bouzada, Markus Westergren, Marius Stein, Vishal Shanbhag, Grace Jansen, Maaren Veandeperre, Raphael De Lio, Brian Bodden, Franck Pachot, Deepu Sasidharan, Muuath Bin Ali, Artur Skowronski, Chiara Civardi, Steve Poole, Markus Kett, Vipin Menon, Christian Grobmeier, Mihaela Ghorghe-Roman, Nicolas Fränkel, Lize Raes, Gaurav Gupta, Ron Veen, Sebastian Hempel, Gireesh Punathil, Adam Warski, Ingo Düppe
Editorial
30 Years of Java
Looking back at the tapestry of Java‘s thirty-year history, certain threads stand out, both brilliant and perhaps, in hindsight, a little unfortunate. The initial vision of Sun Microsystems, to create a language for embedded systems, for set-top boxes, was perhaps less about the web initially and more about the general computing future. Yet, the „write once, run anywhere“ promise became the rallying cry for Java.
Graphical User Interfaces – Once a Java Domain
Java applets, though eventually fading, were undeniably instrumental in bringing dynamic content and interactivity to the early internet. The shift from the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) to Swing was a monumental leap forward. Swing provided developers with the tools to create truly first-class user interfaces, rich and platform-independent. There was a strong conviction within the Java community that complex application UIs belonged in Java, that HTML was not built for and was insufficient for the task. JavaFX should become the successor to Swing, but its arrival was too late. By then, HTML-based UIs were gaining significant traction, fueled by the rise of JavaScript. While JavaFX was technically revolutionary compared to Swing, UI development was in creasingly becoming the domain of specialized front-end teams wielding JavaScript. The dream of Java dominating the client UI failed. The competing Microsoft Silverlight and the legendary Flash have even been discontinued completely.
Java Becomes Open Source
Sun’s open-sourcing of Java under GPLv2 was a significant breakthrough, and the OpenJDK came with deciding benefits: increased community involvement and innovation, wider adoption and ecosystem growth, transparency and trust, and improved agility like the six-month release cycle.
Powerful Language Features
As Java matured, significant language enhancements arrived, such as generics in Java 5, which brought type safety and im proved the developer experience with collections. Another pivotal evolution was the introduction of lambda expressions and the Streams API in Java 8. These features embraced functional programming concepts, leading to more expressive and efficient data manipulation. Project Jigsaw, released in JDK 9, promised modularity but sparked years of debate over classpath changes, leaving many developers indifferent. Oracle’s IoT push in the 2010s, aiming to revive Java’s embedded roots, gained little traction. Java dominates on servers, not sensors.
The Mobile Disaster
The mobile revolution presented another challenge. Apple‘s refusal to allow Java on the iPhone, dealt a significant blow to JavaFX‘s aspirations in that domain as well. Later, as Android rose to prominence, JavaFX was already only a niche, and other technologies had captured the attention of mobile developers. The Java community waited for a long time, hoping vainly that Oracle would solve this problem. Some community projects, such as Gluon and JPRO, are still working on this.
From Java EE to Jakarta EE
A significant shift for the enterprise Java world was the transition from Java EE to Jakarta EE, navigated new governance and branding. The open Eclipse Foundation enabled the Java community to have independent evolution and faster innovation. The platform has been modernized to better suit cloud-native environments and integrate with newer technologies.
The Big Challenge – Java in the Cloud
The cloud revolution initially seemed to present a hurdle for Java. The perception was that other languages, like Go, with their smaller footprint and faster startup times, were the preferred choice for microservices. However, the Java ecosystem has responded with remarkable agility. The evolution from monolithic application servers to lightweight microservice frameworks and runtimes like Quarkus, Micronaut, Spring Boot, and Helidon, as well as GraalVM native images to boost start-up time, has been transformative. Microservices architecture has fundamentally changed how we build applications, introducing both incredible flexibility but also the inherent complexities of distributed systems. The rise of serverless computing with platforms like AWS Lambda also presented new paradigms for Java developers to adapt to.
Reactive programming gained popularity, promising better resource utilization and responsiveness, but its inherent complexity often proved challenging. The advent of Virtual Threads in recent Java versions offers a compelling alternative, potentially simplifying concurrency and minimizing the need for complex reactive frameworks in many scenarios.
The Greatest Transformation Ever: AI in Java
Now we are already in the middle of another profound transformation: the integration of artificial intelligence into Java. This isn‘t a peripheral trend – it feels like a fundamental shift in how we will write, test, document, modernize, and migrate Java code. AI-powered tools are already assisting developers, generating code, crafting tests, producing documentation, and aiding in the often arduous tasks of code modernization and migration.
The question on many minds is, of course, when will AI-generated code become sophisticated enough to potentially replace human developers entirely? While the near future will likely see AI as a powerful augmentation to our abilities, the long-term implications are still being written. Looking ahead, I envision a Java ecosystem even more deeply intertwined with AI. Code generation will become increasingly sophisticated, perhaps allowing developers to describe functionality at a higher level of abstraction, with AI filling in the implementation details. Testing might become largely automated, with AI generating comprehensive test suites based on code analysis and requirements. Documentation could become automated, enriched by AI insights. Code modernization and migration, often time-consuming and errorprone, will be significantly streamlined by intelligent AI tools. What is currently underestimated in AI projects, but is becoming increasingly important, is security, compliance requirements and ethical aspects.
The potential of AI is undoubtedly gigantic, and we are only at the beginning. However, the human element will remain crucial. Creativity, nuanced problem-solving, and the ability to understand and translate complex business needs into software solutions will still require human intellect. AI will be an incredibly powerful partner, but not a complete replacement, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Java – A Promise for the Future
Java‘s enduring dominance over the past three decades with 60 billion JVMs is a testament to its fundamental strengths. It represents a first-class investment for companies that rely on mission-critical applications with lifespans measured in decades. While other technologies may experience meteoric rises and subsequent fades, Java‘s vast ecosystem and large pool of million experienced developers provide stability and longevity that is invaluable. Time and again, we‘ve heard the question: Is Java still relevant in the face of new paradigms like the web, mobile, cloud, and now AI? And each time, the Java community has not only adapted but thrived, integrating new concepts and technologies while retaining its core strengths.
From Java Applets to the AI-powered tools of today, Java‘s journey has been one of constant evolution. It is a language that has not just survived but has continued to shape the technological landscape. Here‘s to the next thirty years, to the continued growth and innovation of the Java community, and to the exciting possibilities that lie ahead in this ever-evolving world of software development. The story of Java is far from over – it is just entering its next, most fascinating chapter.
As we celebrate thirty years of Java, this special edition of JAVAPRO is a tribute to that enduring spirit of innovation and adaptation. Enjoy reading this special issue, and a big thank you to all our amazing authors who made this issue possible!
