Now is the best time to learn Java — Transcript

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1. 0:00Really big news for the lucky few of us
2. 0:02who are still employed as software
3. 0:03developers in 2026. Java 27 was just
4. 0:07released and this is a really big one.
5. 0:09It comes with nine JDK enhancement
6. 0:11proposals including major runtime
7. 0:13improvements, postquantum security,
8. 0:15better pattern matching, and another
9. 0:17collection of preview features that may
10. 0:19eventually become permanent sometimes in
11. 0:21the 2030s. And what's really exciting is
12. 0:24that the most important change is one
13. 0:26that requires absolutely no changes to
14. 0:27your code. Compact object headers are
15. 0:30now enabled by default. For context, on
16. 0:32a 64-bit JVM, every Java object needs a
17. 0:35header containing internal information
18. 0:37such as its class and synchronization
19. 0:39state. And Java 27 reduces this header
20. 0:42from 96 bits to 64 bits or from 12 bytes
21. 0:45to 8 bytes. Sure, four bytes might sound
22. 0:47irrelevant, but that's because you are
23. 0:49not familiar with the monstrosity of
24. 0:50object-oriented programming in Java.
25. 0:52It's safe to assume that a large Java
26. 0:54application can create millions of
27. 0:56objects all through thoughtfully
28. 0:58engineered factories, abstract
29. 0:59factories, and factories of factories.
30. 1:02So, smaller headers can reduce heap
31. 1:03usage, improve cache locality, and allow
32. 1:06more application instances to run on the
33. 1:08same hardware. Of course, the exact
34. 1:10savings depend on the objects and their
35. 1:11alignment, so you won't save too much on
36. 1:13your AWS bill, but for applications
37. 1:16containing huge numbers of small
38. 1:17objects, the memory consumption can
39. 1:19decrease to up to 20%. And that's great
40. 1:22news because you'll need that money for
41. 1:24all your future AI token consumption.
42. 1:26The second automatic improvement
43. 1:28concerns garbage collection and G1 is
44. 1:30now the default garbage collector in
45. 1:32every environment. It's important to
46. 1:34note that G1 has already been the
47. 1:36default on server class machines for
48. 1:38years, but smaller environments could
49. 1:40still fall back to the serial collector.
50. 1:42From Java 27 onward, if you don't
51. 1:44explicitly choose a garbage collector,
52. 1:46the JVM will always use G1. This gives
53. 1:49Java more consistent behavior across
54. 1:51developer machines, containers, and
55. 1:53production servers. Also note that the
56. 1:55Java team also worked to ensure that
57. 1:57workloads previously using serial don't
58. 1:59suffer significant regressions in
59. 2:01startup time, memory consumption,
60. 2:03throughput, or latency. So if you can
61. 2:05upgrade to Java 27 today, and let's be
62. 2:08honest, the reality is that you'll never
63. 2:10be able to do that on your legacy
64. 2:11production project. Two of the biggest
65. 2:13changes improve memory usage and garbage
66. 2:15collection without developers touching a
67. 2:17single line of application code. The
68. 2:19language itself also becomes more
69. 2:21consistent through primitive types in
70. 2:23patterns, instance of and switch. Java
71. 2:26is famously late to the game when it
72. 2:27comes to pattern matching, and this
73. 2:29feature has traditionally worked mainly
74. 2:31with reference types. Java 27 continues
75. 2:34the work of allowing primitive values
76. 2:35such as int, long, and double to
77. 2:37participate in the same constructs. And
78. 2:40if this sounds exciting, there is only
79. 2:41one small detail to keep in mind. This
80. 2:44is the fifth preview of the feature. So,
81. 2:46we've been previewing this feature for
82. 2:47the past 2 years, but we shouldn't get
83. 2:49too emotionally attached to it yet.
84. 2:51Structured concurrency is back as well.
85. 2:53This time in its seventh preview. If you
86. 2:55are following my channel, you probably
87. 2:57know that I'm a big fan of Java
88. 2:58concurrency, mostly because I love
89. 3:00complexity for the sake of complexity.
90. 3:02This is what helps with job security and
91. 3:05I usually rely on intricate difficult to
92. 3:07follow concurrency abstractions to make
93. 3:09sure nobody can replace me at my current
94. 3:11job. [music] And trust me, this is
95. 3:13really valuable in the current job
96. 3:14market. Jokes aside, structured
97. 3:16concurrency is extremely useful. If one
98. 3:19request launches several related tasks,
99. 3:21Java can treat those tasks as one unit
100. 3:23of work. Their lifetime remains
101. 3:25connected to the surrounding operation.
102. 3:27Failures can cancel sibling tasks and
103. 3:29observability tools can understand that
104. 3:31the threads belong together. This works
105. 3:33especially well with virtual threads
106. 3:35because instead of manually coordinating
107. 3:37futures, cancellation and error
108. 3:39propagation, the structure of the code
109. 3:41represents the structure of the
110. 3:42concurrent operation. The API has
111. 3:45changed repeatedly while being
112. 3:46previewed, which is the entire purpose
113. 3:48of previews. But seven rounds also tell
114. 3:50us that the Java team is taking its time
115. 3:52before freezing an API that could
116. 3:53influence concurrent Java code for the
117. 3:55next 20 years. Java 27 also introduces
118. 3:58postquantum hybrid key exchange for TLS
119. 4:011.3. I was mentioning in a previous
120. 4:03video that Cloudflare recently
121. 4:05accelerated its postquantum road map and
122. 4:07now wants its entire infrastructure
123. 4:09including authentication to be quantum
124. 4:11safe by 2029. The reason is that recent
125. 4:14advances in quantum hardware, error
126. 4:16correction, and algorithms have moved
127. 4:18the estimated arrival of
128. 4:20cryptographically relevant quantum
129. 4:21computers much closer. And if AI models
130. 4:24and the bad economy haven't given you
131. 4:26enough reasons to worry, according to
132. 4:28Cloudflare, the industry's usual
133. 4:30timeline of 2035 or later may no longer
134. 4:32be realistic. And Google is apparently
135. 4:35concerned that the so-called Qday could
136. 4:37arrive as early as 2030. But the biggest
137. 4:39problem is that encrypted traffic
138. 4:41capture today could theoretically be
139. 4:43stored and decrypted later once
140. 4:45sufficiently capable quantum computers
141. 4:47exist. Java now combines a traditional
142. 4:49key exchange algorithm with a quantum
143. 4:51resistant one. So an attacker would need
144. 4:53to break both mechanisms. [music] The
145. 4:55new PM encoding API also returns for its
146. 4:58third preview. Java can now encode and
147. 5:00decode cryptographic keys, certificates,
148. 5:02and certificate revocation lists using
149. 5:05the common PM format through a standard
150. 5:07API. Lazy constants are also back for
151. 5:09their third preview as well. They allow
152. 5:11an immutable value to be initialized
153. 5:13only when it is first required while
154. 5:15still being treated as a constant by the
155. 5:17JVM. This is useful when initialization
156. 5:19is expensive or when a value may never
157. 5:22be needed during a particular execution.
158. 5:24As a result, it can reduce startup work
159. 5:26without forcing developers to implement
160. 5:28their own delicate lazy initialization
161. 5:30logic with volatile fields and
162. 5:32synchronization. The Vector API reaches
163. 5:34its 12th incubator release because
164. 5:36apparently structured concurrency looked
165. 5:38far too decisive. It lets developers
166. 5:41express vector computations that the JVM
167. 5:43can compile into SIMD instructions
168. 5:46supported by the processor. This is
169. 5:48useful when working with numerical
170. 5:49processing, analytics, cryptography, and
171. 5:52machine learning inference where one CPU
172. 5:54instruction can operate on multiple
173. 5:56values at once. And to be fair, it
174. 5:58remains an incubator API because the
175. 6:01design still depends on both JVM
176. 6:03development and the evolution of modern
177. 6:05CPU architectures. Finally, Java Flight
178. 6:08Recorder can now redact sensitive data
179. 6:10before it leaves the running process.
180. 6:12Command line arguments, environment
181. 6:14variables, and system properties can
182. 6:16contain passwords, tokens, and database
183. 6:18credentials, all of which could
184. 6:19accidentally end up inside a diagnostic
185. 6:22recording. Java 27 allows these values
186. 6:24to be removed at the source which is
187. 6:26much safer than attempting to sanitize
188. 6:28the recording after it has already been
189. 6:30written or uploaded to another system.
190. 6:32But before wrapping things up, Cotlin
191. 6:34had news in September as well. Cotlin
192. 6:372.5 beta is out and a few language
193. 6:39changes stand out. If you like Java, you
194. 6:41probably love Cotlin and as you know
195. 6:43their updates are much more developer
196. 6:45friendly. So first namebased
197. 6:47destructuring is now stable with the new
198. 6:49syntax. Cutlin takes values from
199. 6:51properties by name while the familiar
200. 6:53valy syntax still takes them by
201. 6:55position. That makes the new form useful
202. 6:57when you care about which property
203. 6:58you're reading rather than trusting that
204. 7:00you remembered its position correctly.
205. 7:02Second, Cutlin is experimenting with
206. 7:04companion extensions and companion
207. 7:06blocks. These let you add something
208. 7:07callable through a type's name without
209. 7:09first creating a companion object. On
210. 7:11the JVM, declarations in a companion
211. 7:14block can become static members without
212. 7:16a JVM static. So, Cotlin has found
213. 7:18another way to make Java
214. 7:19interoperability slightly less
215. 7:21ceremonial. Keep in mind that this
216. 7:23feature still needs a compiler flag.
217. 7:25Cotlin also adds three experimental
218. 7:27functions for boolean values. The first
219. 7:29two run a block when a condition has the
220. 7:31matching value, then return the original
221. 7:33boolean. So, you can write tags at
222. 7:35Cotlin on true print line tag added and
223. 7:37still keep the result of add. Meanwhile,
224. 7:40if or null runs a block when the
225. 7:41condition is true and returns null
226. 7:43otherwise, compile time constants have
227. 7:45also graduated to stable. So, the
228. 7:47compiler can evaluate more expressions
229. 7:49ahead of time, including supported
230. 7:51string operations and unsigned
231. 7:53arithmetic. Granted, this is a fairly
232. 7:55modest change compared with the JVM
233. 7:57updates we just covered, but useful when
234. 7:59a value really does need to be a
235. 8:01constant and you'd rather calculate it
236. 8:03in Cotlin than paste the result into
237. 8:05your code. We'll go old school today and
238. 8:07The Wire is your awesome TV show
239. 8:09recommendation, which in my opinion is
240. 8:11one of the best TV series ever created.
241. 8:14Please don't forget to like and
242. 8:15subscribe because it helps a lot. And
243. 8:17until next time, thank you for watching.