What Java Trends Will Shape 2022 and Beyond? Insights from JRebel’s Michael Rasmussen

Java’s rapid evolution, coupled with potential changes to the OpenJDK release cadence, may further accelerate its development. Michael Rasmussen, JRebel’s development lead, emphasizes the importance of tracking these shifts to align JRebel’s features with the latest Java releases.

In an SDTimes interview, Rasmussen discusses the Java trends his team should focus on in 2022.

Regarding adoption scale, Java 8 saw a significant surge because it introduced major features, while Java 17, lacking comparable changes, is unlikely to achieve the same level of migration despite its benefits.

Rasmussen predicts the next major adoption event will revolve around the Valhalla project’s value‑type extensions, which are expected to appear in an LTS release after Java 25.

He also notes that the LTS release rhythm may shift from every three years to every two years, a change that could dramatically affect the Java ecosystem and reduce the number of users on non‑LTS versions.

“If you can adopt an LTS version with the features you need in less than two years, why choose an interim release?” he explains, adding that most Java teams lack the capacity to upgrade with every release, though small upgrades are usually low‑risk.

Looking ahead to Java 18 and 19, Rasmussen highlights external function interfaces and the Vector API as key features to watch, and expects continued enhancements to pattern matching.

JRebel’s annual Java industry survey for this year identifies two major trends:

At the framework layer, microservice frameworks such as Micronaut and Quarkus will keep gaining market share from Spring Boot, though Spring Framework 6 and Spring Boot 3—planned for release in late 2022 and targeting Java 17 and Jakarta EE 9—may also boost Java 17 adoption.

In the IDE space, IntelliJ IDEA remains the most popular tool, while Visual Studio Code is gaining traction as a secondary or even primary editor.