What’s New in Java? JDK 20/21 Updates, JEP Drafts, and Framework Releases

OpenJDK

Oracle Java Language and Tools team member Angelos Bimpoudis updated JEP Draft 8288476, proposing the use of primitive types in patterns to enhance pattern matching. Oracle Java Language and JVM Spec lead Alex Buckley updated JEP Draft 8300684, suggesting a review of the preview process introduced by JEP 12. Oracle technical team member Wang Jun updated JEP Draft 8301034, defining a Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) API for pluggable KEM algorithms in Java or native implementations. Archie Cobbs, founder and CEO of PatientEXP, updated JEP Draft 8300786, allowing statements that do not reference the instance being created to appear before this() or super() calls in constructors while preserving safety guarantees.

JDK 20

Mark Reinhold announced that JDK 20 has entered Rampdown Phase Two, meaning the GA release scheduled for March 2023 will be stable, with only critical bugs fixed via the Fix‑Request process.

The final six features of JDK 20 are:

JEP 429: Scoped values (incubator)

JEP 432: Record patterns (second preview)

JEP 433: Pattern matching for switch (fourth preview)

JEP 434: Foreign function & memory API (second preview)

JEP 436: Virtual threads (second preview)

JEP 437: Structured concurrency (second incubator)

Build 33 of the early‑access version was released, containing updates and fixes over Build 32; details are in the release notes.

JDK 21

Build 7 of the early‑access version is now available, including updates and fixes over Build 6; developers can report bugs to the Java Bug Database.

GraalVM

Oracle released GraalVM 22.3.1 Community Edition, which includes OpenJDK 19.0.2, 17.0.6, 11.0.18, and Node.js 16.18.1 updates; see the release notes for details.

TornadoVM

TornadoVM 0.15 introduces a new TornadoVM API, renames TaskSchedule to TaskGraph, adds ImmutableTaskGraph and TornadoExecutionPlan classes, improves the Linux installer, adds an enhanced launch script, and launches a new documentation site.

Spring Framework

Spring Cloud Azure 5.0, Spring Shell 3.0.0 and 2.1.6, and Spring Cloud 2022.0.1 (Kilburn) have been released, adding support for Spring Boot 3.0, improving password‑less security, and updating various sub‑projects.

Quarkus

Quarkus 2.16.0.Final adds Redis time‑series support, gRPC custom exception handling, improved cache configuration, and security enhancements. Quarkus 3.0.0’s third alpha includes Jakarta EE 10 updates, SmallRye Mutiny 2.0, Java Flow API, and Kotlin loader simplifications.

Micronaut

Micronaut 3.8.3 was released, fixing bugs and updating modules such as Micronaut OpenAPI and Micronaut Oracle Cloud.

JobRunr

JobRunr 6.0, a background job processing library for Java, now supports Spring Boot 3.0, introduces a builder‑style Job API, job labels visible in the dashboard, multiple scheduler instances with different table prefixes, and performance and stability improvements.

MicroStream

MicroStream 8.0 preview adds JDK 11 support, read‑only mode for multi‑process access, experimental implementations of ArrayList, HashMap, and HashSet with sharing, and better integration with Spring Boot and Quarkus.

Hibernate

Hibernate ORM 6.2 2nd candidate release incorporates numerous bug fixes, stabilizes the SQL AST parser, and adds support for the SQL MERGE command with optional table updates.

Apache Software Foundation

Apache Tomcat 10.1.5 fixes regression issues, uses HTTP/2 error code NO_ERROR, and changes the default of GET_CLASSLOADER_USE_PRIVILEGED to true. Apache Groovy 4.0.8 and 2.5.21 were released with bug fixes, JaCoCo coverage improvements, and new collection method variants. Camel Quarkus 2.16.0 aligns with Camel 3.20.1 and Quarkus 2.16.0, adding DSL support for JavaShell, Kotlin, Groovy, and jOOR.

JDKMon

JDKMon 17.0.45, a JDK monitoring and update tool by Azul engineer Gerrit Grunwald, fixes a download‑dialog issue.

Foojay.io at FOSDEM 2023

Foojay.io will host a developer space at FOSDEM 2023 (Feb 4‑5) to promote free and open‑source software.

Original link: https://www.infoq.com/news/2023/01/java-news-roundup-jan02-2023/