Besides the “big” features that often aggregate under well-known project names, like “Amber”, “Loom”, or “Panama”, there are many little things in every release that are easy to miss. These API and tool improvements might not be as visible as other features, as they’re not represented by a JEP. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to know about them.
One of the most significant features of Java 21 is Virtual Threads (JEP 444). These lightweight threads reduce the effort needed for writing, maintaining, and observing high-throughput concurrent applications.
Shell redirection can be confusing. I’ve always wondered what 2>&1 means and why it’s needed, but as many others, I just copy/pasted things from the internet into my terminal and hoped for the best. What could possibly go wrong?
Around 6 years ago, I wrote about using Java for shell scripts. It was a hacky and fragile way to convert some Java code into a shebanged file containing the content of a Jar file.
However, Java evolved quite a bit since that article, so it’s time to look at it again.
Localization, or l10n, is an important step for any app to reach a broader market and be more inclusive. With Xcode 15, the IDE gained a versatile and easy-to-use way of handling localization: String catalogs.
A new garbage collector was introduced in Java 11, a low latency/high scalability GC called ZGC. And now, with Java 21, it has evolved into a generational GChugo .