Source: Infoworld This week, May 23, 2020, the Java language celebrates its silver anniversary. Exactly 25 years ago, Sun Microsystems first introduced Java to the world. Despite its relatively advanced age and many competitors, this language remains very popular among developers. At the same time, Java does not stand still: a number of updates are being prepared for release in the near future.
A little history
Java originally came into being as the Oak Project, started in 1991 by James Gosling. The new object-oriented language immediately gained fame due to its portability - “write once, run anywhere.” The Java Virtual Machine supported many hardware platforms and operating systems, and Java applets could be launched from a web page. For years, applets offered better performance than JavaScript, but eventually fell out of favor with browser developers and were removed from Java in 2018. Java became open source at the end of 2006. Control over the development of the language passed to Oracle with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010. A few years later, Oracle, together with the Eclipse Foundation, introduced an enterprise version of Java EE. However, the standard version of Java is still successfully supported. Updates are released every six months, which is much more frequent than in previous years. Previously, you had to wait about three years for a new Java release.
Java compared to competitors
Java is still one of the top three programming languages in all respected rankings: TIOBE, RedMonk and PyPL. Until this month, Java held the top spot in the TIOBE index for five years until it was overtaken by C. This may be due to a combination of the widespread use of C in medical devices and the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most important benefits of the Java language is that it has a huge ecosystem and is an endless source of jobs. Oracle estimates that there were 9 million Java developers worldwide in 2017. If you do a search on Dice.com, you'll find that there are currently about 12,000 open jobs for Java developers in the United States. While, for example, there are only 9,000 job openings for JavaScript specialists, and 7,600 for Python developers. In addition, Java has given impetus to the development of a huge ecosystem of tools - from the Spring framework and the JavaFX multimedia platform to application servers from companies such as IBM , Red Hat and Oracle.
What does the future hold for Java?
Java language developers, including Oracle and the OpenJDK community, continue to develop the platform. The two-month release of Java 14 (JDK 14) introduced switch statements to simplify coding and JDK Flight Recorder (JFR) event streaming for continuous use of JFR data. The next Java release will be JDK 15, scheduled for release in September 2020. Features expected in the new release include previewing sealed classes for more granular control over your code, and entries that provide classes that behave as explicit carriers of immutable data. The development of the language can be significantly influenced by the so-called Project Leyden, which is being developed to eliminate such “sore spots” in Java as the amount of resources, startup time and performance difficulties. It is expected that all these problems can be solved by including static copies of the data in the platform.
Java case before the US Supreme Court
Throughout its 25-year history, Java has been at the center of two major lawsuits. The first case concerned a dispute between Sun and Microsoft over the use of Java in Windows. According to Sun Microsystems, this violated the platform compatibility agreement and the license agreement. In an out-of-court settlement, Microsoft agreed to pay Sun $20 million. A few years ago, the Java language became a subject of controversy again. A long-running intellectual property dispute has erupted between Oracle and Google over the use of Java in the Android mobile platform. As a result, the case reached the US Supreme Court. The court's decision on this issue could affect not only the use of Java in Android applications, but also the entire software development. Court proceedings are currently suspended amid the COVID-19 crisis.
How to Stay Motivated While Learning a Programming Language
Source: FreeCodeCamp With constant changes in technologies, languages and frameworks, it is very difficult to stay motivated and continue to learn programming. In this article, I would like to share some tricks that help me stay motivated in learning a programming language.
Take 5 minutes to study
Five minutes doesn't seem like much. But this is much more than nothing. If you constantly search for a few hours in your schedule to study a new topic, you may never get around to studying. Learning programming is probably not as fun as playing sports or playing video games. But this is only because you have not yet mastered coding enough for it to start being enjoyable. Taking five minutes every day to study will help you start learning, and that's the most important thing. Once you start writing code, it will get easier. Writing code will start to bring you joy, and each time you will want to do a little more. It often happens to me that I plan to study for five minutes, but as a result I sit for hours studying.
Break the topics you study into small parts
Most things in this world can be broken down into smaller and simpler parts, each of which is much easier to understand. Learning to code is no exception here. For example, learning JavaScript can seem like a huge and very difficult task to many. After all, there are so many nuances in this language! But every part of JavaScript, from array handling to how methods are called, can be broken down into its component parts. A beginner can start by becoming familiar with pop-ups. Then you can continue studying on other simple topics. Eventually you will become familiar with how all the methods and functions work and will be able to use them without having to Google them. Your knowledge will accumulate, new ones will be layered on old ones - until you have a clear understanding of the subject as a whole. But for this to happen, the topic will have to be broken down into small components and studied one at a time.
Pick one topic and start studying it immediately
You probably already have an idea of what you want to study. This could be HTML, CSS, React or JavaScript. Whatever it is, the desire to learn is always commendable. Having chosen a topic, you don’t need to hesitate for a long time before studying. Of course, you can continue to read articles and follow news about the chosen technology, look at its documentation... but to start studying this topic, you need to finally get down to business. That is, right now open a new project and write at least Hello World there. Your goal is to stop thinking about how good it would be to learn a language and start learning it.
Enjoy studying - it's part of your life
When you go for a run, eat something, or go to a movie, you don't think about these actions in the spirit of “I want to finish eating this dinner” or “I successfully watched this movie.” You just run, eat, watch a movie, enjoying the process. In our studies, we often forget about this. We focus too much on “You need to understand the language” while ignoring “You need to enjoy the learning process.” When you enjoy doing what you do, your studies go much better. Your brain absorbs information more easily and retains it longer. That's why among successful people there are so many who constantly learn something new and enjoy it. The point is to stop thinking so much about how to “finish” learning something, and instead focus on how interesting each new topic is. This way you will move further and be much happier at the same time.
Stick to a Schedule
Many of us like to leave studying for last: in the evening or on the weekend. Because of this, we downplay its importance. In addition, when the time allocated for learning a language comes, we simply no longer have any energy left. Therefore, you need to put your studies first in your schedule. You can allocate 15 minutes to study the code immediately after waking up or, for example, before leaving for work. This will make it easier not to lose the rhythm. At the beginning of the day, you have enough energy to study, meaning the material will be absorbed more easily. You don't have to devote large chunks of time to study. If you spend 15 minutes a day for a year, that will add up to 90 hours of study!
Don't look at social networks while studying
When everything around you is distracting, it is very easy to lose concentration. Studying requires focusing solely on the subject of study. If you are constantly distracted by social media, you will find it difficult to concentrate. As a result, you may decide that you are unable to learn the language at all. The most effective way to stay focused is to simply switch off everything you can while studying. Put your phone on silent mode. Close all browser windows except those related to your studies. If you find it easier to work with background music, choose instrumental compositions. This way you will be less distracted.
Do not stop
Keep learning. Studying is like a renovation, and as you know, it cannot be completed, it can only be paused. Once you get used to studying, studying won't feel like a chore. On the contrary, it will become something that you strive for. Since technology changes so often, you will have to constantly learn in any case. Look forward to future discoveries and be grateful that you will never be bored: there will always be something new on the horizon for you to explore!
This week, May 23, 2020, the Java language celebrates its silver anniversary. Exactly 25 years ago, Sun Microsystems first introduced Java to the world. Despite its relatively advanced age and many competitors, this language remains very popular among developers. At the same time, Java does not stand still: a number of updates are being prepared for release in the near future.
With constant changes in technologies, languages and frameworks, it is very difficult to stay motivated and continue to learn programming. In this article, I would like to share some tricks that help me stay motivated in learning a programming language.
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