In addition to the coronavirus and the economic crisis, there were good things in 2020. For example, the release of new versions of Java. In addition, Java is still the most popular development language in the world. Summing up 2020, let's remember what happened to the programming language throughout the year.
Java Updates: Versions 14 and 15
In the past year, two Java updates were released: 14 and 15. Among the innovations of the 14th version are experimental support for the record keyword, support for pattern matching in the "instanceof" operator, more user-friendly NullPointerExceptions, an extended "preview" of text blocks, updated switch by by default. “Java 14 is another testament to the benefits of a six-month update cycle: developers get access to features that they would otherwise have been waiting for years,” said George Saab, Oracle Vice President of Java Platform Development. Not only does JDK 14 contain improvements that will increase developer productivity, Saab says. This release also includes, for the first time, important content from projects such as Project Panama - an advanced external memory access interface and further enhancements from Project Amber - Pattern Matching and Records." One of the key innovations in Java 14 is Records. In fact, we have before us a new type, which was developed during the Valhalla project.. Records are similar to enums and allow you to simplify your code. Essentially, they replace classes that have state but no behavior. In JDK 14, you can plug in a preview of the Foreign-Memory Access API, which allows Java applications to safely and efficiently access areas of memory outside the JVM heap using the new MemorySegment, MemoryAddress, and MemoryLayout abstractions. The 15th version includes such innovations, as a digital signature algorithm based on the Edwards curve, hidden classes, as well as the final versions of features that were previously trial: text blocks and the ZGC garbage collector. As a preview feature, Java 15 introduced sealed classes for the first time; also re-enabled pattern matching for the instanceof operator and record as a preview feature. Summing up, we can say that thanks to the update every six months, Java has time to develop and does not lag behind other development languages. By the way, this year, on the eve of the release of the 14th version, a complete review of Java versions (from 8th to 13th) was released on CodeGym. We recommend reading.
Java in the Ratings: Still Popular
Java is still the world's most popular mainstream programming language , according to research from JetBrains. It is used by about 5.2 million developers. No less optimistic is the IDC report "Java turns 25" : more than 9 million developers around the world use Java. “Today, there are 51 billion Java virtual machines (JVMs) deployed and in active use around the world, making Java the preferred choice for developing modern enterprise applications, including analytics, microservices, data management, social services, big data, DevOps, mobile applications, continuous development tools. and chatbots,” saysJava Vice President of Global Marketing Manish Gupta. In December 2020, Java became the second most popular programming language in the world, according to the TIOBE index , which evaluates the popularity of programming languages. The popularity of Java among employers is explained by the compilers of the rating by the large number of applications and services written in this language. In the ranking of the job search site Dice.com, the Java language was in second place , only SQL could overtake it. Let's not forget the results of the annual study of the Stack OverFlow developer community: in 2020, Java ranked 5th among the most popular development languages. As you can see, if in 2020 Java did not rise in the popularity ratings, then in any case it did not sink.
Where and why was Java used
At the moment, the largest number of Java developers live in Asia, where about 2.5 million programmers use Java as their primary language, according to JetBrains. Most Java is used in China and South Korea - about 51% and 50% of developers, respectively. Java is actively used in India, Germany, Spain and Brazil. Belarus is in the middle of this list of countries, with 33% of developers. But Russia and Ukraine are at the bottom of the list with 25% and 21% of programmers, respectively. The reasons why Java might be popular in the top 6 countries of the list are the free use of this programming language, government support and open source code .at JetBrains. Java 8 remains the favorite version among developers. It is preferred by three-quarters of Java developers. At the same time, the popularity of Java 11 is growing. Compared to last year, the share of users of this version has increased by 10%. Relatively recent Java 12 and Java 13 also quickly find their audience: each of them is used by 10% or more. Among Java frameworks, Spring Boot is the leader - it was chosen by 61% of developers. In second and third places are Spring MVC (42%) and JSF (6%), respectively. In 2020, Java was most often used for writing websites (36%). In second place is the development of utilities (25%), in the third place is the development of system software (19%).
Java in the news
What else happened to Java in 2020? We have compiled a selection of important news for Java development.
The Java language is one of the top three most in-demand technical skills in remote work.
The American job search service Dice has compiled a list of technical skills, programming languages and tools that are most in demand among employers of specialists for remote work. Based on the results of the last two months, SQL was the leader, followed by Project Management and Java. The authors of the study note that organizations related to healthcare and education were most actively hired for remote work during the pandemic.
Snowflake has released a new Java development environment.
Snowflake, a provider of cloud storage and data management, has introduced a test version of the new Snowpark development environment. It supports multiple programming languages including Java, Scala and Python. Snowpark includes a set of APIs that provide optimal interaction between code written in the environment and the main Snowflake engine. Complementing the IDE is new support for serverless tasks in Snowflake Data Cloud.
Red Hat introduced the Quarkus Java framework for the cloud.
As noted by the creators , Quarkus allows you to effectively use Java on Kubernetes platforms and bridges the gap between traditional Java applications and cloud-based environments. Support for Quarkus as a runtime environment allows you to effectively use Java to solve actual problems - in the development of cloud-based applications, as well as the implementation of new models of software systems, such as microservices, containers, and serverless computing.
GraalVM virtual machine updated to version 20.3
Oracle has released the latest release of this year's GraalVM, a Java virtual machine and JDK based on HotSpot/OpenJDK. This is the first Long Term Support (LTS) release for GraalVM Enterprise. In the list of GraalVM 20.3 updates, it is worth noting the following: heuristics have been improved in the compiler, due to which the performance indicator has been increased by 40%; improved code generation for initializing newly allocated arrays; enhanced code duplication optimization (in GraalVM Enterprise version). That's how the outgoing year has been for Java. What do you see as the main event for the Java community in 2020?
Most Java is used in China and South Korea - about 51% and 50% of developers, respectively. Java is actively used in India, Germany, Spain and Brazil. Belarus is in the middle of this list of countries, with 33% of developers. But Russia and Ukraine are at the bottom of the list with 25% and 21% of programmers, respectively. The reasons why Java might be popular in the top 6 countries of the list are the free use of this programming language, government support and open source code .at JetBrains. Java 8 remains the favorite version among developers. It is preferred by three-quarters of Java developers. At the same time, the popularity of Java 11 is growing. Compared to last year, the share of users of this version has increased by 10%. Relatively recent Java 12 and Java 13 also quickly find their audience: each of them is used by 10% or more. Among Java frameworks, Spring Boot is the leader - it was chosen by 61% of developers. In second and third places are Spring MVC (42%) and JSF (6%), respectively. In 2020, Java was most often used for writing websites (36%). In second place is the development of utilities (25%), in the third place is the development of system software (19%).
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