JDK 20: What’s next for Java?

With Java 19 having just arrived on September 20, Java 20 is subsequent on the docket, anticipated in March 2023. The discharge probably may add new performance for common generics, immutable knowledge, and string templates and finalize capabilities reminiscent of document patterns.

The present OpenJDK webpage for JDK 20 lists no formally proposed options as of September 23, however that can change quickly sufficient. Capabilities that might make it into Java 20 embrace:

• Universal generics, to unify the therapy of reference and primitive varieties in generic code. This proposal has been floating for some time and didn’t make it into JDK 19.
• Extent-local variables, to allow sharing of immutable knowledge inside and throughout threads.
• String templates, to simplify Java programming by making it straightforward to precise strings that embrace values computed at run time.
• Value objects, to boost the Java object mannequin with class situations which have solely last situations and lack object identification.
• Primitive classes, that are particular sorts of worth courses that outline new primitive varieties.
• Sequenced collections, offering a Assortment interface to symbolize a group with an outlined encounter order.
• An API for asynchronous stack traces, which would supply data on Java and native frames.
• A classfile API, to parse, generate, and rework Java class information.
• Record patterns, previewed in JDK 19, for deconstructing document values.
• Foreign function and memory API, previewed in JDK 19 as a mechanism for Java applications to interoperate with code and knowledge exterior the Java runtime.
• One other JDK 19 preview characteristic, virtual threads, serves as light-weight threads to make it simpler to write down and preserve high-throughput concurrent functions.
• A vector API, incubated for a fourth time in JDK 19, expresses vector computations that reliably compile at runtime to optimum directions on supported CPU architectures, attaining higher efficiency than scalar computations.
• Structured concurrency, in an incubator part in JDK 19, would simplify multithreaded programming by way of an API.
• Pattern matching for switch expressions and statements, previewed for a 3rd time in JDK 19, to boost Java programming.

Primarily based on customary Java’s six-month launch cadence, Java 20, or Java Growth Equipment 20, would arrive as a manufacturing launch in March 2023. Like JDK 19, JDK 20 can be a short-term launch with solely six months of premium help from Oracle. The next JDK 21 is due in a 12 months and can be an LTS (Lengthy Time period Assist) launch with a number of years of backing by Oracle.