Chapter 14. Staying well-grounded
This chapter covers
- What Java 8 holds for you as a developer
- The future of polyglot programming
- Where concurrency is heading next
- New JVM-level features
To stay ahead of the curve, the well-grounded Java developer should always be aware of what’s coming around the corner. In this final chapter, we’ll discuss several topics that we feel point the way toward the future of the Java language and the platform.
As we don’t have a TARDIS or crystal ball, this chapter focuses on language features and platform changes that we know are already under way. That means that this is inevitably a point-in-time view, which is a polite way of saying that it’s partially a work of (science) fiction.
Our discussion represents a possible future, at the time when we were writing this book. How things will turn out remains to be seen. It will doubtless differ in some important ways from what we present here, and getting there should be an interesting ride. It usually is.
Let’s get under way by taking a look at our first topic, which is a quick tour of the likely major features of Java 8.
In autumn 2010, the Executive Committee for Java SE met and decided to proceed with Plan B. This was the decision to release a Java 7 version as soon as possible, and defer some major features to Java 8. This conclusion came after extensive consultation and polling of the community as to which option would be preferred.