Weekly Links: September 9, 2020

What’s going to be in Java 15?
Java 15, also known as “Next Java LTS, beta 4”, is scheduled for a September 15, 2020 release. So what are we going to get? You know it’s a minor release when “Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm” makes the “Fun exciting new features” section.

JDK is now on GitHub
Talking about Java: The JDK is now on GitHub. It moved off of Mercurial. Kids, Mercurial is what some people used for source control before Git. So there’s your chance to look at all the Java source code! And no, there’s no “Java 15” branch whatsoever.

Kotlin 1.4 released
Kotlin is the “modern Java” that runs on the JVM and natively on all crucial platforms. It’s Google’s preferred language for Android development, which gave Kotlin quite a boost. I’m sure that was a swift choice by Google! This new version shows up nearly two years after Kotlin 1.3 and focuses on “quality and performance”. Definitely worth a try for server-side development, too!

The State of Spring 2020
This survey asked 1,024 developers (yep, really) all sorts of Spring questions. You need to sign up to get the results. But I’ll give away two findings right here: 75% of participants expect Spring Boot usage to grow over the next 2 years. And the most popular Spring Boot modules are Spring Security, Spring Data (usage for both at 79%), and Spring MVC (76%).

Well, well, who would have thought? The company that owns Spring makes a Spring survey and finds that people like Spring!

Spring Boot is on Azure
It’s now easier than ever to host Spring Boot applications, like JHipster ones, on Microsoft’s cloud. Makes perfect sense to Microsoft: Whatever makes it easier to put computing loads on Azure is good. Now Java has lots of computing to do, and Spring is the most popular enterprise Java framework. So Java, meet Azure!

That was an announcement from SpringOne 2020. This year, SpringOne was an online-only conference. Hopefully, my next Weekly Links will include all the videos from that conference!

Jakarta EE 9 and Beyond
Here’s a look over the Spring fence: Jakarta EE 9 is coming! “Jakarta EE” is the new name of Java EE, the “Spring nemesis”. It’s now part of Eclipse and looking for a comeback. Why a comeback? Well, the last release of Jakarta / Java EE with real features was Java EE 8, 3 years ago. And even that was underwhelming. But Jakarta EE 9, scheduled for November, will just rename package names to make Oracle lawyers happy. So no new features until Java EE 10, next year at the earliest. And that’s why Java EE needs a comeback.

Test Automation For Beginners
This article explains what test automation is. It’s from a company called Katalon that makes test automation tools, so there may be a coincidence in here somewhere.

I actually dabbled in Katalon Studio a bit and may use it in the future. I’ll report then if it’s any good! 😁

Migrating from JUnit 4 to JUnit 5
Testing in Java means “JUnit” somewhere. JUnit 5 came out in 2017. But apparently, even after three years, many developers still use the old JUnit 4. So this article tells you how to change that. And it’s got a video, too!