Top 10 Java stories of July: 5 alternatives to JavaScript, OpenJDK Mobile is back & more

1. 5 alternatives to JavaScript for front-end development

Our most popular article in July was far and away Matthew Davis’ look at five alternative options for those who don’t want to use JavaScript. It’s a hard language to avoid, but in his guest post he talks us through 5 different approaches to get around it.

We won’t spoil anything here, you’ll have to read it for yourself.

2. The OpenJDK Mobile project is back!

Right at the start of July, we got a pleasant surprise when Java Champion Johan Vos started a mailing list to reboot the OpenJDK mobile discussion. We found some time to sit down with him and ask him some questions. His answers make for a compelling read.

Check it out here.

3. OpenShift 4 interview: “Operators are a very powerful construct”

We’ve felt very chatty this month, so we also caught up with Martin Klaus, Senior Director Red Hat Cloud Platforms to talk about OpenShift 4, the latest version of the enterprise Kubernetes platform, and how it differs from other solutions. We also got to talk to him about other OpenShift projects.

Read the full interview with Martin Klaus here.

4. Jakarta EE 8 gets a release date

Another piece of news that got us very excited, or would have if it weren’t too hot to express emotion, was the fact that Jakarta EE 8 got a release date. There was also an update on some other topics like the namespace change from javax to jakarta.

Read the full update here.

5. How you could learn Java on your own and where to start

Learning Java on your own doesn’t have to be difficult; there are plenty of resources for independent study and practice. No matter your age or experience level, you will find plenty of websites that will give you hands-on experience and teach you how to program in Java.  John Selawsky talked us through how to take those first steps towards becoming a programmer.

Learn about learning Java here.

6. The trendy five: Blazing hot GitHub repos in June 2019

Every month we look at the GitHub trending page for any cool repos that stand out from the crowd. You might even be so bleeding edge that you’ve caught the July edition of the trendy five already, but the June post proved a popular read. Highlights include a new open source programming language that takes inspiration from Go, a robotics platform built in Python, and a repo full of Kubernetes failure stories that will have you laughing and learning.

Read the full article here.

7. Java goes Git: Proposal to migrate OpenJDK

Project Skara’s goal in July last year was to look into the viable SCM alternatives to Mercurial. It looks like Git is to be OpenJDK’s new home, at least following JEP 357’s proposal.

Check out the proposal here.

8. Project Lanai approved – macOS graphics rendering pipeline gets green light

Early on in July, Project Lanai was put forward. Oracle and JetBrains engineers proposed to collaborate on a macOS-based graphics rendering pipeline to replace the current one, which is based on the now-deprecated OpenGL. Later on in the month, the voting ended and the proposal was officially approved.

Say aloha to Project Lanai.

9. Small embeddable JavaScript engine with QuickJS

Programming legend Fabrice Bellard released a new project: the QuickJS JavaScript Engine landed with its first public release. This small, embeddable JS engine consists of just a few simple C files. The benchmarks compared to other JS engines such as JerryScript show that he’s not kidding with that name. It’s quick.

Check out the benchmarks here.

10. GraalVM version 19.1 speeds up compilation & lowers execution time

And finally, talking of speed, GraalVM recently matured and has been suggested for production-usage. On July 2nd, the latest version, GraalVM19.1 arrived. This version fixes some bugs in the previous release and also lowers the compilation time. Along with this release comes news of future versioning plans for GraalVM. Look out for v20 in 2020!

Check out all the update information here.

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