Java 13: All the Crucial Updates and Enhancements Oracle Offered to the Developers

Oracle just released Java 13, the new Java Development Kit (JDK) loaded with an array of new enhancements and features. As per the Java developers, the new JDK is going to improve their productivity hugely. This boost of productivity is resulted due to the new features and value additions such as new text blocks, dynamic archiving of the shared class-data, preview of switch expressions, etc.

The developers can already download and use the binaries of Java 13 and capitalise on the key improvements with elementary things such as performance, security, stability, and some value additions with new features. Oracle was emphatic about the boost in productivity new Java 13 will deliver. So, this is high time developers to take cognizance of all the key new features and value additions of the new JDK.

New Addition of Text Blocks

One of the key value additions with new Java 13 is the new text blocks in the preview phase. A text block basically refers to the multi-line string of code that helps developers to do away with the necessity for the majority of escape sequences. The text block helps developers with automatic format for accommodating the string with full control given to the developers. This in more than one way will deliver more ease and simplicity to the Java programmers in their coding effort.

Apart from boosting productivity through easy coding practices, this new feature will also help to enhance the code readability to a great extent. This will even help programs that actually denote code in languages other than Java.

Improving the Garbage Collection

Java is hailed by developers to have the advantage of running the old code in completely new runtime. But this often leads to compromising with the app performance to a great extent. This is where this new Java Development Kit plays an important role. The new Java 13 with improved garbage collection basically helps developers to do away with the sloppy performance when running the code in new runtime. The enhanced garbage collection ability actually helps creating more memory space to improve the performance of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Dynamic Archiving Class-data sharing

Another key value addition that delighted Java developers is the Dynamic Archiving Class-data Sharing that over a period of time will only help effective and efficient execution of the Java applications. With this active feature powering the Java applications, the archived classes will now be loaded with applications and library classes.

Memory Enhancements

The all-new Java 13 also comes with robust memory enhancement capability and this will offer a comprehensive solution related to the shortcomings of memory. This will also create more space for the garbage collector to boost the app performance. The garbage collector earlier was totally unable to commit and give the operating system back its memory capacity even at times when it is not used for longer. From now on, with Java 13 the garbage collector will be able to return unused memory to the operating system and thus will actually improve memory utilisation to a great extent.

Legacy Socket API

The Java 13 also came with some key enhancements in respect of API that need to be discussed here. There have been new implementations of the legacy socket APIs instead of the older ‘java.net.Socket’ and ‘java.net.ServerSocket API’ implementations. The new implementation is considered to be much simpler and easy for maintenance and debugging. This will also bring a lot of ease for adapting the user-mode threads.

Preview Switch Expressions

This is another completely new feature of Java 13 with a lot of promises. The feature will help developers to make use of “switch” as an expression and a statement while working in a development project. This flexibility will make the coding process a lot simplified. On the outset, this new feature of Java 13 will also push developers to match patterns in a switch.

• Delimiters and Formatting

Among the other changes and value additions brought in the arena of Java programming by Java 13, the delimiters and the new formatting protocols deserve a significant mention. For example, the multi-line string literals will remain enclosed by three quotation marks (“””). White space should be used after every opening character sequence along with a line break.

Secondly, processing of the multi-line string literals can only be carried out during compilation and the compiler always follows the scheme that rules all character string line breaks are to be converted into line feed which will stay detached and independent of the prevailing operating system.

As you move on and reach the second step of the development process, the whitespace pertaining to the formatting of the code is completely done away with. Moreover, this whitespace is also marked as separate space with three quotation marks. This whitespace makes space for the developers to incorporate text blocks within the code for the purpose of matching the format of the entire code.

When with the new Java 13 you incorporate other compatible languages such as Scala and Kotlin, the developers precisely have two options. Either the multiline code is to be aligned left without any whitespace in the original text or whitespace must be done away with by manipulating the string. Following the principle of Swift, new Java 13 doesn’t need to clean and manipulate the strings at runtime.

Lastly, with new Java 13, the vast majority of escape sequences within the text is automatically resolved. This makes a compilation of the code more efficient and following the compilation of the code it is no longer possible to determine how the escape sequences are interpreted or how a whole string has been defined.

Conclusion

From the above mentioned it is quite obvious that the new Java 13 has come as an update with a lot of value propositions that Java developers will be delighted with. This is the time to see how Java developers worldwide respond to this new kit with their new Java development projects.

CMARIX is an expertise-driven Java and Android Development Company USA with an array of winning solutions for a variety of business niches. If you want to know how new JDK can help your software and app development projects, let us explain the value propositions. Feel free to give us a call or drop us a message.