What New Features Should You Expect in Java 13?

Computer science has become one of the biggest fields in the world today, and more people are delving deep into this area every day. There are many avenues that you can explore when you are studying it, but one of the main realms is programming. When you talk about it, one of the key tools that you need to be a part of this field is to know the appropriate programming language.

There are a lot of programming languages that you can rely on. However, one of the most popular is Java. It is a very versatile language that can allow people to create the most amazing applications. Recently, a new and improved version of Java was introduced, and it is known as Java 13. It brought a lot of new features, and that is what we are going to discuss in this blog post.

What New Features Should You Expect?

Java Development Kit (JDK) 13 was released on September 17, 2019. There are a lot of new features that this version has introduced to us, and one of the most popular is Z Garbage Collector. So, let us take a look at the plethora of features that you can use with Java 13, including this amazing one that we mentioned.

• Improved Z Garbage Collector

What makes Z Garbage Collector better is its low latency and high scalability. When Java 11 was launched, it brought some noticeable improvements to this tool. With the launch of Java 13, more improvements have been made to Z Garbage Collector, and the new features show that you can now return unused memory to the operating system. The previous version that was found in Java 12 did not allow this possibility. Lack of this feature can create a lot of issues in the long run. However, one thing that you need to know is that some improvements that are made in JDK 13 are not right for certain environments and applications.

• AppCDS

Java 13 introduces the AppCDS extension, which allows you to dynamically archive classes when application execution stops. The archived classes consist of a loaded app, and you will not find any library classes in the CDS archive. It has now entered its targeted stage, and efforts are being made to improve the usability of AppCDS.

• Switch Expressions

Switch expressions is another notable addition to the latest update of features in Java 13. The switch expression was also a very useful feature in Java 12, but there were some minor changes in Java 13. The most notable change is the use of the “yield” statement in place of the “break” statement. The purpose of this statement is to get the value from the “Switch” expression. The main goal of this upgrade was to allow the “Switch” extension to be used as a statement or an expression. Therefore, you can either use the new “case” label or the older ones without any fall-through. The main benefit of all these changes is that it makes coding simpler, which is always welcomed by the developers.

• Legacy Socket API

Another prominent improvement that Java 13 brings us is overriding the deprecated socket API. With the help of this new solution, the programmers don’t need to use other implementations such as java.net.ServerSocket. The biggest advantage of using the legacy socket API is that it is simple and greatly simplifies maintenance and debugging. If you want to easily start working with user-mode threads or fibers, then you should start using this API. The thing that makes legacy API so special is that it consists of a mix of legacy Java and C code. However, this is also a problem because debugging and maintaining a mixture of legacy codes can be confusing.

• Text Blocks

Another addition that is made in Java 13 is known as text blocks. Before moving forward, you need to understand is what a text block is. It is basically a multi-line string literal that allows you to avoid excessive escape sequences. The essential benefit of a text block is the automatic formatting of lines with improved control and predictability. The main goal behind this feature is that it simplifies Java programs when you are writing them. Another advantage of using text blocks in Java 13 is that they now support migration from string literals. According to the latest revision, it is possible to express the same strings as string literals with any new construct. One of the most surprising things about this feature is that it was an unexpected entry, initially, raw string literals were proposed instead of text blocks.

Other Added Features in Java 13

Of course, the features listed above are not all of those that were presented. Some other features that have been added into Java 13 are as follows:

– Native GSS-API Library on Windows;

– Kerberos Cross-Realm Referrals are now supported;

– Canonical XML 1.1 URIs INCLUSIVE_11 and INCLUSIVE_11_WITH_COMMENTS String Constants;

– MS Cryptography Next Generation is now supported;

– Configurable Read Timeout for CRLs.

Excluded Features from Java 13

Although Java 13 has brought a lot of new features to the development environment, it has also taken away some of the old ones. This is because either these features were no longer useful, or they were not very efficient. Some of the features that were removed from Java 13 are as follows:

– Experimental FIPS 140 from SunJSSE Provider;

– Two Comodo Root Certificates;

– VM option -XX+AggressiveOpts;

– Runtime Trace Methods.

Conclusion

These were some of the new features that were added in Java 13. If you are a Java developer, you will find them very useful. They have certainly made programming a lot easier.