Oracle has announced the release of its latest Java platform version 12 with many new features and upgrades to meet today’s application development needs. This version of Java, the Java 12 is not an LTS release but it’s a part of Oracle’s new six-month cycle. This version of Java brings important updates which bring new updates to Java.
Oracles Java 11 is LTS release of Java operating system which comes with long term commercial support. After Java 8, Java is not free distribution of Java for production use. For production use one must buy the commercial usage license.
Developers and companies looking for free version of Java can use Open JDK which can be downloaded from the Open JDK website.
Oracle Java 12 comes with 8 new features. Java 12 is short-term release version and its support will over at the time of Java 13 release.
Features of Java 12
189: Shenandoah: This is a Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector which is in the experimental model in this release.
230: Microbenchmark Suite: This is the basic suite of of microbenchmarks which enables developers to run microbenchmarks on the source code.
325: Switch Expressions (Preview): Extend the switch statement for simplified coding 0and also prepare the way for the use of pattern matching (JEP 305) in switch.
334: JVM Constants API: The Java 12 introduced an API to model nominal descriptions of key class-file and run-time artifacts.
340: One AArch64 Port, Not Two: This update is for removing of the sources related to the arm64 port while retaining the 32-bit ARM port and the 64-bit aarch64 port.
341: Default CDS Archives: This feature enhances the build process of JDK generate a class data-sharing (CDS) archive using the default class list. This feature is available on 64-bit platforms of Java 12 programming language.
344: Abortable Mixed Collections for G1: This feature is all about making G1 mixed collections abortable if they might exceed the pause target.
346: Promptly Return Unused Committed Memory from G1: This feature of Java 12 will enhance the G1 garbage collector to automatically return Java heap memory to the operating system in case application is idle.
The Oracle JDK 12 brings preview of the switch expressions; the improvements to garbage collection and class data sharing. Although this release is short-term support release but brings experimental features and few improvements.
Although the latest version of Java is 12, but still the most used Java is Java 8 and developers are using Java 8 for major application development. We have seen many companies are switching towards Open JDK these days.
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