Java in 2021: Top 7 New Features From Java 8 to Java 16

Java's been around for more than 25 years now. It's not the same Java any more than it was in 1995. But it's also far from the Java it was 5 years ago: It took about 20 years to go from Java 1 to Java 8. Now in 2021, we'll be looking at Java version 17, and already have version 16 released. It's been a crazy ride lately, as each version comes filled with new features, improvements to language, libraries, tooling. Every now and then it's good to sit down and see what's changed, and how can you use it to be more efficient, to be a better coder.

Sit with me for 30 minutes and I'll walk you through the top 7 things I actually use now. Some of them have been around for years, some require the very latest versions of Java available. This is not a starter tutorial, so some Java experience is required. But this is especially suitable for you if you haven't taken a look at Java versions 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, but would like a condensed walkthrough of what's good there.

Note: I am aware of the coolness that modular libraries, modular runtimes are creating, ever since Java 9. I think things like JLink and Jigsaw deserve another session, so I deliberately left them out for now. This session is all about language syntax capabilities, and a few APIs.

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