Java 11 is here!

In accordance with the new policy of releasing a new Java version every 6 months, we now have a fresh installation of Java 11 to look at.

Unsure which JDK to use for development? Look here for the details!

Agreed,  I have hardly gotten accustomed to Java 10 (or even 9!) just yet, so why a new version already?

Java 11 is a LTS (Long Term Support) version, so it could be a good version to bet on, it will be around for a while.

There will then come a LTS version every 3 years, so I guess that will mean Java 17, Java 23, Java 29 etc will be LTS versions.

It’s a new world alright. We lived with Java 5 and 6 for a long time,  Java 7 and 8 came at almost the same time and Java 9 was here before I had gotten comfortable with Java 8. With all the “updates”, apparently we will have a playing field like Firefox (what version is it now? 56? 72? 95?) and Ubuntu. We’ll see how this plays out.

Anyway, the most important update in Java 10 seems to be that you can write

var x = List.iof(1.2, 3, "Hello");

and let the compiler figure out the type of x.

Also, you can apparently add your own GC if you want. G1 has been further improved by the way.

The anoying dfference between OpenJDK and Oracle JDK will be smaller they say.

Actually, as far as I can read here it’s basically only the name that differs. Oracle JDK = Commercial and OpenJDK is not.

This is how you install java on Debian/Ubuntu:

su -
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/linuxuprising/java/ubuntu bionic main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/linuxuprising-java.list
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 73C3DB2A
apt-get update
apt-get install oracle-java10-installer
exit

To set Java 10 as default, use

sudo apt-get install oracle-java10-set-default

You can also use

sudo update.-alternatives --config java