Oracle has announced the availability of Java 18, the latest version of programming language and development platform. Java 18 (Oracle JDK 18) delivers thousands of performance, stability, and security improvements, including nine enhancements to the platform that will further improve developer productivity.
The latest Java Development Kit (JDK) provides updates and improvements with nine JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs). These include the capability to add Code Snippets in Java API Documentation (JEP 413), which simplifies the addition of sample source code in API documentation, and Simple Web Server (JEP 408) for prototyping and testing. Developers can explore two incubating modules: the Vector API (JEP 417) and the Foreign Function and Memory API (JEP 419), as well as a preview feature: Pattern Matching for Switch (JEP 420).
“The release of Java 18 demonstrates Oracle’s continued commitment to provide enterprises and developers faster access to enhancements with the six-month feature release cadence,” said Georges Saab, Vice President of Development, Java Platform Group, Oracle. “We continue to make technical investments that improve the performance, stability, and security of the Java SE Platform implementations, as well as the Java Development Kit.”
“Java developers want continued innovation with modern programming language features, developer experience enhancements, cloud managed services, and stability,” said James Governor, Principal Analyst, RedMonk. “With Java’s consistent six-month release cadence Oracle is meeting those demands, helping to keep Java relevant for modern applications and workloads.”
Prasad Subramanian, Senior Director of Engineering, OCI Product Development, Oracle India: “Java 18 has been extended to easily switch from old versions and enable people to write programming that is very natural in today’s hardware environment. It can be done quickly, and Java runtime can provide this data the way it works with modern hardware optimisation in order to make that reasoning very fast. With the new Java 18, runtime is super performance and works in Java library. earlier, we did multi big bang releases, now we are adding new features every 6 months. In Java 18 too, small incremental features are added to make it easier to adopt. All the work is done in the open-source community like code source, research etc. – an important point to note here is that it generates tremendous amount of transparency.”
Saravanan P, Cloud Engineering Leader, Oracle India: “In India, customers are using Java very widely in developing their applications. It is the most commonly used programming language. Be it for micro services or cloud native applications, customers and even ISVs in India use Java. Let me give some examples: applications that are in use today eg. payments or mobile and internet banking or UPI or risk management or even new age AI and ML solutions – all use Java as their programming language. Large enterprises are seeing value from Java and even from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). A large part of OCI runs of Java, with this we can provide customers with automatic patch updates, security, scalability, and better management of their services. India is witnessing very high demand.”
