Perhaps the most cited reason for not using Java for development is that it’s too verbose. Developers complain that there’s too much boilerplate and that no new features for Java developers have been released in a long time. The idea that Java is not growing and changing is flatly false. Although it’s true that other languages built on the JVM have gained significant traction, especially Kotlin, Java is certainly fighting back. These new Java features are coming… and fast.

Since Oracle has split JDK into a Commercial Oracle JDK and OpenJDK, the development and release cycle for the JDK has increased at an alarming rate. On OpenJDK’s website, you can see the last 5 versions of the OpenJDK have all been released since 2018. The first 9 versions of Java SE were released over the course of 18 years.

Project Amber

The goal of Project Amber is to add productivity-oriented features to the Java language. Project Amber is taking huge steps forward in the developer experience in Java. As someone with a habit of furtively eyeing other languages, I felt a sense of relief and excitement knowing the direction OpenJDK was taking Java. Here are the main goals of project Amber, per the OpenJDK Website.

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