What’s New in Java? JDK 24 Innovations, Spring Framework Updates, and more

At Introduct, we are dedicated to keeping our community of developers and IT professionals informed about the latest advancements in technology. This week, we will share Java updates regarding JDK 24, the Spring Framework, Piranha Cloud releases, Gradle, and Arquillian. Read below for more on the latest developments.

OpenJDK Developments

JDK 24: Preparing for Change

Oracle’s JEP 472 proposes to restrict the usage of Java Native Interface to JDK 24. According to this JEP, JNI usage shall be restricted, with restricted methods in the FF&M API introduced by JDK 22. From JDK 23 onwards, the runtime will, by default, warn about JNI usage unless unsafe native access has been enabled through a command-line option. In a future release, these warnings may be changed to be exceptions.

Early Access Builds

• JDK 23: Build 31 is now available. It contains numerous bug fixes and enhancements. Developers are encouraged to report any issues via the Java Bug Database.
• JDK 24: Build 6 is out with more updates and bug fixing. More details on this release may be found in the release notes.

Spring Framework Updates

Spring Framework 6.2.0 Milestone Release

The fifth milestone of Spring Framework 6.2.0 is primarily a release focusing on several bug fixes, improvements to the documentation area, and new features. The highlights are as follows:

• SmartHttpMessageConverter: A new interface addressing limitations in the GenericHttpMessageConverter.
• Custom ObjectProvider Implementations: More flexible implementations for easier unit testing.
• Error Handling Improvements: Fixed problems with the SimpleClientHttpResponse class.

Spring Framework 6.1.11

Similar to the previous releases, most work concentrated on conflating bug fixes, improving documentation, and providing new features, like handling null varargs in the Java MethodHandle class and improving error handling in AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.

Spring Data and Spring Cloud

• Spring Data: The new service releases 2024.0.2 and 2023.1.8 include bug fixes and dependency upgrades in the sub-projects.
• Spring Cloud 2023.0.3 (Leyton) Updates sub-projects: Spring Cloud Kubernetes, Spring Cloud Function, and Spring Cloud Gateway.

Spring HATEOAS

Versions 2.3.1 and 2.2.3 provide dependency upgrades and enhancements for parsing link headers in compliance with IETF RFC-8288.

Quarkus and Micrometer Updates

Quarkus 3.12.2

The newest maintenance release of Quarkus fixes a range of issues and thereby improves stability and performance. One of the most prominent inclusions within this category is fixing Jakarta CDI ContextNotActiveException and proper registration of classes using @Provider.

Micrometer Metrics and Tracing

• Metrics Micrometer 1.14.0: It adds support for @MeterTag in @Counted annotations and also adds custom Java ThreadFactory implementation.
• Micrometer Tracing 1.4.0: Support for @Nullable annotations, propagation of values from the Context inner class.

Project Reactor Releases

Project Reactor 2024.0.0 Milestone

This milestone release includes dependency upgrades for reactor-core, reactor-netty, and reactor-pool, aligning with other artifacts like reactor-kafka and reactor-addons.

Maintenance Release

• Project Reactor 2023.0.8: Updates to reactor-core, reactor-netty, and reactor-pool.
• Project Reactor 2022.0.21: Similar updates with additional alignment across related artifacts.

Piranha Cloud and Apache Software Foundation

Piranha 24.7.0

The latest Piranha release includes bug fixes, upgrading dependencies, and migration of some utilities to separate extensions. It also introduces a new DefaultPiranhaBuilder class.

Apache Tomcat 9.0.91 and Apache Camel 4.7.0

• Tomcat 9.0.91: Fixed bugs; ensure correct processing of include directives in tag files.
• Camel 4.7.0: Provides new features to Cloud service components and introduces a developer console for the RestRegistry interface.

Arquillian and Gradle Updates

Arquillian 1.9.0.Final

Improvements compared to the previous release include: disabling the Maven MultiThreadedBuilder by default and turning back on the use of JUnit listeners for before() and after() methods.

Gradle 8.9.0

The latest Gradle release enhances error reporting for variant issues, provides detailed structural information for Java compilation errors, and offers improved JVM information display.

Conclusion

At Introduct, we pride ourselves on delivering tailored software solutions and staying at the forefront of technological advancements. Our expertise ensures that we can help you navigate these updates seamlessly. For more information or technical assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. We are here to support your development needs and ensure your projects are always up-to-date with the latest industry standards.