Finally, the major update to Java after March 2014 edition is here. Yes, Java 9 Standard edition was released and available for download. If you remember, earlier the release of Java 9 was delayed due to the modularity controversy.
This release includes much awaited new features like the modularization of the Java Platform, better performance, support for new standards, and many other improvements. Alone with Java SE 9, Oracle announced the general availability of Java EE 8 and the Java EE 8 Software Development Kit (SDK).
Java SE 9 has more than 150 new features and below are the key features from them.
Top Features of Java 9:
Java Platform Module System is also known as Project Jigsaw – This is one of the major change in Java 9. This feature will bring modularity to JDK, run-time images, Java source code, etc.
Lightweight JSON API – Java 9 brings the light-weighted API for generating and consuming JSON documents and data streams.
JShell – Adds Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL) functionality to the Java platform. With JDK 9, JShell allows you to test different Java constructs without any hassle.
Segmented Code Cache – With this feature, the code cache can be divided into different segments. Each segment can contain compiled the code.
Process API Changes – Process API improvements ensures that OS process is controlled and managed in a better manner.
HTTP/2 client API – The HTTP/2 API can replace the HttpURLConnection API, which has had problems. The new HTTP client API was added for implementing HTTP/2 and WebSocket. It will improve web page loading times, performance, and reduce resource usage.
Improved HTML5 and Unicode support – The Javadoc documentation tool is improved to generate HTML5 markup. The Unicode 8.0 encoding standard which adds 8000 characters, 10 blocks and 6 scripts are supported as well.
DTLS security API – API for DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) is added in Java 9 for security.
Download Java 9:
Java 9 is available for all and you can download it here.
