Trisha Gee · The JetBrains Blog

Idea logo

IntelliJ IDEA – the Leading IDE for Professional Development in Java and Kotlin

News

It’s only two weeks since the last Java Annotated Monthly and we have another huge issue! I’d like to say March’s edition is dedicated to International Women’s Day, and it can be if you like. To be honest, the inclusion of women contributors in this month’s newsletter is, in fact, nothing special or new. It’s the result of several years of hard work identifying new sources of videos and articles, intentionally expanding the people I follow on Twitter, and placing effort into amplifying voices that deserve to be heard. There is still plenty of room for improvement though so I will not relax and say “it’s OK, we’re diverse now”. Because we’re not.

Java Annotated Monthly Logo with coffee mug and JetBrains logo

Java News

  • JFR Coming To Open JDK 8 – this was a paid-for feature in Java 8, but work is being done to port it to OpenJDK

  • State of Valhalla – updated this month. Valhalla includes the idea of inline classes.

  • Draft Spec for Sealed Types

  • Java is not Dead (podcast) – featuring me, Trisha Gee! In which I cover some of the latest changes in the Java ecosystem. Shouldn’t be much new in here for you regular readers since it’s all stuff I’ve linked to from Annotated Monthly

THREAD: Background and explanation for deprecation of the java.lang.Object constructor.

This work is in the Valhalla prototype repo, not the JDK mainline. What eventually arrives in the mainline will likely differ. Existing code will continue working or have a migration path. 1/

— Stuart Marks (@stuartmarks) February 28, 2020

Java Tutorials & Tips

  • Why is map called map? – honestly this was one of the most confusing things to me about the move to the more “readable” Streams API

  • Make Code Simple and Readable – this stuff is “obvious”, which means read it to remind yourself and then share it with the team

  • Serializing Records – I think records is my favourite (preview) feature from Java 14

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries and Technologies

I am a senior developer, Katie. I still say these things. https://t.co/mh5C9kc5cn

— Grady Booch (@Grady_Booch) March 1, 2020

Culture & Community

Happy International Women’s Day (March 8th)! And because someone is bound to ask, November 19.

Also, this section just keeps getting bigger. This month I’ve included a bunch of books too as I’ve been reading more actual paper things in the last year or so and, who knew, I’m learning a lot from them.

Sometimes I consider re-focusing the newsletter on just Java-specific stuff. I do not want to do this. I believe developers are people first and a language-typist second. Or third. Or maybe even waaaay down the list.

  • This is your semi-regular reminder to read Programmed Inequality.
  • Susan Fowler: Why I Wrote the Uber Memo – making the decision to speak up is not something one takes lightly

  • Joining Blameless – the point of the post is about a specific job move, but the majority is highlighting how it sometimes (often?) feels working in this industry.

  • Being Glue – This was mentioned in the previous blog. Recommended reading.

  • The article above references this story I may have posted before (here’s more context, contains strong language)

  • Lambda School’s Misleading Promises – boot camps should help “close the skills-gap”, but articles like this suggest some organisations may be damaging, particularly for those from under-represented groups and other at-risk people.

  • HackerRank: Coding bootcamps explode in popularity among younger developers

  • Collaborative Overload – “As people become known for being both capable and willing to help, they are drawn into projects and roles of growing importance.” and “…the evidence shows, women experience greater emotional exhaustion than men.” and “In an experiment… a man who stayed late to help colleagues earned 14% higher ratings than a woman who did the same. When neither helped, the woman was rated 12% lower than the man.” This article shined a light on a lot of patterns and behaviours I’ve seen.

  • I’ve just finished Daniel Pink’s book When, some of the ideas in that have helped me with the above overload issue, and also helped me to design my working week a little better.

  • Momentum > Urgency – Great story about how to make developers better at delivering. Reminded me of another of Daniel Pink’s books, Drive, which I also recently re-read.

  • CodeNode Relaunched by Trifork – London-based techies may be pleased to hear this, but I’m still very sad about the demise of Skillsmatter

  • Your Realistic Guide To Beating Burnout (Because A Vacation Isn’t The Answer) – ”Maybe it means coming up with an end-of-day routine… that helps you transition from “work mode” to your personal life.” – I’ve been trying this for only a couple of weeks (it’s particularly hard to separate from work when you work from home) and it has made a noticeable difference

  • Alexis Coe on Why It Matters When Women Write History – not an article about technology, but interesting all the same

  • “The erasure of Williams’ work is also a reminder of the ways that women have been excised from the story of the history of science. ‘Even though they were in the shadows,’ Clark said, ‘[women] were contributing to this field.'”

And Finally

A chance to catch up on the other IntelliJ IDEA and JetBrains blog posts from this month.

IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1 (currently EAP) not only supports the new #Java14 Record syntax, but can generate new record classes for you to help you get started. Try it now! https://t.co/8wA4qcUwbt (download #Java 14: https://t.co/PIy1AVqOVS) #TheDriveToDevelop pic.twitter.com/dkSKNJmqKh

— IntelliJ IDEA (@intellijidea) February 25, 2020

We are hiring!! I’m looking for a Java/JVM Developer Advocate to join my team. I’m interested in talking to developers who are thinking of switching into an advocacy career, i.e. you don’t need to be an experienced speaker/blogger to apply.

Discover more

Read the original on blog.jetbrains.com ↗