Oracle JDK 12 includes preview of switch expressions plus improvements to garbage collection and class data sharing.
Oracle today announced the general availability of Java SE 12 (JDK 12), continuing the six-month release cadence that provides enterprises and developers faster access to completed enhancements to the popular programming language.
The release brings continued improvements to developer productivity, including a preview of switch expressions and abortable mixed collections for G1. All together, these enhancements elevate performance, functionality and security for Java SE Platform implementations in general, and the JDK in particular.
Oracle JDK 12 is the next six-month release following Oracle JDK 11, which was the first Long Term Support (LTS) feature release, per the previously announced 6-month release cadence. In September, 2017, Oracle announced the move to a time-based release model for Java SE with a new feature release every six months. New LTS releases are planned to be released every three years, which started with Oracle JDK 11. Oracle JDK 12 will receive a minimum of two updates per the Oracle CPU schedule before being superseded by Oracle JDK 13, which is due out in September 2019. The six-month release cadence allows Oracle to deliver new JDK features faster, which helps accelerate adoption and usage by developers.
Similar to JDK 10, which provided twelve enhancements, and JDK 11, which provided seventeen enhancements, Oracle continues to offer new innovation with greater approachability in JDK 12, which brings eight new enhancements focused on improving developer productivity:
JEP 189: Shenandoah: A Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector (Experimental)
JEP 230: Microbenchmark Suite
JEP 325: Switch Expressions (Preview)
JEP 334: JVM Constants API
JEP 340: One AArch64 Port, Not Two
JEP 341: Default CDS Archives
JEP 344: Abortable Mixed Collections for G1
JEP 346: Promptly Return Unused Committed Memory from G1
For the full list of features introduced in JDK 12, please visit this page.
To give developers more flexibility, Oracle continues to offer the Oracle Java SE Subscription, an affordable, predictable, pay-for-what-you-use offering that provides customers with access to Java SE license and support for the systems that they need, when they need it. Oracle has announced that Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, has selected Oracle’s Java SE Subscription in a multi-year agreement for all its Java SE needs.
As with previous Java SE releases, Oracle continues to advance and steward the majority of enhancements in Java SE, including in JDK 12, and to welcome the ongoing technical participation and ecosystem collaboration with the OpenJDK community.
“The Java SE Platform and every new release is the result of a collaboration between countless committed people at Oracle and members of the global Java community via the OpenJDK and Java Community Process,” said Georges Saab, VP of Java Platform Group at Oracle. “Together, we’re moving Java forward faster with the rapid release process and making the Java SE Platform more valuable and accessible to more developers and innovators like Spotify.”
Java is the world’s most popular programming language, with over 12 million developers running Java and more than 1 billion downloads each year. Java is also the #1 developer choice for cloud, with over 21 billion cloud-connected Java virtual machines.
