What's New in JDK 14

What’s New in JDK 14 and Beyond

Eric Solomon Development Technologies, Java Leave a Comment

Why should one care about new JDK releases? As most Java developers are acutely aware, most of the industry is still dominated by JDK 8, so the likelihood of being able to use these new features in the near feature is probably low. However, as the industry gradually shifts from JDK 8 to the latest LTS release and becomes more accustomed to the new, 6-month release cadence, we should start seeing faster adoption rates of new releases. 

As a result, the need to continually sharpen your sword and stay up to date will increase. Also, if you are wanting to help kickstart the shift beyond JDK 8 in your projects, knowing what value later versions bring and being able to incorporate them into your proposal can be extremely helpful in making your goal of using a newer version a reality. Besides those two reasons, it is also just plain exciting to see what the latest and greatest is and where the language is heading.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at three of the more significant enhancements that come with JDK 14: Records, NullPointExceptions, and instanceof. If you like, you can check out the full list here. We’ll also briefly discuss JDK 15 and its promised JEPs.