New versions of Java are coming out every 6 months now. What has changed, should we upgrade, and if so, how?

(Updated 3 Dec, 2020)

While the list in the talks section of my blog covers past presentations, this page should list my confirmed upcoming events.

Yeah… I’m not planning to travel anywhere for 2020 at this time.

Video and resources for the Update on IntelliJ IDEA talk from FOSDEM 2020.

Abstract

With releases of Java coming thick and fast every six months, it’s a full time job staying on top of the features. If your IDE can help you here, it’s one less thing to worry about. IntelliJ IDEA Community has three releases every year, each one improves the support for modern versions of Java, but that’s not the only thing on offer.

Join this session to see what’s new in IntelliJ IDEA Community (the free one!). This is not limited to just supporting new language features, which some of us might not get to use for ages, but better support for things developers do every day, and improved performance and stability, because an all-singing, all-dancing IDE is all well and good, but if it’s not usable those features mean nothing.

I’ve had a fantastic week of meeting with colleagues and friends, getting to know some of my organisation, brainstorming ideas for next year, working out how to prioritise and plan, being handed greater responsibility and freedom…

Right so yes. 2020, hello. One of my 2020 resolutions is to get back to my personal blog. Weekly. Yeah right. Let’s aim for weekly and be happy with monthly.

For my first post let’s do the obligatory look-back-over-last-year. Not because it’s trendy (I’m 41 now, I don’t care about being trendy any more), but because it’s super important for me to understand what I went through and what I achieved last year (every year), otherwise I get caught up in the hamster-wheel of the-next-thing-and-the-next-thing-and-the-next-thing. Progress should be celebrated, not just ignored for the next item on the ever growing, ever pressing TODO list. Also, looking back helps me to plan the next year. Doesn’t have to be super-planned, but setting some goals, objectives, ideas for which direction I’d prefer to go in helps me decide how to prioritise that ever-growing, ever-pressing TODO list.