Welcome

Welcome to Java News and Code, where I tell you about interesting goings-on in the world of IT in general, and Java in particular.

And there’s always code.

On This Episode:

• Oracle wants to open source Java EE
• Android Oreo is here
• Code: A custom Maven archetype for JUnit 5

On August 17th, Oracle Software Evangelist David Delabassee said Oracle wants to open up Java EE.

The announcement on the Oracle Blog says that as the summer ends, releases wrap up, and JavaOne 2017 approaches, this is an “…opportunity to rethink how Java EE is developed in order to make it more agile and responsive to changing industry and technology demands.”

As InfoQ points out, Oracle has been criticized regarding how it’s steered Java EE in the past, which has led to efforts such as the Java EE Guardians, a group “…committed to moving the Java EE platform forward through active community participation and advocacy.”

Java EE Guardians’ members include James Gosling, the Father of Java, and Cameron McKenzie, editor-in-chief of the Server side. It’s not clear what qualifies someone to be a Java EE Guardian, but qualifications span the spectrum from Father of Java, to Java Blogger, to this Java EE Guardian, whose qualifications include Student.

Reaction outside Oracle seems to be positive, with IBM’s Ian Robinson weighing in on the WASDev blog saying, “…we are delighted that Java EE is moving with the times to an open foundation for its ongoing development following the completion of Java EE 8 this year.”

So who will take over Java EE?

Responses to an unofficial Twitter poll by Java EE Guardian Reza  Rahman asking that question seem overwhelmingly in favor of handing stewardship of the platform over to Apache.

So what does this mean for Java EE? It depends on whom you ask, but given the popularity and prevalence of the platform, I’m sure it will stay in good hands.

Be sure to check out the show notes page, where you can find more information on this story, and everything I talk about in this episode.

We’ve been following Android O for some time now here at Java News and Code, and at long last, Android O, named Oreo, has been released!

For users, Android Oreo has a bunch of new features, some of which are immediately obvious like picture in picture, and per-app notification options.

Other changes like background limits, are designed to improve device responsiveness and extend battery life.

For developers, things get more complicated. The optimizations and improvements come at a cost, which will be paid on the development side. And rightly so.

What does that mean for developers like me, who have apps in the Play Store?

For now, probably not much. Oreo is not even showing up on the Android Dashboard as of today, but of course, it’s only a matter of time.

Android Marshmallow has the single greatest share of installations, and it was released in October of 2015, coming on two years. So we have time.

But as developers we need to be ready. Fortunately, there is information available already to help us get ahead of this, like this video on the Android Developers YouTube channel.

This release is huge, there’s no denying it. And in my opinion totally worth it. Check out this article at Gizmodo, that lays out 11 cool new features in Oreo.

Be sure to check out the show notes page, where you can find more information on this story, and everything I talk about in this episode.

Code: A custom Maven archetype for JUnit 5

On August 24th, JUnit 5, Release Candidate 3 was released.

This release, which signals the impending General Availability (GA) Release, includes the usual spate of bug fixes, breaking changes, and new features.

The GA release is scheduled for September 6th, according to the milestones page.

A Maven archetype is a special type of Maven project that is used to generate other Maven projects. If you’ve ever used the New Project wizard in Eclipse to create a Maven project, chances are you’ve used the maven-quick-start archetype. Guess what? That’s a Maven archetype!

For this episode’s code talk through, I want to show you how to create a Maven archetype that you can use to create new projects that will come with JUnit 5 dependencies and boilerplate code.

The source code for the archetype is available in GitHub. And in this episode I want to do a quick walk through of the code for a Maven archetype, how it’s structured, and how to use it to generate a new project.

Credits

Music:

Funk Down, by MK2, YouTube Audio Library (Free to use for commercial purposes, no attribution required), see YouTube Terms of Service and this YouTube support article for details.

Pixabay images and videos are free for commercial use, no attribution required. See Pixabay Terms of Service for more information..

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