Speaker: Gil Tene

New Java releases are coming faster than ever now that we are well into the six-month release cadence. The number of new features and APIs in each version is less than we’re used to, but the overall rate of change is faster than ever.

In this session, we’ll look at the realities of Life after 8. Will discuss the rate of change, the current Java ecosystem, and the implications of LTS. We’ll also discuss issues affecting migration of applications from earlier versions and choices for which version to choose for deployment.

Finally, we’ll discuss MTS (mid-term release). This is a community plan (led by Azul) to offer support in OpenJDK (starting with 13) outside of the official LTS releases. 

Java continues to grow and thrive. Come learn how the Java community is responding to the realities of Life After 8.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's 2019, and while while Garbage Collection in Java has come a long way since inception, the fundamentals have not changed. In this session, Gil Tene (CTO, Azul Systems) will review and classify the various garbage collectors and collection techniques available in JVMs today. Following a quick overview of common garbage collection techniques including generational, parallel, stop-the-world, incremental, concurrent and mostly-concurrent algorithms, we will define terms and metrics common to all collectors. We will classify each major JVM collector's mechanisms and characteristics and discuss the tradeoffs involved in balancing requirements for responsiveness, throughput, space, and available memory across varying scale levels. We will conclude with some pitfalls, common misconceptions, and "myths" around garbage collection behavior, as well as examples of how some good choices can result in impressive application behavior.

A lot of the techniques and approaches that we use for developing and improving software performance are tried and tested rather than innovative - but where does that leave startups who leverage the VM? What does the future hold?