This is the first ##java channel podcast. I decided to do a podcast for a few reasons: probably the most important is that I thought it would save time for me; another reason is that I thought it would be nice to have more of a multimedia approach to propagating information from the channel.
I don’t know what kind of schedule the podcast will take. I wanted it to be weekly; some of the interesting stuff for this podcast is a little older than a week, but that’s largely because I’ve been stuck trying to get my ducks in a row to record the podcast. We’ll see how the schedule plays out.
If there’s any advice or criticism you have, you can always put it on the IRC channel, of course, but if you want to make sure I see it, send it to me via private message, memoserv, or – probably best – email, at [email protected].
The interesting stuff
Before we get too far in, it’s worth pointing out that this is all material referenced and sourced elsewhere. As such, we try to vet it for accuracy, but there’s no way to prevent the authors’ opinions from being a factor. It’s perfectly okay if you disagree with this podcast or the links offered in the podcast – after all, the channel even has a few vim and blueJ users, so clearly not everyone on the channel is all that bright, right?
Also, the podcast is associated with a blog post on the channel blog, at http://javachannel.org/. All links to the source material can be found in the blog post that goes with each podcast edition. This is the first podcast, so look for podcast-1 in the search bar.
So off to the news!
- Atom gets IDE functionality. Atom is a text editor; IDE features means that it gets a little easier to do quick fixes in Atom if that’s your bag. Invoke your build tool, see errors inline, get autocompletion, and other such features, too. Atom’s open source.
- Sublime Text 3 has been released. Sublime Text is not open source, but it’s an excellent tool nonetheless; this release has been cooking for quite some time.
- OpenJ9 is available as part of OpenJDK 9. OpenJ9 is a JVM implementation; it’s a peer of the Oracle release. It comes from IBM, via Eclipse; it will behave differently than the “standard JVM,†although I don’t have any experience with it so I’m not sure what that looks like in practice.
- Speaking of J9, how did it get its name? Well, Ronald Servant has explained: it comes from the migration of a Smalltalk interpreter such that it handles Java.
- Glassfish 5.0 has been released! And … while that’s kind of important and relevant for Java EE users, it’s even more important to note that Java EE 8 is final. Glassfish is the reference implementation of Java EE 8; the new features include the Servlet 4.0 API, better JSON support, a new portable Security API, and Java 8 capabilities, just in time for Java 9.
- Speaking of Java 9… it’s finally out. It’s been a long road, but it’s done, for better or for worse. Java 9, with a lot of enhancements, is out – and the biggest enhancement, the biggest disruptor, is Jigsaw, the module system for Java 9. Early adopters have already been talking about migration efforts. This sounds fun, I think, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Now we get to hope that the lessons we’ve learned in watching Java 9’s release and development cycle haven’t burned so many bridges that people stop being invested.
- Lastly, there’s a reference to some realtime resources for Java. There’s even a reference to a DSP library (digital signal processing, typically for sound) in TarsosDSP. Yes, you can use Java for audio processing; BBE’s Sonic Sweetener, for example, was written with Java back in the day and still might be. Sonic Sweetener was an exciter, which is one of the core effects that gave Joe Satriani his distinctive guitar sound on “Surfing with the Alien,†although he didn’t use this exact product (he used a hardware-based effect instead.)
Submitting More Information
The preferred way to get information into this podcast is to, well, submit it. The best way to submit it is through the channel bot.
The syntax is really easy. Join the channel, hit the tilde – the squiggly line that’s the standard trigger for the bot – and type the word “submit.†Then include your link; it has to be an actual URL, because I’m not posting unsubstantiated data, and it’s ideal if you include some commentary about what’s interesting about the link. That’s about it, really.
Okay, that’s it! Thanks for listening, and keep coding, folks.