Oracle turns Java up to 11

Oracle has released Java 11, cementing the company’s new six-monthly release cadence for the popular programing language.

The database giant adopted the faster release cycle after Java SE 9 and Java EE 8 shipped 364 days late. Oracle decided that in these DevOps-y days, that kind of long-burn, big-bang release doesn’t meet developer expectations and moved to more frequent releases.

That plan delivered on time: Java 10 landed in March 2018 and now version 11 has landed, as planned, in September.

Version 11 is a long-term-servicing release, meaning that those who sign up for Oracle’s new US$25/CPU/month license will get updates for at least eight years.

Oracle’s added 17 enhancements to this release. The most notable is support for TLS 1.3, which Oracle acknowledges was added “to remain competitive and keep pace with the latest standard.”

A “Flight Recorder” that collects data to help with troubleshooting is another addition.

Older readers may also feel slightly sad at news that CORBA has been deprecated in Java, because “the costs of maintaining CORBA support outweigh the benefits” and it is felt “there is no case for the Java SE Platform or the JDK to include it.”

The full list of changes is here.