Java Annotated Monthly – April 2020

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Well, what can I say? For much of the world it has been a terrible month (and let’s be honest, we have not shown enough empathy for our friends in Asia who suffered this before us), and I’m not super optimistic about the next month or two. As usual, I’m compiling this newsletter from Spain, which you’ve probably read in the news is not doing well right now.

Not surprisingly, a lot of this month’s content is around remote working, but honestly work is the last thing on many people’s minds right now, and rightly so.

Stay safe. Stay home if you can.

Java News

The main Java news this month, of course, was the release of Java 14. Although not a Long Term Support release, it’s an exciting one because of all the interesting new preview features (don’t use in production code, APIs may change).

Java Tutorials & Tips

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries and Technologies

Otherwise known as the “other stuff that’s Java-ish” section.

Working From Home

Not surprisingly most of the tech world was talking about tips to work from home given the current situation. Of course those of us who can work from home are fortunate for so many reasons, not least of which is having a job. This aside, we need to understand that strongly encouraged / enforced remote work during a global pandemic is a very different situation to optimal working-from-home conditions. I’ve been working from home for seven years, I’m well set up for it and used to it, and I’m down to about 25% productivity. And that’s not just because the kids are here too.

Working from home top tip: this is NOT normal. Those of us who’ve been doing it for years were not productive last week, not because working from home is less efficient, but because these are Interesting Times. — Trisha Gee (@trisha_gee) March 16, 2020

Culture & Community

There’s a bunch of stuff from International Women’s Day, since the last Java Annotated Monthly came out before the day itself. I’ve also included a couple of covid-19 articles but only because they seemed particularly relevant. Feel free to skip if it’s all too much.

Happy (belated) #InternationalWomenDay! As part of our skills-sharpening practice, we graphic recorded @codermeow Crystal Martin’s wonderful @TEDxStLouis talk. It is paramount that women get the recognition and space they deserve, let’s do what we can for true inclusivity.❤️ pic.twitter.com/QoZK6WKG5i — Idea Ink (@_ideaink) March 9, 2020

We’re back! 🎉 We are thrilled to announce that https://t.co/Jicp5jTIO8 — including the SkillCast library — is back online! Thank you all very much for your patience and all the support you have shown us over the past few months. pic.twitter.com/STZSnI69Rs — Skills Matter (@skillsmatter) March 26, 2020

And Finally

A chance to catch up on the other IntelliJ IDEA and JetBrains blog posts from this month.

Have you been thinking about learning a new programming language or further developing your existing skills?

Join the #JetBrainsAcademy30dayCodingChallenge, which starts today! Sign up and meet some fellow programmers in our Discord Channel: https://t.co/XukAtJhVzU pic.twitter.com/mOK8S7MNOY — JetBrains Educational Products (@JetBrains_Edu) March 23, 2020

We are hiring! I’m currently interviewing candidates for the Java/JVM Developer Advocate role in my team but it’s not too late to apply. I’m interested in talking to developers who are thinking of switching into an advocacy career, i.e. you don’t need to be an experienced speaker/blogger to apply. Want to work in a fully remote, remote-first team? That’s us!