Episode 51 “Unboxing Java 26 for Developers” [IJN]
Posted on March 12, 2026
Java 26 is getting all packaged up to be shipped worldwide! As with every release of the JDK there are a number of new features, improvements, changes in behavior, and more developers should be aware of before upgrading. In this episode of the Inside Java Newscast we will review all the noteworthy changes coming in Java 26 that will impact developers.
Links to JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs):
- JEP 500 - Prepare to Make Final Mean Final
- JEP 504 - Remove the Applet API
- JEP 516 - Ahead-of-Time Object Caching with Any GC
- JEP 517 - HTTP/3 for the HTTP Client API
- JEP 522 - G1 GC: Improve Throughput by Reducing Synchronization
- JEP 524 - PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects (Second Preview)
- JEP 525 - Structured Concurrency (Sixth Preview)
- JEP 526 - Lazy Constants (Second Preview)
- JEP 529 - Vector API (Eleventh Incubator)
- JEP 530 - Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Fourth Preview)
Links to JDK Bug Systems (JBS) tickets:
- JDK-8371470 - Java Launcher does not fail when running compact java-file with private no-arg constructor
- JDK-8346944 - Update Unicode Data Files to 17.0.0
- JDK-8354548 - Update CLDR to Version 48.0
- JDK-8364361 - [process] java.lang.Process should implement Closeable
- JDK-8369432 - Add Support for JDBC 4.5 MR
- JDK-8363972 - Lenient parsing of minus sign pattern in DecimalFormat/CompactNumberFormat
- JDK-8342705 - Add dark mode for docs
- JDK-8356557 - Update CodeSource::implies API documentation and deprecate java.net.SocketPermission class for removal
- JDK-8366577 - Deprecate java.net.Socket::setPerformancePreferences
- JDK-8277585 - Remove the terminally deprecated finalize() method from javax.imageio.stream APIs
- JDK-8368226 - Remove Thread.stop
- JDK-8366575 - Remove SDP support
- JDK-8366911 - (fs) Remove support for normalizing file names to Unicode normalized form D (macOS)
- JDK-8351413 - Remove XML interchange in java.management/javax/management/modelmbean/DescriptorSupport
- JDK-8359760 - Remove the jdk.jsobject module
- JDK-8357653 - Inner classes of type parameters emitted as raw types in signatures
- JDK-8370387 - Remove handling of InterruptedIOException from java.io classes
- JDK-8361614 - Missing sub-int value validation in the Class-File API
- JDK-8361635 - Missing List length validation in the Class-File API
- JDK-8362637 - Convert java.nio.ByteOrder to an enum
- JDK-8362448 - Make use of the Double.toString(double) algorithm in java.text.DecimalFormat
- JDK-8268406 - Deallocate jmethodID native memory
- JDK-8369517 - Compilation mismatch for equivalent lambda and method reference
- JDK-8347831 - Re-examine version check when cross linking
Make sure to also check the Duke’s Corner podcast on dev.java.
Additional resources
- Inside.java : News and views from members of the Java team at Oracle
- Dev.java : The Destination for Java Developers
- OpenJDK
- Oracle Java
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