Java 8 Launched With Supporting Line-Up

Written by Mike James

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Java 8 has been officially launched and the good news is that it also has support from its best known IDEs - NetBeans and Eclipse.

Oracle has launched Java Platform Standard Edition 8, marking the largest update to Java for a long while. The key new features must be known to everyone by now, but it is difficult to overate the importance of the introduction of lambdas, multicore extensions and the new Date and Time API. The multiprocessor improvements are claimed to deliver from 12 to 41% performance improvements on dual and four socket servers.

The Nashorn JavaScript JVM engine was also launched and this provides better performance for embedded scripts in Java applications.

The Java SE Embedded 8 SDK is already available for a range of architectures and boards including the Raspberry Pi and the Micro edition should follow soon. Oracle claims that the Micro edition is moving toward the full SE edition.

At the same time as Java 8 was launched, Oracle made NetBeans 8.0 available. You can now download NetBeans complete with Java 8 and the official Oracle Java 8 download page offers a NetBeans 8 bundle.

Oracle seems to be making an effort to get NetBeans accepted as the standard IDE for Java. The main new features are:

JDK 8 support: tools and editor enhancements for working with Profiles, Lambdas, and Streams
Java SE Embedded support to deploy, run, debug or profile Java SE applications on an embedded device, such as Raspberry PI, directly from the NetBeans IDE
Java ME Embedded 8 support.
Several Java Editor enhancements, such as many new Java hints, Javadoc shown as tooltip, instant rename enhancements, and code completion exclusions
Improved integration with JavaFX Scene Builder

The support for Raspberry Pi might just be the move needed to make NetBeans preferred to its main rival Eclipse.

Eclipse also supports Java 8, but you have to apply a patch to the current Kepler release. Java 8 support will be standard in the upcoming Luna release planned for June.

As Eclipse seems to become less enthusiastic about supporting other languages, NetBeans seems to be extending its support. Currently you can use it to develop JavaScript/HTML5, PHP and C/C++. In version 8 there is improved support for AngularJS and jQuery and you can debug JavaScript code running in Nashorn.

So far 2014 is looking good for Java and Oracle.