2020… what a year!

December presents the perfect opportunity to take a look back at so much that transpired in the world of Java during the course of 2020.

One of the biggest stories is that Java turned 25 on May 23 of this year. Global in-person celebration plans were transformed into a series of online events as concerns for health and safety took precedence, but Java enthusiasm remained very high despite not being able to mingle in person. We introduced the MovedByJava site and theme, and used this new platform to host the Java 25th birthday celebration with participation from luminaries and long-time Java experts around the world.

The festivities included a friendly competition, Best of the JDK Feature Face-Off, an inspirational 36-second introductory video to The 25 Greatest Java Apps Ever Written, and an engaging Faces of Java Innovation video – see how many Java friends, colleagues and evangelists you recognize! StackOverflow interviewed Georges Saab, VP of Oracle’s Java Platform Group in the podcast Java at 25: Past, Present, and Future. We also used this opportunity to update the Java timeline, a retrospective look at some key dates in the life of this venerable language, and to introduce a new technical blog, inside.java.

Analysts were full of reflection and commentary on this important milestone. Omdia looked at how Java coexists with new and emerging programming languages in the article What's next for the original “write once, run anywhere” programming language? IDC took another approach, with an historical perspective in the article, Taking Stock of Java's Contributions to Development and Digital Transformation, and they also joined us for a webcast on Java SE in the Enterprise – IDC's View on Innovation and Open Source. Wikibon examined the cost savings possible for midsized enterprises with the purchase of a Java SE Subscription vs a do-it-yourself approach to upgrading to the latest version of Java in their paper, Java for Mid-sized Enterprises, and VDC Research reported on the findings from their 2020 survey in Addressing Next Generation Application Development with Java. Some of these findings are also summarized in the blog post, Java in 2020. Manish Gupta, VP Java and GraalVM Marketing and Donald Smith, Senior Director of Java Product Development were interviewed in theCUBE Analyst Power Panel on Java's relevance for modern enterprises, and Gartner published the paper “Java – Language of the Enterprise” exclusively for their subscribers.

This resulted in copious press attention and more than 180 articles to date - far too many to list in full, but here are a few that ran in May: Java at 25, InfoQ;  Java programming language celebrates 25 years, InfoWorld; How Java helps deliver the groceries, Computer Weekly; 25 years of Java: preparation for the data-driven third act, Jaxenter;  Celebrating Java Turning 25, Chinese Software Developer Network; Happy 25th birthday, Java!, Beta News; and Ocado Technology on why it uses Java to control its robotic swarms, TechHQ.

As part of the standard six-month release cadence for each Java release, this year saw the release of Java 14 in March, and Java 15 in September, including a Developer Live event in which Oracle’s Java product management team gave full-transparency detailed updates, as is the norm, on features under development such as Panama, Amber, Loom and Valhalla. Watch this segment of the keynote for a summary of these. For technical details on these projects, please visit:

As the Java ecosystem continues to thrive, enterprises around the world in both private and public sector continue to invest in Java, including in the commercial offering from Oracle, Java SE Subscription. Thousands of customers choose to run on this trusted platform with professional support around the clock in 17 languages for fast fixes and mission-critical applications, access to performance, stability, and security updates and Java SE versions past end of public updates directly from the stewards of Java, access to critical bug fixes before they are included in publicly available releases, and much more. 

We launched two new webinar series – one covering Java topics of interest, and another on GraalVM Enterprise, plus a hands-on-labs series for GraalVM. And we closed out the year with a fun webcast hosted by Sharat Chander, Senior Director of Java Product Management, interviewing some long-time Java users and community members on Why Java Matters to them. This session included lively interaction with the attendees via Q&A. Let us know if you would like to participate in a future webinar and share your Java tips, hints and best practices!

Another way to share your enthusiasm for Java is by submitting a review through third-party TrustRadius. Your candid feedback is very useful in helping others understand the value of the platform, and the importance of this most popular language.

Here's to more exciting news coming in 2021 - stay tuned, you'll be glad you did!