Ben Evans (IBM/Red Hat) presents a comprehensive state-of-Java-in-2026 overview covering ecosystem health, language evolution, and future roadmap. Key data points: server-side Java workloads have roughly doubled in 7 years, Java wages remain stable, and Java holds a top-4 language position consistently. The talk covers Java's philosophy of backwards compatibility and steady modernization, the tension between dynamism (reflection, bytecode weaving, Java agents) and integrity (removing internal API access, restricting unsafe operations). Modern additions highlighted include virtual threads with structured concurrency, records, sealed classes, and pattern matching. AI integration is discussed via LangChain4j, Spring AI, and Quarkus, with honest caveats about LLM limitations on large codebases and version-specific knowledge. Future roadmap items include Project Valhalla (value types — described as the most fundamental JVM change ever), the Vector API for AI workloads, nullability markers, ahead-of-time compilation via condensers, and frontier research on type classes and Project Babylon.
Sort: