Key Takeaways from Apache NetBeans Day UK

Apache NetBeans Day 2018 has come and gone. Whether you attended, watched it live or missed the event – we will take this opportunity to look back on the event and provide a brief summary of what we saw. If you did miss out, be sure to head over to official Twitter page and catch-up on the tweets/replays.

Update on Apache NetBeans – Geertjan Wielenga

This talk involved both the history of Apache NetBeans as well as defining the roadmap ahead. Geertjan updated us on the current status of Oracle’s second code donation to the Apache foundation.

We were provided with an informative tutorial on how we can get involved in NetBeans development by joining the mailing list and getting involved in feature/fix discussions. Features of NetBeans 9.0 were also showcased including the built-in JShell environment and how it can be used to auto-generate classes/methods based on scratchpad code from the terminal.

Choosing Java versions – Ovidijus Okinskas and Mark Stephens

IDRsolutions went through a brief history of Java from Java 1.0 to what we can expect in Java 11. We showcased Java 8/9/10 features and why someone would want to use a particular version. The Java 8 section showcased the usefulness of lambdas and streams etc. Java 9 allows to implement modularity in JDK and for projects via JigSaw. The Java 10 section displayed the var keyword and how this version improves Docker functionality.

Using GraalVM

This talk by Duncan Mcgregor showcased the GraalVM. Graal allows other languages to run on the JVM and Duncan showed us how it can improve run-times when used with Java. The talk described how the VM achieves what it does with a visual display of the process. It takes an input Tree and algorithmically improves the structure until no more improvements can be made.

Writing code with NetBeans

Georgia Ingham  and Mark Stephens demonstrated how NetBeans can be used to write code fast. This included shortcuts, Maven, NetBeans plugins, configurations to suit the user, code-completion and generation.

Update on Jakarta EE

Payara provided the audience with an update on Jakarta EE. Payara is heavily involved in the Eclipse foundation and informed us on where they see Java EE going after the donation. The talk also went into detail on how the Eclipse Foundation actually works, from decision-making to documentation to implementation.

Build plugins and applications on the NetBeans platform

IDRsolutions hosted a workshop in which we used NetBeans to easily start creating plugins on the platform. The plugins started at “Hello World”, advancing to creating a Pomodoro Timer and then extending the configuration options of the timer.

Writing web applications using Oracle JET

Geertjan displayed the usefulness of Oracle’s new tool, Oracle JET. The tool allows web-developers to improve their workflow and easily create dashboards to suit their use cases. Furthermore, the package offers new ways to implement complex features while knowing that it will be supported due to Oracle backing. This is a pleasant sign of stability in a JavaScript environment that iterates and evolves so rapidly.

Additionally, we had the opportunity to use the tool for ourselves and build a quick dashboard using the Oracle JET cookbook.

MicroProfile on PayaraMicro

Payara showcased MicroProfile, a set of libraries to help Java developers create micro-services easily and improve their maintainability. In addition, the talk delved into the timeline of the project from inception, version iterations as well as improvements we can expect in the future.

All we can say is, we learned a lot from this year’s event and enjoyed sharing our talks with the NetBeans community. Additionally, did you enjoy Apache NetBeans Day or have something to suggest for future events? Let us know in the comments or message us directly.

Are you a Developer working with PDF files?

Our developers guide contains a large number of technical posts to help you understand the PDF file Format.

Do you need to solve any of these problems?