The long-awaited Java 9, which was expected to launch in September 2016, has postponed its release by six months. Java chief architect Mark Reinhold has recently announced that Java’s major release will be delayed due to several complexities that need more time. The team working on the new version is developing modularization in order to improve Java’s performance and scalability, while the Java Development Kit (JDK) 9 milestone will launch on December 10.
“We've made good progress on Jigsaw over the last 18 months.We reorganized the source code into modules in August 2014 (JEP 201), restructured run-time images to support modules in December 2014 (JEP 220), began discussions in the JSR 376 EG last February, and published a design overview, draft specification, and EA builds in September. More recently we presented an integrated series of talks on Jigsaw at JavaOne 2015 and Devoxx BE 2015,” Reinhold wrote. “The JSR 376 EG (expert group) has not yet published an Early Draft Review specification, [but] the volume of interest and the high quality of the feedback received over the last two months suggests that there will be much more to come, and we want to ensure that the maintainers of the essential build tools and IDEs have adequate time to design and implement good support for modular development,” he added.
Wanting to make the new milestone launch worthwhile, Reinhold has suggested a six-month extension to give developers the time needed to make sure Java 9’s performance and scalability will improve as promised. JDK 9 general availability will be postponed until March 2014, while the complete finished version will not be available until May 2016. "As with previous schedule changes, the intent here is not to open the gates to a flood of new features unrelated to Jigsaw, nor to permit the scope of existing features to grow without bound,” Reinhold explained.
According to Java World, in case there are no reasoned objections by Dec. 8, the new schedule will be adopted. Furthermore, this is not the first time Java postpones project Jigsaw. In 2014, Jigsaw was supposed to be included in Java 8 launch, but due to technical issues that needed more time, the project was postponed until the launch of Java 9.
“It would be best to use the additional time to stabilize, polish, and fine-tune the features that we already have rather than add a bunch of new ones. The later FC milestone does apply to all features, however, so reasonable proposals to target additional JEPs to JDK 9 will be considered so long as they do not add undue risk to the overall release,” Reinhold concluded.