5 Features in Java 9 that WILL Change How You Develop Software (and 2 That Won’t)

What are the most exciting features that are expected to be released in Java 9?

Don’t get distracted by the relative silence lately around Java 9. The JDK committers are hard at work preparing the next release, expected to be feature complete just a few months away on December 2015. After that, it will go through rigorous tests and bug fixes preparing it for general availability, which is scheduled for September 2016.

Today we have a pretty clear picture of the features we can expect in Java 9. If Java 8 could be described as the major release of lambdas, streams and API changes, then Java 9 is all about Jigsaw, extra utilities and changes under the hood. In this post we’ve gathered some of the features we believe are the most exciting ones that are targeting Java 9 – Apart from the usual suspect, project Jigsaw, which took on the mission of breaking down the JRE and bringing modularity to Java’s core components.

Here some of the features which are an absolute must to know about in Java 9, some of these are already ready for you to tinker with in the early release version.

1. Java + REPL = jshell

Yes. Previously we had doubts that project Kulla would make it in time for Java 9 but now it’s official. The next release of Java will feature a new command line tool called jshell that will add native support and popularize a Java way to REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop). Meaning, say, if you’ll want to run a few lines of Java on their own you won’t have to wrap it all in a separate project or method. Oh and semicolons – you can forget about those:

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How to enrich your apps and make them more discoverable

Earlier last month, we had the opportunity to present our Build with Bing talk as part of //Build 2015, in which we highlighted some Bing technologies to make your apps more powerful and discoverable. With the //Build Tour events now wrapping up in June, this is a great opportunity to recap some of those technologies and what they can do for you.

Data show that apps are 5x more engaging than the browser alone. That creates a huge opportunity for you as an app developer. However, you have to face two main challenges when creating and publishing an app. The first one is to bring more users to your app, and more often. The app discovery and app linking technologies provided by Bing can help you with that. The second one is to keep users engaged once they’re in your app. Research suggests that an app loses almost 80% of its active daily users after only 3 days of being installed. That’s a lot of people that might simply not come back to your app! To tackle that problem, Bing APIs that can help your app to provide differentiated experiences and scenarios to keep users engaged and come back. Let’s explore that first.

 

The Bing Search API

The Bing Dev Center enumerates a series of Bing-powered services and tools that Bing makes available to developers, such as Maps, Synonyms and Translator. One of the most essential yet powerful of those services is the Bing Search API. The idea is simple: you can programmatically consume and embed Bing results in your app, from web page results to images, videos, news, related searches and spell suggestions. Even better, you can get started for free. As of June 2015, the basic sign-up tier enables you to make 5,000 transactions per month at zero cost.

There’s a multitude of app scenarios that you can enable with the Bing Search API. Here are some ideas to get you inspired:

• You’re developing a recipes app, which enables users to search for recipes. You can use web search results to complement your recipe search results, which is especially useful when no recipe results are found and you don’t want to leave users with a dull “sorry, nothing was found” message.
• You’re developing a travel assistant app, which enables users to plan trips. You can use news results to show fresh news about the cities your users are planning to visit.
• You’re developing a chat app, which enables users to create chat groups to keep in touch with their friends. You can use image search results to let users search and pick an image to use as a group’s icon.
• You’re creating a “time killer” app, which enables users to spend some spare time exploring content about the topics they enjoy, from soccer to puppies. You can use video search results to display videos that relate to the user’s interests, in order to improve user retention.
• For any app that receives text input, you can use spell suggestions to help users with correcting and narrowing down their input.

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A Guide To Marmalade SDK Based Apps On Windows 10

Here's some exciting news for developers who have built apps on Marmalade.

With the recent release of the Marmalade Beta SDK with Windows 10 Support, apps and games built with the Marmalade SDK can now be targeted for and deployed to Windows 10 PCs or phones.

In most cases, your app will not require significant code changes to move to Windows 10. However, the SDK is still a limited beta and changes could be required as updates are made to the supported Marmalade SDK extensions list. Current Beta release limitations are documented and can be found here.

This quick guide will describe the basic steps to follow in order to deploy Marmalade-based apps to Windows 10 PCs and phones.

Set up your development environment

In this section we prepare the development environment.

1. Windows 10 (visit this page for more info)
2. Install Visual Studio 2015 RC
3. Install Marmalade Beta SDK for Windows 10 

 

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