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December 12, 2023

Recap of JRebel Updates in 2023

Java Tools
Java Updates

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It’s been a big year for the Java community. Even though many people have been claiming for years that Java is dead, Java continues to be highly relevant within the software ecosystem. As Java has continued to be highly relevant, there were some notable changes made in 2023 namely the licensing changes. In 2019, Oracle removed security updates for Oracle JDK without support. In 2021, Oracle made all releases after JDK 17 free to use. And for 2023, Oracle added a requirement that if a company buys a license for one employee, they must purchase enough licenses for all employees. Only a few minor features were added in 2023, including sealed classes, record types and text block.  

It’s also been a big year for JRebel. Read on for a recap of new features and integrations for JRebel, including a new VSCode extension and support for Java 21, and how those enhancements allow Java developers to save time by eliminating redeploys.  

Table of Contents

  1. JRebel Releases to Meet Java Development Needs 
  2. IDE Integrations With JRebel 
  3. Application Server Support for JRebel 
  4. Java Frameworks Support for JRebel 
  5. Final Thoughts 
 

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JRebel Releases to Meet Java Development Needs 

Technologies throughout the community have followed suit with the updates to release cadence happening every single month. JRebel has been a part of this withour own monthly product releases (except January 2023). Each JRebel release prioritizes the strongest needs for the Java community.  

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IDE Integrations With JRebel 

Throughout 2023, JRebel has made regular updates to the IntelliJ plugin, Eclipse plugin, and the VSCode extension, among other IDE improvements.  

IntelliJ  

IntelliJ has regular releases each month, and a large amount of Java developers make the regular IntelliJ updates to take advantage of the latest features. According to the 2023 Java Developer Productivity Survey, 42% of respondents are using IntelliJ as their primary IDE. For this reason, our team focuses on increasing what JRebel can support within IntelliJ. 

Eclipse 

Eclipse has a number of distributions supported by JRebel, including STS, myEclipse, and the standard Eclipse IDE. Each of these Eclipse distributions had a number of different releases throughout the year that JRebel has maintained. 

VSCode 

Microsoft Visual Studio Code, or VSCode,is a relatively new IDE that JRebel added support for last year. We were able to make some sizable updates, including adding support for VSCode for Cloud (VSCode Remote). This change made JRebel features in VSCode mirror those of other IDEs in the ability to work with remote changes while developing your application. This takes the benefit of JRebel a step beyond the typical joy of eliminating restarts and redeploys and adds the benefit of eliminating the time it takes to push changes to the cloud.  

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Application Server Support for JRebel 

Most JRebel customers are running web applications, so we consider supporting application servers to be our specialty. The ability to compile changes and see that reflected immediately is greatly beneficial in this scenario. We have added support for a large number of different application servers and I will just cover a couple here. 

Tomcat 

Tomcat has become the main option for application servers throughout the Java ecosystem. Again, the 2023 JRebel Productivity Report found that 44% of respondents are using Tomcat to configure most of their frameworks. For that reason, JRebel has continued to maintain support for Tomcat adding many of the newest features within Tomcat. 

Glassfish 

Glassfish has been releasing monthly with mostly regular cadence. Glassfish 7.0.8 added support for JakartaEE 10, which is the new standard in Java community. 

📚 Further reading:Jakarta EE Overview   

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Java Frameworks Support for JRebel 

JRebel supports over 100 different frameworks. While this has definitely been a major benefit for a number of customers looking to use JRebel with confidence, the reality is that Spring has completely taken over the Java framework ecosystem. 

From Spring MVC to Spring Boot, JRebel continues to support whatever version of Spring you might be working with, including SpringBoot 3 and Spring 6. That being said, we do continue to support a number of common Java frameworks like Hibernate, Struts, and Vaadin. 

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Final Thoughts 

As we move into 2024, we look forward to continue to add amazing features into the JRebel product. You can expect JRebel to continue to support the latest Java technologies. On top of that, we will be working on new offerings, like JRebel for Cloud. If you are looking to use JRebel with an IDE, application server, or framework that Jrebel doesn’t support, I would love to hear from you. Reach out to me at cjohnson02@perforce.com. 

Monthly releases, from JRebel 2023 1.1 to 2023.4.2 have integrated support and new features for a variety of Java frameworkds and IDEs; catch up on all the details in the changelog. But the one thing that hasn’t changed in 2023 is how much Java development time you can save with JRebel by eliminating rebuilds and redeploys. See for yourself during your 14-day free trial.  

 

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Profile JRebel Curtis Johnson

Curtis Johnson

Product Manager for JRebel, Perforce Software

Curtis Johnson is a product manager at Perforce, where he spearheads the development and enhancement of JRebel. With a keen eye for optimizing software solutions, Curtis has consistently driven the evolution of JRebel to drive Java development productivity during his decade-long tenure. Under his guidance,  JRebel has solidified its position as a necessary solution in the Java ecosystem.