Java 26 Is Here: What's New, What's Gone, and Why It Matters in 2026 (#92)

Welcome to another episode of the Foojay Podcast! In this episode, we&#39;re talking about Java 26, released on March 17 in the year 26. Again, right on schedule with Java&#39;s six-month release cadence.Now, Java 26 is not a Long Term Support (LTS) release; that was Java 25. But don&#39;t let that fool you into thinking there&#39;s nothing interesting here. This release brings ten JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs). They cover everything from performance improvements to long-overdue cleanups. Of those ten JEPS, five are new features, and we also get five preview/incubator features.GuestsSimon Ritterhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/siritter/Loïc Mathieuhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/lo%C3%AFc-mathieu-475b144/Content00:00 Introduction of topic and guests01:35 Differences between Long and Short Term Support05:10 Which Java versions are used by companieshttps://foojay.io/today/foojay-podcast-90-highlights-of-the-java-features-between-lts-21-and-25/07:54 Internal changes and improvements in release 26, highlighting UUIDv7 supporthttps://foojay.io/today/java-26-whats-new/12:02 JEP 500: Prepare to Make Final Mean Final13:24 JEP 526: Lazy Constants (Second Preview)16:12 JEP 517: HTTP/3 for the HTTP Client APIhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC18:48 JEP 504: Remove the Applet API20:52 JEP 524: PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects (Second Preview)21:59 JEP 516: Ahead-of-Time Object Caching with Any GChttps://openjdk.org/projects/leyden/https://docs.azul.com/prime/analyzing-tuning-warmuphttps://foojay.io/today/faster-java-warmup-crac-versus-readynow/25:30 JEP 522: G1 GC: Improve Throughput by Reducing SynchronizationTrash Talk - Exploring the JVM memory management by Gerrit Grunwald28:04 JEP 525: Structured Concurrency (Sixth Preview)https://openjdk.org/projects/loom/31:09 JEP 529: Vector API (Eleventh Incubator)https://openjdk.org/projects/panama/https://openjdk.org/projects/valhalla/34:59 When do JEPs get selected to be included in a releasehttps://openjdk.org/projects/jdk/26/https://openjdk.org/projects/jdk/27/38:03 JEP 530: Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Fourth Preview)https://openjdk.org/projects/amber/Java Puzzlers talk by Simon42:14 Do we need &quot;Carrier Classes&quot;?Amber mailing list: Data Oriented Programming, Beyond RecordsJVM Weekly newsletter by Artur Skowroński44:38 What changes does Java need for the AI world?<a href="https://openjdk.org/jeps/836110