Here is my "Java Advent" article on nice and naughty cases of pattern matching, with nicer formatting than WordPress can muster, and the ability to leave comments without logging into WordPress: https://horstmann.com/un...

I participate in Advent of Code (https://adventofcode.co) to learn, and today I learned plenty. My naïve brute force solution for Day 8 required 3 minutes. I re-learned the union-find algorithm (never touched it since grad school, 45 years ago), and am down to < 1 sec. https://github.com/cayho...

My article "Nice and Naughty Cases of Pattern Matching" has been published in the JVM Advent Calendar: https://www.javaadvent.c...

This year’s JVM Programming Advent Calendar is open for business at https://www.javaadvent.c... Every day, a new post awaits. I enjoy this eclectic overview of what is new in the Java ecosystem.

There is always more to learn about Unicode. Today I found out about the aptly named WTF encodings: https://wtf-8.codeberg.page Java strings are actually WTF-16, not UTF-16. For example, the Java string "WTF\uD800" is not valid UTF-16.

Help--my LocalDate isn’t flattened! Just before my Valhalla talk at JFall, I found out that the early access build can flatten LocalDate arrays, but the latest version from Github cannot. Why? Serialization, of course. Read the gory details at https://horstmann.com/un...

On Thursday November 13, I will speak in Berlin on "Virtual Threads—A Second Look". https://www.meetup.com/j...

As I am updating my slides, another shoutout to https://imagetodrawio.com I upload a hand-drawn diagram and get something that I can clean up in draw.io Final result: https://horstmann.com/pr... That is how AI should be. Human in the loop. Tweakable result without endless prompting.

I'll be speaking at JFall on project Valhalla on November 6. https://jfall.nl

Core Java 14th edition, updated for Java 25, is now available in print or ebook at https://www.informit.com... and https://www.informit.com...

The latest Maven exec plugin can execute "instance main methods": https://horstmann.com/un...

I will give two talks at BED-Con 2025 (https://bed-con.org/202) on October 7 and 8 in Berlin.

After more than a year of trying off and on, I finally managed to fix my Emacs/LSP/Java setup. Now I can happily edit my Java scripts in Emacs instead of VS Code. Details at https://horstmann.com/un...

My take on Java 25: https://horstmann.com/un...

Following a suggestion from Stuart Marks (https://stuartmarks.wor..., I add JavaDoc as a search engine to my browser. I just updated the search URL to https://docs.oracle.com/...

$ java -version openjdk version "25" 2025-09-16 LTS Remarkably, the four numbers are perfect squares: 5², 45², 3², and 4².

SKDMAN! has the first Java 25 JDK that is not an “early access” release: $ sdk install java 25-zulu Done installing! Do you want java 25-zulu to be set as default? (Y/n): y

Next Tuesday, I'll be talking about benchmarking Project Valhalla at the Java Forum Nord in Hannover https://javaforumnord.de...

I returned from the amazing JavaZone conference in Oslo. My talks at https://2025.javazone.no... and https://2025.javazone.no... Videos of many other great presentations already available at https://2025.javazone.no...

For anyone with an oreilly.com subscription: "Early release" versions of the 14th edition of Core Java are at learning.oreilly.com/library/view... and learning.oreilly.com/library/view...

Two years ago, fed up with Google, I switched to Kagi search. Their secret sauce: Downrank pages filled with ads. Works for me. Just got a jubilant announcement--they reached 50K paying customers (blog.kagi.com/50k) Really??? 50K paying customers and their results beat Google. There is hope.

Puzzler of the week: Which of these are valid Java variable declarations? [ ] short euro€; [ ] double world世界; [ ] long wavy﹏; [ ] char bell\u0007; To vote, go to foojay.social/@cayhorstman...

I'll be speaking at the OpenValue Meetup in Düsseldorf May 22 18:00. "When to Stream, Collect, and Gather". www.meetup.com/openvalue-du....

Finally recovering from JCON in Cologne. Great conference! I gave two well-attended talks. horstmann.com/presentation... horstmann.com/presentation... Keynote surprise: I got a "Java Community Lifetime Achievement" award. For having survived 30 years of Java. Looking forward to many more years...

On April 24, I'll talk about Benchmarking Project Valhalla at the JUG Darmstadt: www.jug-da.de/2025/04/Benc...

Trip report from Java One...but not the usual kind www.travelblog.org/north-americ...

For anyone teaching Java: I posted a quick summary of new Java features that help beginners. horstmann.com/unblog/2025-...

Hands-on experience with DeepSeek: horstmann.com/unblog/2025-...

I'll be talking at the free online jChampionsConference today at 16:00 UTC on "Java for Small Coding Tasks". Register at jchampionsconf.com

In this final article on my experience with the Advent of Code competition, I describe how I attacked grid and graph problems, and summarize how Java has worked out for me. horstmann.com/unblog/2024-...