Chapter 1. Learning Java 9 Underlying Performance Improvements

Just when you think you have a handle on lambdas and all the performance-related features of Java 8, along comes Java 9. What follows are several of the capabilities that made it into Java 9 that you can use to help improve the performance of your applications. These go beyond byte-level changes like for string storage or garbage collection changes, which you have little control over. Also, ignore implementation changes like those for faster object locking, since you don't have to do anything differently and you automatically get these improvements. Instead, there are new library features and completely new command-line tools that will help you create apps quickly.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Modular development and it's impact on performance
• Various string-related performance improvements, including compact string and indify string concatenation
• Advancement in concurrency
• Various underlying compiler improvements, such as tiered attribution and Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation
• Security manager improvements
• Enhancements in graphics rasterizers