String compression was one. tl;dr: the JVM supports Unicode for strings, but uses 1-byte chars for strings where possible (previously it was UTF-16), even though it's not actually doing UTF-8.
Depending on what sort of document you're looking for, you might like either the JEP: https://openjdk.org/jeps/254
(I think I saw a feature article about the implementation of the string compression feature, but I'm not sure who wrote it or where it was, or if I'm thinking about something else. Actually I think it might've been https://shipilev.net/blog/2015/black-magic-method-dispatch/, despite the title.)
Absolutely love it. Thanks a lot. A fancy hit me yesterday and I've been looking through JDK's String commit history to see little tidbits that I could grab.
Shipilev's website looks like a fascinating resource. I appreciate the pointer!
Shipilev's website looks like a fascinating resource. I appreciate the pointer!