"We are improving and enriching the connections between the Java virtual machine and well-defined but “foreign” (non-Java) APIs, including many interfaces commonly used by C programmers."
They are doing something new in the language -> innovating.
JNI was always the wrong way to do FFI. FFI should require no changes or wrappers in the native code; anything short of that is unnecessary and inefficient. Yet, somehow, in Java land, this is still the norm in 2026?
I'd really want to love Java, but man, it has a long laundry list of warts and a near-zero pace of innovation.
> Yet, somehow, in Java land, this is still the norm in 2026?
FFM (what this article refers to) was released some releases ago. So what is the issue? If you mean what 3rd party libraries use - is that a concern to you? That's like saying there exists legacy code.
> it has a long laundry list of warts
It's such a surprise because you haven't even mentioned 1.
>They are doing something new in the language -> innovating
You're just playing with words, confusing two scopes of "innovation" to maintain your argument.
In typical use innovation in a programming language means adding something new in general (meaning across other languages too, or e.g. only seen in niche or reaches languages up to that point).
Nobody calls Python adding some feature "innovation", unless that feature is something noval conceptually or was not seen in other major languages.
Nobody in Java land says Java is "innovating" in this sense with these changes, either.
Yes, innovation can also technically mean "add something new" even if it's just new to the language. But that's not what people use the term for, and it's not what we typically call an innovation in HN either.
And of course, nobody in Java HQ used the term innovation for these changes, whether in the standard sense, or this more limited one, to make sense for you to call them on that.
So no, this is not what passes for innovation in Java land, and nobody claims that. This is what passes for a "long overdue incremental improvement".
If you include a word like innovating in quotes it typically implies that you're quoting it from the link. It can also signify irony, but in a context like HN where we're discussing a published article, it's often ambiguous.
As for Java, I'd agree that its pace of advance was pretty glacial during the Sun era, but from what I've seen has picked up considerably since the Oracle acquisition and Brian Goetz became architect.
And however bad Java is, it's nothing compared to JavaScript. It takes a decade just to add new a library function, and every new syntax proposal is DOA.
Right, but you should be doing analysis and choosing the right tool for the job. 9/10 or probably more Java projects never need to use FFI because of the sheer size of the Java ecosystem. C# has always needed a better FFI story because its ecosystem is an order of magnitude smaller.