Java.next #4: Immutability

This is Part Four of a series of articles on Java.next. In Part Four, I will begin to explore how the Java.next languages (JRuby, Groovy, Clojure, and Scala) deal with concurrency. Concurrency is a big topic, so I will subdivide it, narrowing my focus in this part to how the Java.next languages support immutability.

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Java.next #3: Dispatch

This is Part Three of a series of articles on Java.next. In Part Three, I will explore how the Java.next languages (JRuby, Groovy, Clojure, and Scala) support dispatch.

For my purposes here, dispatch is a broad term covering various methods of dynamically choosing behavior: single dispatch, switch/case, pattern matching and multiple dispatch. These concepts are not generally grouped together, but they should be. They are used to solve similar problems, albeit in very different ways.

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Java.next #2: Java interop

This is Part Two of a series of articles on Java.next. In Part Two, I will look at how Java.next languages interoperate with Java.

Java interop is trivial in all of the Java.next languages. We have Java itself to thank for this--the Java Virtual Machine Specification makes it easy for other languages to reflect against and call Java code.

A Swing example

As a first example, consider calling into the Java Swing API to create an application [1] that has

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Java.next: Common Ground

This is Part One of a series of articles on Java.next. In Part One, I will explore the common ground shared by the Java.next languages.

I have chosen four languages which together represent "Java.next": Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, and Scala. At first glance, these languages are wildly different. Clojure is a Lisp. Groovy is the "almost Java" choice. JRuby has the beauty of Ruby, and the mindshare of Rails. Scala, unlike the others, brings the notion that we need more static typing.

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