Java 9 is the latest version of one of the most popular programming languages currently in use. As I am writing this review, Java 9 is under an intense reviewing process. How to adopt and migrate existing code to Java 9 will soon be important. Java 9 revealed: for early adoption and migration gives a rather complete description of what Java 9 will be all about. The description is accompanied by detailed instructions on how to guide your code migration (for example, adopting modules, facing breaking change, and improving application programing interface (API) use).

Java 9 comes with many new features. Most of these are introduced with a motivation of why the Java community considered the feature a need (for example, limitations of the package system in chapter 2, limitations of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) API in chapter 14, stack walking in chapter 16, and reactive streams in chapter 17). This motivation helps readers understand what is so special in Java 9.

The new module system may be the feature of Java 9 that will impact practitioners the most. The book does a great job at describing this new way of packaging applications, through nine chapters. The chapters are written in a tutorial fashion: the reader can sit in front of a computer and type instructions given throughout the book. Code snippets are mostly independent from each other (no need to type a bunch of instructions prior to typing the one that interested you in the first place).

People concerned with Java 9 should definitely read the book. It does a great job at smoothly and incrementally presenting the complexity of Java 9. The book assumes that readers are journeyed Java programmers. It is likely that a Java beginner will miss most of the book. Experienced practitioners should therefore make up most of the audience.

The book takes a practical stance by detailing instructions and actions to solve concrete problems. For example, chapter 3 takes the reader’s hand by giving a screen shot for each step on how to use the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE).

The complexity added with Java 9 is significant. Adopting this new version in a software development process cannot be done lightly. Java 9 revealed does a good job at making the jump easier and affordable.

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