Continuous Delivery in Java

Chapter 2. Evolution of Java Development

Since the introduction of Java in 1995, much has changed, and in this chapter you will learn about how this affects your role as a Java developer. Your journey begins with a brief look back in time in order to understand how Java applications and deployment platforms have evolved, with a key focus on the impact this has had on the ability to rapidly and safely deliver new software to production environments. Finally, you will explore the human and “soft skills” aspect of continuous delivery, which focuses on increasing the shared responsibility for the creation and operation of software, such as the approaches of DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).

Requirements of Modern Java Applications

Many Java developers have been practicing continuous integration and some form of continuous delivery for the past decade. Innovative books including Java Power Tools (O’Reilly) by John Smart provided the guidelines and frameworks to make this possible. Technologies have obviously changed within the last 10 years, and so have associated programming and architectural styles. In particular, business teams within organizations have increasingly demanded that IT teams become more flexible and be capable of rapidly responding to changes in customer preferences and market conditions.

The emergence of dynamic and programmable compute resources and deployment platforms, combined with teams and organizations exposing application programming interfaces ...