Java skills are not only some of the most sought after but also some of the easiest to learn, and now you can acquire them quickly without taking time off from your current job or going into debt.

The growing popularity of Java has been reinforced by a decision to standardize advanced-placement courses in U.S. high schools around Sun Microsystems' programming language.

Java 16 introduced basic pattern matching with the finalized instanceof method. For more advanced features, like pattern matching in switch, record patterns, and guarded cases, you need Java 21+.