Adios to JAVA Finalizers

JEP 421 announces the end of Java Finalizers. Adios to an ancient Java feature, born together with Java 1.0 and its Garbage Collector.

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“Finally” and “Finalize”

We need those keywords only for specific cases, namely, releasing the operating system’s resources. In those cases, the Garbage Collector is insufficient; the program must release OS resources programmatically.

Let’s provide a classic example of a “finally” block used to close an InputStream:

And let’s provide also the less used “finalize”, a method present in every Object class. This method It’s called when an OBJECT has been selected for Garbage Collection (just before deletion):

What are the problems of…