Oracle has released the latest version of Java, which is the first of two major releases for the programming language this year.

According to Oracle, Java 12 will receive at least two more updates before Java 13 is released in September.

Related content: Java 12 to be released next month

New features in Java 12 includes a new low-pause-time garbage collector, microbenchmark suite, switch expressions, a JVM constraints API, a single AArch64 port, default CDS archives, abortable mixed collections for G1, and the ability to return unused committed memory from G1. More detailed information on these features can be found here.

According to Oracle, the rate of change between updates has drastically improved since the company switched to releasing updates every six months. This is because instead of making tens of thousands of fixes available in a release every few years, enhancements can be made on a more manageable and predictable schedule, Oracle explained.

There were 1,919 JIRA issues that were marked as being fixed in Java 12, of which 1,433 were completed by Oracle employees and 486 by individual developers.