My Most Popular 2011 Blog Posts

In this post, I briefly summarize my "eight" most popular "2011" posts (six actually posted in 2011 and two posted in late 2010). The two common themes of these posts seem to be broad applicability and future focus. I expected a few of these posts to do well and was surprised that some of these did as well as they did (and surprised that some others did not make the list).

8. All I Want for Java 8 Is... (27 April 2011)

The popularity of the post All I Want for Java 8 Is... is probably best explained by its focus on what may come in a future version of Java. Having DZone (a "Big Link"), reddit, and JavaWorld references also certainly helps.

[7.] Ten Tips for Using Java Stack Traces (22 October 2010)

I personally like the post Ten Tips for Using Java Stack Traces because I believe it is one of those posts that can be useful to people who are relatively new to Java and provides fairly comprehensive coverage and tips for these new Java developers in a very specific but common area. When I wrote that more developers should write blog posts, I had blogs like this one in mind.

6. Java State of the Union: One Year Under Oracle (12 February 2011)

This may be the most surprising post (to me) to have fared so well in 2011.

The post Java State of the Union: One Year Under Oracle turned out to be especially interesting to me now from a historical perspective. At the time of that writing, the future of Java was near a low point (perhaps back a little higher than its lowest point thanks to the already announced participation of IBM and Apple in OpenJDK). It's difficult to believe how much things have changed in the same year! At the time of the writing of my sixth most popular post of 2011, the focus was on issues with the Java Community Process (JCP) and talk of forking Java. Oracle, to their credit, seems to have had a handle on what was happening at this time and, by JavaOne 2011, had made some significant changes that changed the overall Java community outlook for the better. 2011 was a great year for Java, but we didn't necessarily have any reason to believe that would be the case in mid-February of this year.

5. JavaOne 2011: The Definitive Set of HotSpot Performance Command-line Options (3 October 2011)

When I registered for the JavaOne 2011 presentation The Definitive Set of HotSpot Performance Command-line Options, I had no idea how popular that session or my coverage of that session would be. I liked the presentation so much that I purchased the book for which he is the lead author: Java Performance (I hope to write a review of it in coming months). I thought everyone only attended presentations on trendy topics at JavaOne, but I learned that many developers share my same interest in getting better at working with Java in core areas such as performance.

4. JDK 7: New Interfaces, Classes, Enums, and Methods (31 March 2011)

The popularity of JDK 7: New Interfaces, Classes, Enums, and Methods is not surprising given the popularity of Java 7 topics in 2011.

3. HTML5 Date Picker (17 January 2011)

The HTML5 Date Picker post enjoyed advantages of being on a trendy topic (HTML5) and being posted early in the year.

[2.] Seven Indispensable NetBeans Java Hints (9 October 2010)

Although written in late 2009, this post on seven indispensable NetBeans Java Hints remained very popular throughout 2011.

1. JDK 7: The New Objects Class (26 March 2011)

My most popular post by far (more than twice as many hits as the #2 post) has been JDK 7: The New Objects Class. I believe that the popularity of this post is best explained by the fact that the Java 7 java.util.Objects class is generally appealing to Java developers, but is a new "feature" of Java 7 that has perhaps not been as covered as much elsewhere as other features of Java 7.

Conclusion

Common themes associated with my most popular posts of 2011 included trendy topics such as Java 7/8 and HTML5, but also included more core coverage of NetBeans, Java performance, and Java stack traces.