Mark Reinhold - Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group

Mark Reinhold is the Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, where he works on the Java SE Platform, OpenJDK, and related projects. Like many in the Java community, he is actually an old Lisp hacker in disguise. Mark holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on garbage collection, compilation techniques, type systems, semantics, and the visualization and analysis of program performance, and where he found enlightenment in the true essence of the lambda nature.

Posts

• Project Leyden: Toward Condensers on July 31, 2023 Leyden
• Selectively Shifting and Constraining Computation on October 14, 2022 Leyden
• Project Leyden: Beginnings on May 20, 2022 Leyden
• JEP proposed to target JDK 19: 425: Virtual Threads (Preview) on April 28, 2022 JDK 19 Loom
• New candidate JEP: 423: Region Pinning for G1 on February 2, 2022 GC
• Moving Java Forward Even Faster on September 14, 2021 Oracle JDK 17
• Java 17 / JDK 17: General Availability on September 14, 2021 Oracle JDK 17
• New candidate JEP: 418: Internet-Address Resolution SPI on September 4, 2021 Core Libraries Networking Loom
• What are they building—and why? 6 questions for the top Java architects on August 6, 2021
• New candidate JEP: 416: Reimplement Core Reflection with Method Handles on August 5, 2021 Core Libraries
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 415: Context-Specific Deserialization Filters on June 1, 2021 JDK 17 Security Core Libraries
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 411: Deprecate the Security Manager for Removal on May 21, 2021 JDK 17 Security
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 306: Restore Always-Strict Floating-Point Semantics on May 21, 2021 JDK 17 Core Libraries
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 406: Pattern Matching for switch (Preview) on May 19, 2021 JDK 17 Amber
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 403: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals on May 18, 2021 JDK 17 Integrity by Default
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 407: Remove RMI Activation on May 17, 2021 JDK 17
• The meaning, or not, of “LTS” on May 14, 2021 JDK 17
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 412: Foreign Function & Memory API (Incubator) on May 14, 2021 JDK 17 Panama
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 414: Vector API (Second Incubator) on May 11, 2021 JDK 17 Panama
• New candidate JEP: 415: Context-Specific Deserialization Filters on May 6, 2021 Core Libraries Security
• New candidate JEP: 414: Vector API (Second Incubator) on April 30, 2021 Panama
• New candidate JEP: 413: Code Snippets in Java API Documentation on April 28, 2021
• New candidate JEP: 412: Foreign Function & Memory API (Incubator) on April 22, 2021 Panama
• New candidate JEP: 411: Deprecate the Security Manager for Removal on April 15, 2021 Security
• New candidate JEP: 410: Remove the Experimental AOT and JIT Compiler on April 7, 2021 HotSpot JDK 17
• New candidate JEP: 409: Sealed Classes on April 7, 2021 Amber JDK 17
• Proposed schedule for JDK 17 on March 30, 2021 JDK 17
• New candidate JEP: 408: Simple Web Server on March 29, 2021 Core Libraries Networking
• New candidate JEP: 407: Remove RMI Activation on March 26, 2021 Core Libraries
• New candidate JEP: 406: Pattern Matching for switch (Preview) on March 26, 2021 Amber
• New candidate JEP: 405: Record Patterns & Array Patterns (Preview) on March 26, 2021 Amber
• New candidate JEP: 403: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals on March 18, 2021 Modules
• New candidate JEP: 402: Unify the Basic Primitives with Objects (Preview) on March 18, 2021 Valhalla
• New candidate JEP: 401: Primitive Objects (Preview) on March 18, 2021 Valhalla
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 398: Deprecate the Applet API for Removal on March 17, 2021 JDK 17 Security
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 391: macOS/AArch64 Port on March 17, 2021 JDK 17
• New candidate JEP: 400: UTF-8 by Default on March 11, 2021 Core Libraries
• New candidate JEP: 399: Intermediate-Representation Graph Serialization on March 11, 2021
• New candidate JEP: 398: Deprecate the Applet API for Removal on March 5, 2021 Security Client
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 382: New macOS Rendering Pipeline on February 25, 2021 JDK 17 Client
• JDK 16 enters the Release Candidate phase on February 4, 2021 JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 17: 356: Enhanced Pseudo-Random Number Generators on January 29, 2021 Core Libraries Security JDK 17
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 390: Warnings for Value-Based Classes on November 30, 2020 JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 397: Sealed Classes (Second Preview) on November 24, 2020 JDK 16 Amber
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 396: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default on November 19, 2020 JDK 16 Integrity by Default
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 389: Foreign Linker API (Incubator) on November 12, 2020 Panama JDK 16
• New candidate JEP: 397: Sealed Classes (Second Preview) on October 29, 2020 Amber JDK 16
• New candidate JEP: 396: Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default on October 27, 2020 Modules
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 394: Pattern Matching for instanceof on October 27, 2020 Amber JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 393: Foreign-Memory Access API (Third Incubator) on October 26, 2020 Panama JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 392: Packaging Tool on October 23, 2020 Client JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 395: Records on October 20, 2020 Amber JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 380: Unix-Domain Socket Channels on October 20, 2020 Core Libraries JDK 16
• Proposed schedule for JDK 16 on October 14, 2020 JDK 16
• New candidate JEP: 392: Packaging Tool on September 25, 2020 Client
• New candidate JEP: 391: macOS/AArch64 Port on September 25, 2020
• New candidate JEP: 390: Warnings for Value-Based Classes on September 24, 2020 Valhalla
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 376: ZGC: Concurrent Thread-Stack Processing on September 24, 2020 GC JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 386: Alpine Linux Port on September 18, 2020 JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 387: Elastic Metaspace on September 10, 2020 GC JDK 16
• JEP proposed to target JDK 16: 338: Vector API (Incubator) on August 20, 2020 Panama JDK 16
• Is there any need to switch to modules when migrating past Java 8? No. on July 17, 2020 Modules
• New candidate JEP: 388: Windows/AArch64 Port on July 13, 2020
• New candidate JEP: 387: Elastic Metaspace on July 7, 2020 HotSpot GC
• New candidate JEP: Alpine Linux/x64 Port on May 21, 2020
• New candidate JEP: Deprecate RMI Activation for Removal on May 21, 2020
• JEP 360: Sealed Classes (Preview) - targeted to JDK 15 on May 21, 2020 JDK 15 Amber
• JEP 381: Remove the Solaris and SPARC Ports - targeted to JDK 15 on May 21, 2020 JDK 15
• Call for Discussion - New Project: Leyden on April 27, 2020 Leyden
• Project Jigsaw is Complete! on September 21, 2017 Modules
• Moving Java Forward Faster on September 6, 2017

Videos

• Our World, Moved by Java on March 24, 2025 Oracle
• JVMLS 2023 Keynote on September 14, 2023 Valhalla Leyden Oracle
• JVMLS - Project Leyden on September 7, 2023 Leyden
• Ask the Java Architects Panel on September 17, 2020
• Java's 25th Birthday Kickoff Event [Moved by Java] on May 20, 2020 Moved By Java
• Jfokus - Modern Java - Change is the Only Constant on February 14, 2019
• The Future of the Java Platform and the JDK: Who is in Charge? on August 1, 2018
• Moving Java Forward Faster on November 9, 2017
• Modules in One Lesson on May 17, 2017 Modules
• The Secret History and Tragic Fate of sun.misc.Unsafe on August 11, 2015 Modules Security

Podcast

• Episode 41 “From Cowboy Mode to Careful Stewardship” with Mark Reinhold on October 27, 2025