Hi Jason/Tomaz, Early Access b04 <https://jdk8.java.net/download.html> for JDK 8u76 is available on java.net, summary of changes are listed here <http://www.java.net/download/jdk8u76/changes/jdk8u76-b04.html>;. Early Access b104 <https://jdk9.java.net/download/> for JDK 9 is available on java.net, summary of changes are listed here <http://download.java.net/jdk9/changes/jdk-9+104.html>;. JEP 280: Indify String Concatenation [0] This JEP proposed to change the static |String|-concatenation bytecode sequence generated by |javac| to use |invokedynamic| calls to JDK library functions. This will enable future optimizations of |String| concatenation without requiring further changes to the bytecode emitted by |javac|. Early Access b104 <https://jdk9.java.net/jigsaw/> for JDK 9 with Project Jigsaw is available on java.net. Great to meet so many of you at FOSDEM this year, videos of some of the presentations are available [1] Rgds,Rory [0] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/280 [1] http://video.fosdem.org/2016/h1301 -- Rgds,Rory O'Donnell Quality Engineering Manager Oracle EMEA , Dublin, Ireland