Java 7 is now available

There is a good amount of stuff to get excited about in this release.

  - Try-with-resources-Catch-Block [0]
  - Fork/Join libraries from Doug Lea (author of Executor framework) [1]
  - Inferred/Simpler generics in declarations (should have been in Java 5)
  - NIO2, brand new/robust filesystem APIs [2]
  - NIO2, treat ZIP/JAR files like directories of files for R/W [3]
  - SDP support [4]
  - String-in-switch (NOTE: check on performance implications of this for tight loops)
    NOTE: Read through "COMPILATION" section here for details [6]
  - Elliptic curve cryptography (when normal curves just don't cut it)
  - Underscores in numbers (e.g. int million = 1_000_000;)
  - XRender pipeline on Linux (Swing/Java2D rendering get a big boost)
  - New sound synthesizer (replaces a proprietary lib that wasn't OS)
  - XML stack finally got updated across the board.
  - InvokeDynamic (already talked about numerous times below)
  - Other Swing stuff I'm not all that pumped about.

I think the most exciting items are:

  1. Try-with-resources
  2. NIO2 filesystem API
  3. InvokeDynamic

Features that got pushed to 8 (next year) that will be really exciting:

  - Modular programming (super packages? think OSGi-lite)
  - Syntactic Sugar: Collection literals
    List people = {"Frank", "Mary", "Satan"};
  - Closures
  - Modularization of the JDK (JDK gets broken into core modules)

And one that I can't get confirmation on if it's in 7 or got pushed, index-access for List and Maps [5]:

  - List people = {"Frank", "Mary", "Satan"};
    System.out.println("Hello " + people[0]);

I understand that a lot of people don't find Java sexy any more, that is understandable, it has become a platform for what seems like a lot of next-series of languages.

That being said, I've been working with Java since 1998 and still love it. I know people get a big kick out of writing code with no exception handlers and no curly braces, and programming is a creative/artistic process so you have to do what feels good... but none of that stuff ever bothered me.

I like being a pedantic programmer.

[0] http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/07/java-7-try-with-resourc...

[1] http://artisans-serverintellect-com.si-eioswww6.com/default....

[2] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/#f250

[3] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/#fa537814

[4] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/#f639

[5] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin-dev/2009-March/0...

[6] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin-dev/2009-Februar...

That's quite incorrect, Java is very good about allocating memory, it's often too much, too early.

Watch out for the Commercial Features as defined in table 1.1 of this document http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/...

Commercial Features appears to be jRockit technology.

Would you say the same about C? More is not always better, esp. when it comes to languages.

I think it depends on the time frame you look at. I started in Java back w/ some of the pre 1.0 releases. Between then and now, it's come a really long way.

Maybe I'm biased due to other new(er) languages becoming mainstream. But it feels like Java (as a language) has fallen behind as other Languages adopt new features that cater to different/modern techniques.

Java won't ever be cutting edge (and given the types of applications that are built with it, some stability/maturity makes a lot of sense), but look at the advances that C# has made since 1.5/1.6 has been out.

It wasn't like C++ pre C+11 -it didn't take a decade or soto catch up with the rest of the programming world, but you can see the its size slowing its advancement down.

I want to like programming in Java again (I'm not saying it's bad, or it's a mistake) - for a long time it was my go-to language for when I play with ideas. But for now it's just a way to pay the bills while I try to figure out what I want to do/make/build.