Java2 SDK v. 1.4 Released

pangloss writes: "Yay: XML, built-in Perl-ish regex, jdbc 3.0, asserts, IPv6, lots of other goodies. Release notes and incompatibilities. And I think this means I can use my wheel-mouse in NetBeans without that extra module ;) Download it here." WilsonSD adds: "There are many cool new features including a New I/O package, an Assert Facility and enhanced performance." Some other random Java notes: O'Reilly has an essay about why you won't see any open source J2EE implementations, and Kodak has filed a patent-infringement claim against Sun regarding Java.

Comments

It's a big step up, but there is still distance

[btempleton]

I've been working on a server that takes a lot of connections in Java, and you can finally do it with the support of "select" in Java 1.4. But no support for SSL. I undertand why it happens, but this "we'll get around to doing the security later" is why we don't have a lot of security.

Java will always present a dilemma. With the push for portability, you often have to wait for the platform itself to support things like this (select) or kludge it in very non portable ways. But that portability leaves the system behind which hurts it in competition with other systems more tolerant of innovation and the fracturing it brings.

A good philosophy would be to rule that every time a system library or feature needs to do something that an ordinary user can't do, they don't just build it in, they make a way that an ordinary user could write it. That paves the way for more innovation.

Re:It's a big step up, but there is still distance

[blamanj]

It's worth noting that the Berkeley NBIO package was part of the research that led to the 1.4 java.nio package.

Also, using their package, and a very interesting partitioned, event-based coding style, they wrote, in Java, a web server that out performs Apache (written in C).

My take on JDK 1.4

[burtonator]

OK.. I am a Java fan... (recently this has been changing though.)

I have mixed feelings with JDK 1.4.

The JPDA (debugging) support in 1.4 is vastly improved. You can now redefine classes in a running virtual machine. This is really cool and I have written an Ant 'Redefine task to take advantage of this.

The assert facility is OK.... i don't like the fact that they added an Assert keyword but I don't get to make the decisions.

There is also some controversy.

The JSPA agreement that one has to sign to participate in the JCP is WAY too restrictive for Open Source developers. The Apache Software Foundation has a good document where they drawn the line in the sand on their participation.

The Log4J people are upset because there is now a 'stanard' Java package for logging. IMO the 'standard' package is inferior to Log4J in many situations.

The regexp package is not all it is cracked up to be either. I would recommend Jakarta ORO or Jakarta Regexp.

As far as that... it runs GREAT on Linux. Probably the most SOLID VM I have ever run.

They did break some stuff with legacy code. If you ever named a class 'URI' your code will now fail to compile because they put this class in the java.net package which everyone imports anyway.

As far as C# vs .Java. I am really impressed with the CLR/CLI stuff. Right now, as it stands, Java is a proprietary language. Unless we see SUN Open Source Java (or push it through a standards committee), we *may* see a JDK 1.5... but no one will use it.

Also.. check out my Reptile project. It is Java based, only requires JDK 1.2 and incorporates some really cool Java/XML stuff. :)

Re:Not meaning to troll but....

[mccalli]

What good is this platform really?...It seems to me that Java is nothing but slower than other languages

The platform is not the language.

Java is good partly because of its pragmatic syntax (C++ish with some sugar added, some sugar taken away), but mostly it's good because of its excellent class library.

Though I haven't written anything serious for a year or so due to a job switch, I used to write large-scale multithreaded network servers, where somthing like three to four hundred threads could be running at any given moment inside the server. Java's class library made this really quite easy, and it's syntax is pleasant enough to work with.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:J2SDK on Win98 and Linux

[Westley]

No, all is unlikely to be hunky-dory if you set the classpath environment variable. This seems to cause more problems than anything else to newcomers. It's much easier to avoid using a classpath environment variable in the first place - the default is fine for most things, and the extensions mechanism really helps. I've got short essays about both on the Java bit of my site.

Jon

Wording was bad

[SuperKendall]

The story should have read "no LICENSED open source J2EE implementations". There are OS J2EE app servers (JBoss), and in fact they are quite good... the problem (as stated in the article) is that it's hella expensive to get the official seal of J2EE. That doesn't mean it doesn't work!

Now if you think .NET is better, you have to ask how good an open .NET server you're going to be able to build without ASP.NET or Windows Forms. Neither of those are part of the current ECMA submissions, though as stated in the .NET article yesterday they are expected to be submitted at some point...

At the moment J2EE has gone through a lot of refinement, and I think makes a pretty good platform for server side development. I think desktop code is still up for grabs by either Jvaa or .NET (at least under windows). It will be interesting to see if .NET app development is nearly as annoying as MFC was (I doubt it will be).