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

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

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).