Java 1.5.0 Now Officially Java 5.0

Quantum Jim writes "In a move which out-does Netscape's one-version number skip and Winamp's two-numbers skip, Sun has announced that the upcoming Java2 release will be marketed as version 5.0, skipping three-and-a-half numbers. Can version 6.022E23 be far behind? Thanks to David Flanagan for the heads-up."

Comments

not even the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun already jumped 1.2 and called it "2".

For non-physics people:

[Tar-Palantir]

6.022E23 is Avogadro's number, the number of atoms in a mole of an element.

Re: For non-physics people:

[Noren]

That's only true for an ideal gas at STP (Standard temperature and pressure). Admittedly, this is where a lot of courses emphasize moles to learn the Ideal Gas Rule. In the real world things aren't quite so simple (and no real gas is truly ideal, that's just a first-order approximation.)

The formal definition of a mole is that it's the number of atoms in 12 grams of the isotope Carbon-12. The molecular weight of atoms as listed on a periodic table represent the average mass of a mole of the element in naturally occurring proportions. In the case of Carbon, small amounts of the 13C and 14C isotopes result in an average mass slightly above 12.

Re:Other Famous Version Number Skips

[dosius]

Sun's done it before too: Solaris "7" is actually 2.7

Moll.

Re:Other Famous Version Number Skips

[x0n]

The first release of Windows NT, as architected by Dave Cutler of VAX/VMS fame, started at 3.1. The fact that 16bit Windows was at 3.1 at that point is irrelevent. NT was a complete rewrite, hence NT = New Technology. Therefore, it should really have been released as 1.0.

- Oisin

Re:Strongly Typed Container Classes

[therealmoose]

Auto(un)boxing is the (de)encapsulated of raw types (int, char) into their wrapper classes (Integer, Character) and back as required. Instead of:

int i = ((Integer) container.get(indx));

auto(un)boxing allows you to just type:

int i = container.get(indx);

It is quite unrelated to generics.

Pedant time...

[zoney_ie]

Windows 95 = Windows 4.00.950 on MSDOS 7
Windows 98 = Windows 4.10.1998 on MSDOS 7
Windows 2000 = Windows NT 5.00.2195
For completeness...
Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1.2600

Come on, out-pedant me...

Re:Pedant time...

[ameoba]

Comparing version numbers of Windows and Windows NT is senseless. It's not like Windows became NT; they were completely separate codebases had parallel development for a number of years. ...and you left out ME.

Re:Pedant time...

[ralian]

From http://bug.lockhead.org/build%20numbers.html:

• Windows Longhorn: ( Most recent known build) PDC build 4051 (Leaked Builds: 3683 4008 4015 4029 4051, 4053)
• Windows Server 2K3: 5.2.3790
• XP SP2: 2082 beta 2
• Windows XP: 5.1.2600 (SP1a)
• Windows 2000: 5.00.2195 (SP4)
• Windows NT 4: 4.00.1381 SP6a
• Windows ME: 4.9.3000
• Windows 98 SE: 4.10.2222
• Windows 98: 4.10.1998
• Windows 95: 4.00.950A

Version *strip* not skip.

[Turadg]

Exactly. This isn't a version number "skip"; it's a version number "strip".

The second digit becomes the first and the third the second. This is perfectly in line with accepted norms when you consider the improvements of 1.4.2 over 1.4.1. For minor increments, Sun had to resort to seriously odd numbers like 1.4.2_04.

Makes sense to me. The "2" in J2SE is unfortunate, but at this point the numericity of that character is dead. J2SE, J2EE and J2ME are just brands, not versions.

Re:Other Famous Version Number Skips

[dnahelix]

The ratio of 1:1.618 is known as the Golden Ratio

Re:Winamp didn't skip version 4

[Hatta]

If you like that, it's worth noting that the version numbers of Knuth's masterpieces TeX and METAFONT are converging to pi and e, respectively.

Re:Don't you see the pattern?

[trout_fish]

Read the article...

This isn't Java5, it is Java 2 v5

Re:Other Famous Version Number Skips

[zerocool^]

Christ, as a degree holding classicist, I can't let you get away with two sentences with that many errors in them.

XP is a long used symbol for Christ, dating back to some of the earliest christian artwork, with the symbols pronounced Chi-Rho in Roman. We could say the year of XP is 1.

Let's take it one at a time:

XP is a long used symbol for Christ

XP is not a symbol for Christ. It is the first two letters of the word "Christ" in Greek.

dating back to some of the earliest christian artwork

Dating back actually to the battle of the Milvian bridge, where the would-be Roman emperor Constantine fought the would-be Roman emperor Maxentius. The actual story of why they were both fighting goes back to Diocletian's division of the empire to a system of 2 senior and 2 junor rulers (2 Augusti and 2 caesars). Constantine saw the sign "XP" in the sky on his way to the bridge with his army (accounts vary), and he interpreted it to mean that if he had his soldiers paint XP on their shields, christ would help him win. Some accounts include that he heard the words "In hoc signo vinces", or "In this sign, conquer".

with the symbols pronounced Chi-Rho in Roman

No, no, no, no! Chi and Rho are GREEK letters. Not to mention ROMAN is not a language. Latin is the language spoken by the Roman people. X and P (Chi and Rho) are the first two letters of XPISTOS, chi-rho-iota-sigma-tau-omicron-sigma, or the Greek translation of the hebrew word for messiah, "one annointed by god".

We could say the year of XP is 1

Or, we could say that the year of XP (i.e. the year that it became significantly important) is 312 A.D., the year of the battle at the milvian bridge.

~Will