Using Java 5 Features in Older JDKs

BlueVoodoo writes "Java 5 added a number of powerful language features: generics, enumerations, annotations, autoboxing, and the enhanced for loop. Even if you're stuck on JDK 1.4, you can still use generics. Use Java and theory to learn how."

Comments

Re:These have been around for years

[hansamurai]

If only everybody has updated to 1.5. The middle tier of our online product where I work is running on 1.4.2 with just a rumbling of upgrading to 1.5. That upgrade probably won't occur for another year for various reasons that I'm not involved in. I think the bigger the company and the bigger the product, the slower the upgrading process is. I think some architects may even be fearful of 1.5, as I just joined a new project that is running on 1.4.2.13, and they started developing that just last November!

Anyways, Java 5 has some great features but nothing that is absolutely required from my department's point of view. Autoboxing is a nice feature that helps clean up your code, but nothing we can't do now. Same for the new for-each loop. I could go on but this has been discussed to death already. I would rather we just upgrade so we can start taking advantage of the new features and supposed speed increases.