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State of the OpenJDK Project and Java 7
LarsWestergren writes "David Flanagan, the author of Java in a Nutshell, has a nice writeup on the state of the open source development of the next version of Java. The article explains the difference between the JDK7 and the OpenJDK projects and how to join them. Furthermore, it has an overview of the release schedule, proposed language changes and projects of interest. A more technical and in-depth tracking of the language changes and proposed new features can be found at Alex Miller's blog. This is the first in a series, and 'each future installment will provide an update on what's currently happening in the latest builds from the project, along with a deep dive into a new feature or API that's tracking for inclusion in Java 7.'"
Isn't the OpenJDK just a waste of time (or a reinvention of the wheel?). The Sun JDK is already open, with the source code available...
It's really cute to see that Java lately has just been playing a game of catch-up with C#. C# 3.5 has closures, is currently in beta 2 with a slated release date late this year and a launch event already planned for February 27th. C# also has pretty much every other feature slated for JDK1.7, either in the 3.5 release or in earlier releases.
And before people start complaining that Java is getting these ideas from other places, that C# copied them from other languages that had them first, you're absolutely somewhat right. I never claimed that MS or C# invented these concepts, but they are bringing them to market and now Sun is looking to do the same thing. Still not convinced? Look up the JLINQ project. IBM even stole the fucking name from MS.
ahh the horrible practice of hiding your applications startup time in the systems startup time. It is practices like that which make low end machines horrible to use and contribute to the feeling of bloat in a modern desktop OS.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Man, I've been programming Java since 1.x (yah, yah, I know). Is it me or does it just seem like the versions are getting a little whacky. I don't do much Java programming anymore, but it always seems like a jump in major number was a big issue if you have to maintain apps. Shit, how many people out there in the 'real' working world use 1.6? Prob no one. Last project I did (for a major bank) required 1.4.2 and it was deployed at the beginning of this year.
I feel like it's great (again, even tho I'm not using it this year) that Sun is on top of stuff and 'looking ahead'. But I really wish they would do meaningful SMALL dot increments and quit shoving out a now major release every year or so. I know 1.5 was out a while ago. But why not keep making 1.5 REALLY super stable and optimized and make 1.6 ONLY the one with the new uber-Swing and whatever else.
It's sorta like Microsoft coming out with Vista even tho no one want's to use it cuz all the 'new stuff' (which seems to have been cut at the last minute) isn't stable. Continuously having big releases makes people feel like they have to abandon the older releases so they can focus on re-learning all the new features that haven't made it out yet. I've seen this on teams I've worked with.
I just think more stable, optimized, smaller point releases are the way to go. And Sun being an 'enterprise' company should know this.
The fine folks at Red Hat have been working on the IcedTea project to replace all the non-GPL'ed parts of OpenJDK with the appropriate bits from GNU Classpath.