Parisista

Coding in Java was simple until Java 5 (or Java 1.5 — 1.5 is the developer version and Java 5 is the marketing version as Sun calls it!). Learning generics in Java 1.5 is like learning Microsoft COM programming, it would take at least 5 passes to absorb it right.

Look at this simple call, before generics

 List myIntList = new LinkedList(); 
 myIntList.add(new Integer(0)); 
 Integer x = (Integer) myIntList.iterator().next(); 

How about now:

 List<Integer> myIntList = new LinkedList<Integer>(); 
 myIntList.add(new Integer(0)); 
 Integer x = myIntList.iterator().next(); 

Here is the source snippet of java.util.Collection class from the 1.5 version. Makes me wipe the sweat.

 public interface Collection<E> extends Iterable<E> {
 <T> T[] toArray(T[] a);
 boolean containsAll(Collection<?> c);
 boolean addAll(Collection<? extends E> c);
 Iterator<E> iterator();
 }

Yeah, yeah. The fans of C++ would love it, it looks like the C++ templates, compile-time type checking, etc. — Well, programmers shall figure out other ways of making mistakes like working on a null object :D)
No way out, I need to learn it ‘coz 1.6 is already out and I was still hanging on to 1.4 till yesterday!

Continuing (Part I) with the remaining features of Tiger release of J2SE:

• varargs–C-style argc, argv.No count though, argv is an implicit array when defined in the specified notation
• Concurrency–Semaphores, thread locks, thread safe queues, et al. Dijkstra would be pleased. But, Java took close to 10 years to have these constructs
• New Profiling API–Byte code instrumentation, native profiling
• Desktop Client–New Ocean theme
• java.xml–XML is now a core part of the standard edition

Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) version 1.5 (“Tiger”) is the next major revision to the Java platform and language; it is currently slated to contain 15 component JSRs with nearly 100 other significant updates developed through the Java Community Process (JCP).
New features:

• Metadata–Annotation along side the classes, metadata within a class to generate helper files, documentation, deployment descriptors and even java code!
• Generic Types– The Collection API can now hold non-Object objects.Anybody remembers templates in MFC?
• Autoboxing and Auto-Unboxing of Primitive Types–Automatic conversion of primitive types to their object counterparts. Less coding!
• Enumerated Types–public enum Fruit { mango, apple, orange }; 🙂
• Static Import–Import static constants without inheriting

Rest of the features in Part II of this entry.

Sun announces a new initiative to help people buy into Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
Find, assemble and deliver applications based on a services-oriented architecture using Java Web services. As part of Kitty Hawk, Java Enterprise System is intended to simplify administration, management, security, and provisioning of services in an SOA. For example, a Java Enterprise System registry will provide centralized control of services, versioning, metadata management, services registration, and lookup, according to Sun.
Featured components in Java Enterprise System are identity services, Web and application services, portal, communication and collaboration, availability services, and security.

Sun announced the JDNC at 2004 JavaOne Conference.
via JDNC
The goal of the JDesktop Network Components (JDNC) project is to significantly reduce the effort and expertise required to build rich, data-centric, Java desktop clients for J2EE-based network services. These clients are representative of what enterprise developers typically build, such as SQL database frontends, forms-based workflow, data visualization applications, and the like.
JDNC leverages the power of J2SE and Swing while providing a higher level API, as well as an optional XML markup language, which enables common user-interface functionality to be constructed more quickly, without requiring extensive Swing or GUI programming skill. Additionally, JDNC simplifies the task of connecting a rich client to a J2EE backend, including JDBC and WebServices.
Recognizing the broad range of developer skill-sets and predilections, JDNC has been constructed in 3 distinct layers that can be used independently or together. These layers are reflected as JDNC sub-projects so that each can evolve at its own pace. From bottom to top:
Swing Extensions: APIs which extend Swing to provide key features required by data-centric applications (sorting, filtering, data-binding, asynchronous data-loading, etc); makes life easier for Swing developers. The APIs are defined in the org.jdesktop.swing package.
JDNC API: Higher level Swing based components that leverage the Swing Extensions, but provide a simplified JavaBeans API for common functions, provide attractive default visuals, usability features, and data-binding out of the box; usable by developers who may not know Swing. These component APIs are contained in the org.jdesktop.jdnc package.
JDNC Markup Language: A simple, extensible XML-based markup language that enables developers to configure JDNC based clients using XML and deploy them either as Java Web Start applications or as applets in a standard browser. The XML markup language is specified using a Schema (.xsd) and the tag library API used to implement the schema is defined in the org.jdesktop.jdnc.markup package.