This is a weekly update on new Java 7 information. All current and previous information is maintained on my Java 7 page.
In general Java 7 news, there was a new Java SE 7 b15 available this week. See the link for the list of bug fixes and enhancements. Also, java.net did a nice overview of some early Java 7 work this week.
Modularity
The initial JSR 316 for Java EE 6 came out this week and it has some references to relying on the Java 277 module system (to the exclusion of others such as JSR 291). Peter Kriens had probably the best comments on this that I’ve seen.
Libraries
The review of JSR 275 Units and Measures Early Draft Public Review was today (hope you got your comments in!). JavaLobby has a
good thread with some interesting comments. Also, Jody Garnett had some interesting comments on why GeoTools has not switched to JSR-275 yet. Primarily it seems that the reliance on generics and Java 5 in JSR 275 is too aggressive at this point for GeoTools users.
InfoQ had some nice coverage on the updates for JSR 166 concurrency in Java 7.
I’ve also added a section on the Java 7 page for JSR 225, the Java API for XQuery, aka XQJ. There is a new draft available for review and InfoQ had some coverage.
| More info: JSR 275 | JSR 166 | JSR 225 |
Swing
Philipp Meier had some interesting comments on JSR 296 (Swing Application Framework) lamenting the use of singletons. I have some of the same reservations as you may have guessed.
| More info: JSR 296 | JSR 295 |
Language Proposals
The language change discussions have slowed down quite a bit but there a few interesting links out there this week. Michael Nischt presented an idea for Inline-Methods and Closure-Blocks to add control abstraction without closures. Shai made a case against the property keyword. And Neal Gafter posted an interesting proposal on constructor type inference, suggesting that Java should provide type inference on the right-hand side of generic constructor assignment, as well as other locations. Neal’s ideas are interesting as always and attract a highly insightful stream of comments, so check it out.
| More info: Closures | Properties | Short instance creation |
Musical recommendation of the week
This week, I’ve got another off the wall musical recommendation. I’ve been listening to a lot of Balkan fusion music this week, which mixes American rock and punk music with more traditional music from the Balkans. You might be interested in bands like Golem! or Balkan Beat Box, or any of the bands from this eMusic review. But, my favorite has definitely been Gogol Bordello. They actually have a new album coming out this week, but I’ve been enjoying their last album Gypsy Punks immensely.
The singer Eugene Hutz is pretty over the top and if you’re interested, there is a really good movie called Everything is Illuminated with Eugene in one of the lead roles (along with hobbit boy Elijah Wood). It’s definitely an independent kind of movie but worth a watch.