Danny Coward's Sun Weblog

Thursday March 23, 2006

The 10 Things You Need to Know About Java SE 6 'Mustang'
Filed under: javase6

Need a digest, summary, compressed form, precis of what's up with Java SE 6 'Mustang', currently in beta ?

Here it is, the top 10 things you need to know.

1. Web Services

All developers get first class support for writing XML web service client applications. No messing with the plumbing, you can expose your APIs as .NET interoperable web services with a simple annotation. Not your style ? Want to handle the XML directly ? Knock yourself out: Mustang adds new parsing and XML to Java object mapping APIs, previously only available in Java EE implementations or the Java Web Services Pack.

2. Scripting

You can now mix in JavaScript with your Java Source code, useful for prototyping, or when you have teams with a variety of skill sets. More advanced developers can plug in their own scripting engines, and mix their favorite scripting language in with Java as they see fit.

Perhaps You ThougHt yOu couldN't program with a scripting language and Java togetheR. Which will yoU Be trYing ?

3. Database

All developers get the updated JDBC 4.0, which is a new upgrade of a well-used API, focusing mainly on making it easier to use, although there are many feature additions like special support for XML as an SQL datatype, and better integration of BLOBs and CLOBs into the APIs. My favorite ease of use things include removal of some JDBC boilerplate, and some of the new annotations which make SQL strings embed better into your JDBC application. Like decorating your getAllUsers() method with an @Query(sql="select * from user") annotation, and that being all you need.

4. More Desktop APIs

Much has been said about this spoonful of sugar (to go with the desktop team's cake), so I will only skim a little. GUI developers get a large number of new tricks to play like the ever popular yet newly incorporated SwingWorker utility to help you with threading in GUI apps, JTable sorting and filtering and a new facility for quick splash screens to quieten impatient users.

5. Monitoring and Management

Really the big deal here is that you don't need do anything special to the startup to be able to attach on demand with any of the monitoring and management tools in Java SE. Mustang adds yet more diagnostic information, and we cobundled the infamous memory heap analysis tool jhat for forensic explorations of those core dumps.

6. Compiler Access

Really aimed at people who create tools for Java development, and for frameworks like JSP or PHP engines that need to generate a bunch of classes on demand, the compiler API opens up programmatic access to javac for in-process compilation of dynamically generate Java code. Not directly intended for the everyday developer, but for those of you deafened by your screaming inner geek, roll up your sleeves and give it a try. And the rest of us will happily benefit from the tools and the improved Java frameworks that use this.

7. Pluggable Annotations

Its becoming a running joke in Java circles, at least some that contain me, that for every wished for feature missing in Java, there's a budding annotation that will solve the problem. Joke no more, because Java tool and framework vendors can put a different smile on your face, defining their own annotations and have core support for plugging in and executing the processors that do the heaving lifting that can make custom annotations so cool.

8. Desktop Deployment

Those of you deploying applications to the desktop will soon discover that its a tale of a large number of smaller changes that add up to a big difference to existing applications. Like better platform look & feels in Swing, LCD text rendering, and snappier GUI performance overall.  Java apps can integrate better with the native platform with things like new access to the System Tray and Start menu of the platform.  At long last, Mustang unifies the Java Plugin and Java WebStart engines which just makes sense. Java WebStart application installation got a much needed makeover.

9. Security

You can have all the security features you like in the platform (and Mustang adds a few more, like the XML-DSIG APIs for creating and manipulating digital signatures), but if you don't have well supported security administrators, your security may be at risk. So Mustang has simplified the job of its security administrators by providing various new ways to access platform native security services such as native PKI and cryptographic services on Windows for secure authentication and communication, GSS/Kerberos services for authentication, and access to LDAP servers for authenticating users.

10. The Ilities: Quality, Compatibility, Stability

You probably knew that Sun has done regular feature releases of the Java SE platform over the last 10 years, so we certainly feel like we've built up some expertise in this area (the ever growing 80,000 test cases and several million lines of code testing conformance being just one aspect of our testing activity), but different from the last release, you probably noticed that people have been downloading snapshots of Mustang for the last fifteen (not just six) months. And what's more they've been filing bugs. And what's even more we've (and some of you!) been fixing them as we go. We're even challenging people to find more. So unlike previous releases, before we even got to beta, we'd fixed a number of quality and regression issues. Doesn't that add up to a better product ? Oh, and by the way, performance is looking better than Java SE 5 'Tiger'. Already..



So now you know all you need to know. Go on, try it !

Posted by dannycoward ( Mar 23 2006, 11:25:53 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [6]