Vita Santrucek's Weblog: Java SE quality, metrics ..

We're currently finishing the work on Java SE 6 update 14. It is planned to be released shortly with yet another big set of bug fixes, performance improvements and new features. You can check out the last publicly available build (b06) from the usual early access location: https://jdk6.dev.java.net/6uNea.html. Let us know if you find any good candidates for fixing in the next update release.

JDK 7 work has been ongoing and especially from the beginning of this year we've made some significant progress. To get your hands on the latest of the latest you can experiment with the most recent build (b58) from: http://download.java.net/jdk7/. I'll be posting more information on the status of JDK 7 and the quality aspect of it in particular soon. Stay tuned ...

A couple of weeks back our teams started to work on another significant milestone of Java SE in the 6 family - 6u12. Even though it is "just" one of the updates, it is going to bring some of the new major functionality the Java users have been asking for, for a long time. The complete list of new features will be published upon the release, but to highlight some of the ones some of you might find interesting:

• 64-bit plugin* Support 64-bit Java Plug-in and Java webstart on Windows/Linux on AMD64 (4802695) - allows running applets and Java WebStart applications in a 64-bit VM in a 64-bit browser on the supported platforms


• Lightweight/heavyweight component mixing* Allow limited mixing of heavy and lightweight components (4811096) - enables easier embedding


• Windows Server 2008 support

* to prevent possible confusion I've replaced the short feature name with the change request's (CR) synopsis. To see more details, click the CR id.

Now the best part - all of these features have already been integrated in the early access builds. You can check the latest (b02) one out on the http://jdk6.dev.java.net portal, or directly at the download page - http://download.java.net/jdk6/. The plan is to publish all builds until the GA (General Availability) release, so check back often for new builds.

Give it a try and let us if you encounter any issues. The best way is through this page.