The first beta release of Java SE 6.0 is available for download on the Sun site, here.
Sun developers blog new Java SE 6.0 Mustang features
Here is a huge list of blogs from developers working on Java SE 6.0, discussing the latest features included in the SE 6.0 release.
There are some interesting new features, but a couple caught my eye:
- Ability to have wildcards in classpath statements – similar to how you can define directory wildcards in ANT for including jars in your classpath. This is very handy.
- Native Look and Feel improvements, so that Swing apps using XP and GTK Look and Feels are rendered even closer to what you would see on the native OS.
- Sorting and filtering in Swing JTable – very cool.
Another interview with Ruby on Rails creator, David Heinemeier Hansson
David Heinemeier Hansson seems to be doing the rounds right now and appearing in interviews everywhere. Reg Developer have an interview with the creator of the Web Framework on their site.
The interview covers the usual big questions: will is scale, is it secure, is it suitable for enterprise applications? Hansson must have answers for these questions preprepared by now, as these are the issues everyone is asking. Other than the sites that Hansson has developed himself using Rails, I think time will tell and it only has to be a matter of time before a large enterprise project takes the jump and takes Rails for a spin. Like Hansson says in one of his replies, the answer on whether to use technology X verses Y is usually a political one, and it not necessarily decided on technical excellence alone. Like COBOL 20 – 30 years ago, nobody get’s fired for choosing Java.
JUnit 4.0 released
JUnit 4.0 has been released. It relies on Java SE 5.0, and uses annotations to mark tests.