What's new?

[Tom Anderson]

Hello again,

It looks like i'm going to be starting a job which will involve writing
java. I haven't really been keeping up with java for a while now - since
roundabout 1.3 - so i should probably get myself up to date. What have i
missed?

I've had a look through Wikipedia's summary of new features, but what i
really want to know is if, and how, the feel of working in java has
changed. Are generics a big deal? Are we using annotations for all sorts
of clever things? Is everything being done with enterprisey XML libraries?
Have we switched to pass-by-reference?

tom

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

Hello again,

It looks like i'm going to be starting a job which will involve writing
java. I haven't really been keeping up with java for a while now - since
roundabout 1.3 - so i should probably get myself up to date. What have i
missed?

Not much, only the biggest redesign of the language since Java 1.1...

I've had a look through Wikipedia's summary of new features, but what i
really want to know is if, and how, the feel of working in java has
changed. Are generics a big deal? Are we using annotations for all sorts
of clever things? Is everything being done with enterprisey XML
libraries? Have we switched to pass-by-reference?

Generics -- yes, very much a big deal.
Annotations -- I don't know; I've used them for some hackish things
involving crazy classloader runtime stuff, but that's probably not common.
XML libraries? Well, XML is the new over-hyped panacea (and has been for
years).
Pass-by-reference -- No, nothing has changed here, just long debates
over the exact semantics of whether or not it's pass-by-value or
pass-by-reference. Please, don't open that can of worms again, I have
enough posts to read as it is...

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

It looks like i'm going to be starting a job which will involve writing
java. I haven't really been keeping up with java for a while now - since
roundabout 1.3 - so i should probably get myself up to date. What have i
missed?

I've had a look through Wikipedia's summary of new features, but what i
really want to know is if, and how, the feel of working in java has
changed. Are generics a big deal? Are we using annotations for all sorts
of clever things? Is everything being done with enterprisey XML
libraries? Have we switched to pass-by-reference?

Generics is used a log, but I would recommend that you just
use it in the form of the java.util collections.

XML is used a lot, so you need to get an overview of W3C DOM,
SAX, StAX and JAXB.

Tools has improved a lot since then.

For fat client GUI you can now choose between Swing and SWT.

For enterprise stuff a lot has changed: JSF, Spring, Hibernate
etc. are hot today.

Arne