The Open Road

With Sun's implementation of Java now open-sourced and developed under the GPL by the OpenJDK Community on java.net, it's possible to observe and participate in the open development of the next version of Java. In this ongoing column, authors Elliotte Rusty Harold and David Flanagan will be your guide to Java 7, keeping track with the latest changes in the jdk7 project and taking a first deep dive into the libraries and technologies that will make up the next version.

The Open Road: javax.annotation
Annotations were introduced in Java 5, and now that the community has had time to try them out and get used to them, Java 7 is preparing to adopt them aggressively. In this installment of The Open Road, Elliotte Rusty Harold looks at the annotations proposed by JSR 305 and how they'll make your code more amenable to static analysis, compiler checks, and other tools to improve safety and robustness. Sep. 11, 2008

The Open Road: java.nio.file
A file I/O API with reliable and speedy methods for copying and moving files? Getting and preserving file attributes? Filesystems to represent RESTful web servers or the contents of zip files? JSR 203, which may be part of Java 7, offers a totally overhauled approach to File I/O in Java. In this installment of "The Open Road," Elliotte Rusty Harold takes a look at the current spec. Jul. 3, 2008

The Open Road: Superpackages
Wonder what the relationship between com.example.package and com.example.package.test is? There isn't one! This lack of an orderly package-visibility relationship has made life difficult for a number of programmers trying to balance organizational needs against practical concerns. In this entry of "The Open Road," Elliotte Rusty Harold takes a look at how JSR 294 ("superpackages"), intended to be part of Java SE 7, proposes to fix this problem. Mar. 6, 2008

The Open Road: Building the JDK
Ready to work with the GPLed JDK from the OpenJDK project? Your first order of business will probably be getting the code compiled and running on your machine. And that's not an easy process. In this installment of The Open Road, Elliotte Rusty Harold relates the step-by-step process of building the JDK on Linux. Nov. 29, 2007

The Open Road: Looking Ahead to Java 7
Kicking off a new column about the development of Java 7, David Flanagan takes a look at the OpenJDK and JDK7 projects and their processes, language changes that have been mentioned as possible candidates for Java 7, and major new APIs that are tracking for inclusion in the new version. Aug. 9, 2007