Java News from Saturday, June 26, 2004

Sun has posted the proposed final draft (version 0.51) of Java Specification Request (JSR) 176, J2SE™ 1.5 (Tiger) Release Contents, to the Java Community Process (JCP). "TThis specification will define the target feature and API set for J2SE 5.0 The goal is that the final release will include all the high and medium priority features from this target list, but depending on implementation and API design schedules some items may be deferred to a later release if they are unable to make the release schedule. The final specification will reflect the final J2SE 5.0 deliverables." High priority new features (Java 1.5 will not ship without them) include:

Medium priority features (Important but will not hold up the release) include

Low priority, "targets of opportunity" include

The only change listed since the last draft is: "Update feature details of 4674944 On-the wire interoperability."


I just realized something: Java 1.5, being covered at JavaOne, is code named Tiger. Mac OS X 10.4, being announced across the hall in Moscone is code named Tiger. And I've heard a couple of hints that there's something big and unexpected being announced by Sun next week with regard to Java. Could there be some as yet unreleased big news about a Sun-Apple collaboration? Maybe Java becoming the preferred programming language for the Mac, and/or a beta of Java 1.5 for Mac OS X being released? This is probably just a coincidence. But then again, maybe not.