Sun has posted the second public review draft (version 0.50) of Java Specification Request (JSR) 176, J2SE™ 1.5 (Tiger) Release Contents, to the Java Community Process (JCP). "This specification will define the target feature and API set for J2SE 1.5 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 1.5 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
Container that can change
the Z-ordering of childrenInetAddressAccessibleRelations, AccessibleRoles, AccessibleState (constants) AccessibleStreamable API in javax.accessible Features dropped since the previous draft include a high resolution timer. Comments are due by June 10.
Sun has submitted JSR-245, JavaServer Pages 2.1, to the Java Community Process (JCP). According to the JSR, JSP 2.1
focuses on better alignment with the next release of JavaServer Faces. JavaServer Faces 1.0 (JSR-127) defines a standard framework for building User Interface components, and builds on top of JSP 1.2 technology. Because JSP 1.2 technology does not have an integrated expression language and because the JSP 2.0 EL does not meet all of the needs of JSF, a new expression language was developed for JSF 1.0. The JSF EG attempted to make the language as compatible with JSP 2.0 as possible but some differences were necessary. The JSF EG agreed that the JSF 1.0 EL will be phased out in the next release of the JSF specification in favor of the JSP 2.1 expression language. It is a goal, therefore, of JSP 2.1 to enhance the expression language to meet the needs of JSF technology. Many of these enhancements are likely to be useful in other contexts as well.
Enhancements to be considered for the JSP 2.1 expression language include, but are not limited to, the following:
- moving the expression language chapter into its own specification document, to be delivered under this JSR with consultation from the JavaServer Faces expert group
- ability to redefine the behavior of the "." operator through a Property Resolver API
- ability to plug in Variable Resolvers on a per-application and per-page basis
- ability to plug in Property Resolvers on a per-application and per-page basis
- ability to express references to bean methods using the expression language and invoking those methods via a Method Binding API
- ability to express references to bean properties using the expression language and getting/setting those attributes via a Property Binding API
- ability to defer expression evaluation until a time of a tag handler's choosing
Comments are due by May 24.
Sun has posted a
maintenance draft review of
JSR 114,
JDBC Rowset Implementations (javax.sql.rowset),
to the Java Community Process.
The changes look fairly minor, and mostly seem to affect exceptions
and corner cases.
The Eclipse Project has posted the second release candidate of AspectJ 1.2. AspectJ is a derivative of Java that allows programmers to write code that applies across multiple classes. The AspectJ compiler requires Java 1.3 but can generate code for Java 1.1 and later. According to the announcement, "The definition of the AspectJ language is unchanged in the 1.2 release. Instead, AspectJ 1.2 provides major improvements to the functionality of the supporting tools. Compilation times are greatly reduced, error messages have been improved, incremental compilation support is extended, and the ajdoc tool is back."