The new realse of Java comes with a slew of new features that any system administrator and developer should be aware of. This article lists the ten most useful Java 6 enhancements.

Database
The Java Development Kit bundles the all-Java JDBC database, Java DB based on Apache Derby. This will enable developers to get a jumpstart on java development and is useful for testing applications.
Developers will get the updated JDBC 4.0, which focuses on ease of use. It also contains many feature additions like support for XML as an SQL datatype and better integration of Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) and Character Large Objects (CLOBs) into the APIs. Additional features that improve ease of use include removal of some JDBC boilerplate and some of the new annotations that make SQL strings embed better into your JDBC application – like decorating your getAllUsers() method with an @Query(sql=”select * from user”) annotation, and that being all you need. More annotation love for you.

Web Services
You get first-class support for writing XML web service client applications, which in turn will eliminate the messy plumbing code you needed before. You can also easliy expose your APIs as .NET interoperable web services with a simple annotation.

For developers who want to handle XML directly Java 6 adds new parsing and XML to Java object-mapping APIs, previously only available in Java EE platform implementations or the Java Web Services Pack.

Scripting
A new addition to Java 6 is a built in JavaScript engine. It is very useful for prototyping and for developers with different skill sets.

More Desktop APIs
This Swing Team has been very busy before this release and as a result GUI developers get a large number of new tricks to play with, such as the ever popular yet newly incorporated SwingWorker utility to help you with the cumbersome threading in GUI apps. Also featured are JTable sorting and filtering, and a new facility for quick splash screens.

Monitoring and Management
With the new version developers do not need do anything special at the startup to be able to attach on demand with any of the monitoring and management tools in the Java SE platform. Version 6 adds yet more diagnostic information, and we co-bundled the infamous memory-heap analysis tool Jhat for forensic explorations of those core dumps.

Pluggable Annotations
Java tool and framework vendors or simply any developers can define annotations and have core API support for plugging in and executing the processors that do the heavy lifting. It seamlessly integrates your custom annotations .

Desktop Deployment
Better platform look-and-feel in Swing technology, LCD text rendering more clarity on LCD monitors like Vista, and snappier GUI performance overall. Java applications can integrate better with the native platform with things like new access to the platform’s System Tray and Start menu. At long last, Mustang unifies the Java Plug-in technology and Java WebStart engines, which just makes sense. Installation of the Java WebStart application got a much needed makeover.

Security
Mustang simplified the job of security administrators by providing various new ways to access platform-native security services, such as native Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and cryptographic services on Microsoft Windows for secure authentication and communication, Java Generic Security Services (Java GSS) and Kerberos services for authentication, and access to LDAP servers for authenticating users.

Compiler Access
Really aimed at people who create tools for Java development and for frameworks like JavaServer Pages (JSP) or Personal Home Page construction kit (PHP) engines that need to generate a bunch of classes on demand, the compiler API opens up programmatic access to javac for in-process compilation of dynamically generated Java code. Finally you don’t have to save your code as a Java files and invoke javac to generate a classfile, a clumsy procedure at best.

Quality, Compatibility, Stability
With over 80,000 test cases running on several million lines of code you can be sure that the new version will be on par with the previous releases when it comes to performance, quality and compatibility. Developers have been testing snapshots of Mustang for over 15 months before the realse and you can rest assured that many of the unforseen bugs have been caught and fixed.

Tags | General