Editor's Daily Blog

Another Great Divide

OpenJDK to add closures sub-project

As I've noted in blogs over the last few months, all the major closure proposals are backed up with implementations, so it's possible for interested developers to take each out for a spin. In fact, to save you a few minutes of Googling, here are links to blog entries introducing each implementation:

• Neal Gafter (BGGA): Java Closures: first prototype
• Stephen Colebourne (FCM): FCM prototype available
• Mark Mahieu (CICE): CICE/ARM Prototype

Interestingly, Stephen and Mark acknowledge that their implementations are based off the OpenJDK project's emerging Java 7 codebase, while Neal's instead requires that you have JDK 6 versions of java and javac on your path.

And the coupling to OpenJDK brings us to an interesting item in today's news, the announcement of an official project to bring the BGGA implementation to OpenJDK. Following a unanimous vote by members of the Compiler Group, the OpenJDK project has approved a closures project. The project was proposed by and will be led by Neal. Its stated goal is "to produce a feature-complete prototype of the Java bytecode compiler (javac) for the draft BGGA Closures specification", and will serve as the workspace for the closures effort in the OpenJDK Community Innovators' Challenge.

So does this give BGGA a sort of incumbency advantage over the other proposals, given its status as an official part of OpenJDK? Let's not jump to conclusions: the others have implementations already based on OpenJDK, after all, and we won't know which (if any) are in Java 7 until the JCP takes up the issue of a Java 7 contents JSR, which is still a ways off.

Also in Java Today,

Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart has posted some Updated GlassFish Roadmaps. "Anybody that has been in the software industry for any time knows that roadmaps are always "work in progress". With that caveat, here are the latest news:

• GFv2 UR2, this Thursday (wiki page, Msg).
• GFv2.1, moved out to Fall 08 (wiki page, Harpreet's blog, Msg)
• GFv3 TP2, JavaOne 08 (wiki page)

GFv3 TP2 is a "Technology Preview" release; we will provide a sneak peek at CommunityOne and will be demoed at JavaOne.

The latest edition, issue 166, of the JavaTools Community Newsletter is out, with a note about the recently-concluded FISL conference, tool-related news from around the web, news from projects, announcements of new projects in the community, and a Tool Tip on facilitating access to your open source projects at java.net.

In today's Weblogs, Eltjo Boersma has posted a SailFin address and port configuration overview. "SailFin adds SIP to the JEE equation, SIP takes a slight different, more elaborate, approach on address and ports than HTTP does. Here I will provide an overview how the configuration model for SailFin looks like and how you can configure it to your needs."

Chet Haase reports that he's Not Dead Yet. "Join Romain and I for another Filthy Rich Clients session at JavaOne this year."

Finally, John O'Conner returns to the topic of character encoding gotchas in Encoding URIs and their components. "The JavaScript layer has its own lossy character conversion points. One of those is the escape function."

In today's Forums, pmandali wonders about Usage of javafx in web page. "I am new to JavaFX and do not know much of its usage. Actually I am looking for some technology in which I can create flash like effects (to some extent, powerpoint slide effects) in web page. From net, I have come to known that JavaFX is replacement for Flash and other animation technologies. I want to know is it possible to use the javafx in web page. So that I will create javafx script dynamically and that script will run on html webpage in browser."

brackeen has questions about javax.jnlp.* access in applets. "In b22 applets, it looks like access to the javax.jnlp.* classes is only available if the applet has a jnlp file. Maybe there is a good reason for this. But would it be possible to allow access to these APIs even if a jnlp file isn't used? On the surface it looks like creating a JNLP file is quite easy, but it's actually complex (I've spent at least an hour debugging one - it didn't like the name of my jnlp file, among other things)."

Finally, sivanr asks Where can I find working dir of GlassFish? "We are porting a websphere project to galssfish. In websphere we have a concept called working directory and we used to keep some of our application property files in that folder. WAS admin console navigation Path for working dir: Application servers > server1 > Process Definition. Now in glassfish where should I keep these files? Is there any concept called working directory in glassfish?"

Current and upcoming Java Events :

• April 25-27 - Northern Virginia Software Symposium 2008: Spring Edition
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• May 5 - CommunityOne 2008
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Comments

• So does this give BGGA a sort of incumbency advantage over the other proposals, given its status as an official part of OpenJDK? Let's not jump to conclusions: the others have implementations already based on OpenJDK, after all, and we won't know which (if any) are in Java 7 until the JCP takes up the issue of a Java 7 contents JSR, which is still a ways off.
  Oh, come on. Pull the other one. Everyone who watched the closure charade knows very well that (a) closures for Java 7 are already a done deal, and (b) Mr. Gafter is Sun's closure darling.

  I just wish Sun would finally be honest and reveal what has already been decided, instead of taking us for a ride.

  Posted by: ewin on April 23, 2008 at 06:46 PM

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