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Snowed In

Posted by editor on December 1, 2008 at 8:34 AM PST


Anticipating December's avalanche of news

OK, so I moved to the snowy part of the Rust Belt, but I didn't think that 6 inches of snow was more than they could handle here. Apparently it is, as all the schools are closed, and I've shoveled the driveway twice in the last 12 hours.

December brings snow in these parts, and it also usually brings major releases from various Java projects. Many projects time their releases to avoid a holiday-season crunch by getting a release out in late November or early December. We saw GlassFish v3 Prelude and NetBeans 6.5 a few weeks ago, and of course Java FX 1.0's big day is coming up on Thursday.

We've also been alerted to a bit of unanticipated Java 7 related items coming from the JDK group early in the week. Mark Reinhold tells us he's kicked off a series of significant blogs by considering systems for Packaging Java code. Tracing the history of the problem, from loose class files and resources on a web server to the ZIP-based JAR format and the versioning problems it doesn't address, he says we find ourselves in "JAR hell":

"If we’re going to modularize the JDK then why not do the same for Java libraries and applications? If we have the facilities required to divide the JDK into a set of well-specified and separate, yet interdependent, modules then we should be able to leverage those same tools even further in order to climb out of JAR hell."

Mark told us to expect parts 2 and 3 over the next few days, culminating in a major announcement, so we're going to keep linking over there in the first part of the week.

Also in Java Today,
Linda DeMichiel describes what she describes as "probably the most significant of the new features introduced in the JPA 2.0 Public Draft" in Java Persistence 2.0 Public Draft: Criteria API. " This is a non-string-based API for the dynamic construction of object-based queries. Criteria queries are constructed in terms of query definition objects. As with JPQL static and dynamic queries, criteria query definition objects are passed to the EntityManager createQuery method to create Query objects—and then executed using the methods of the Query API."

In a recent blog, Direct Web Remoting (DWR) creator Joe Walker considers the rhetorical question Why is the web the default development platform? "10 years ago the default was probably VB6/Windows, these days it’s just the web. Why? If we don't know what's right about the web, then it's hard to know how to build on the success. 4 reasons why; and they've all got something vital in common."

James Gosling is Heading to Tokyo. In today's Weblogs, he writes, "I'm spending this coming week at Tech Days in Tokyo from Tuesday through Thursday. If you're anywhere near Tokyo, come join us. We'll be showing off all the latest and greatest stuff: JDK 6u10, NetBeans 6.5, Glassfish V3, JavaFX, Solaris, and a whole lot more."

Terrence Barr offers his own
Thoughts on "What Sun Should Do". "Tim Bray's piece on "What Sun Should Do" is getting a lot of attention - as well as some of the follow-ups such as on JavaLobby and RedMonk. I think it's a good and necessary discussion - but it's easy to oversimplify and miss important points."

Finally, Joshua Marinacci reports on his sneak peek of JavaFX at Ørdev.
"My two sessions went very well. The first was an in depth discussion of the JavaFX Script language as part of the Cool Languages track. I got several good questions which have prompted more discussion with other JVM language experts. My second session was the Client Java Overview which covered, in fifty minutes, the history of Java on the client."

The latest java.net Poll asks
"What languages other than Java do you use on a regular basis?" Cast your vote on the front page, then visit the results page for current tallies and discussion.

This week's Spotlight is on
the JavaOne 2009 Conference, which has posted its Call for Papers. "Your expertise helps make the JavaOne Conference community dynamic and leading edge. We'd like you to share that knowledge and be the Rock Star you are. The conference curriculum will be organized across four key areas supporting and surrounding the Java platform; pick the area that best suits your expertise and submit your paper." The four topics are Rich Media Applications and Interactive Content, Mobility, Services, and Core Technologies. Interested speakers must submit their proposals by December 19.

In today's Forums,
warthds wants to use ME to access a device's
motion sensor. "Hi, is it possible to to listen to an event with java2me if the resolution of an mobile phone changes through the motion sensor? For example if i turn the phone about 90 degrees and the phone has an motion sensor."

travis_j_t takes multiple approaches to improving performance in
Re: How to Use BufferStrategy with awt Frame and Canvas with 2+ threads. "Does anybody have a example of BufferStragety with awt Frame and maybe with canvas and at least 2 threads. that is pretty much what i am looking for."

demonduck argues that recently-discussed Java version data suggests users aren't allowing Java to auto-update. The argument in
Re: Disabling Java Autoupdates goes like this: "I agree that the demonstration I pose is tenuous but look at this thread and see the statistics. We can argue about the sample size or the subject population but if you take this sample as broadly representative, then clearly most people have auto updates turned off. Otherwise you would see all 1.6.0.7 and above right? Maybe I misinterpret the stats below but they come from your own deployJava.js so they must be right -- right?"

theuserbl hopes for updated versions of old JavaFX tutorials, as explained in
Would be nice, if the old Tutorial would be ported to version 1.0. "What I liked on the "old" JavaFX-demos is the JavaFXPad (http://www.javafxpad.com/) and the Tutorial based on JavaFXPad. Both can be found at http://download.java.net/general/openjfx/demos/. Would nice, if it could be ported to the new version 1.0 of JavaFX. Also a JavaFX Shell for the new version would be nice. The compiler is better then the interpreter. But to have both possibilities would be still better."

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Anticipating December's avalanche of news

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Comments

by shemnon - 2008-12-01 18:28

I for one would welcome our new native modularization overlords.