Jazoon ’09: Wednesday Keynote from Danny Coward, Sun
Title: Java SE and JavaFX RoadMap
Speaker: Danny Coward, Chief Architect, Client Software
Danny begins be showing the JavaFX roadmap…
Towards the end of the timeline: “JavaFX.next”
What on Earth could that mean?
In any case: JDK 7 release due early 2010.
Top 5 JDK SE 7 features
1: Modularity
Long overdue, the current JRE is around 14MB and contains a wide range of APIs. The average app only requires a small proportion of these. It also increases startup time.
Danny points out a number of weaknesses in the CLASSPATH concept. This will apparently be addressed by a low-level modularilty system entitled Jigsaw.
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/jcp.prg/en/jsr/detail?id=294
The concept externalizes the package depenencies to a module file… which reminds me of Eiffel’s solution to this issue which is donkeys years old.
2: Broadening the JVM to accelerate runtimes
DaVinci Project should result in a new bytecode model, which enables dynamic invocation, lightweight method handles and a variety of other optimizations.
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/mlvm
3: Java Language Additions
Project coin will result in a few small language enhancements:
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/coin
The switch statement will work with Strings.
Multiple Exception handling
catch (final IOException | ServletException e)
Improved type interence will remove the need to double-declare generics so:
List l = new ArrayList()
Becomes:
List l = new ArrayList ()
Elvis operator eliminates a significant cause of Java’s verbosity:
String s = mayBeNull?.toString() ?: “nothing”;
Integer ival = …
int i = ival ?: -1; // will be set if currently null
Must confess, this is not what I understand by the Elvis operator, but it looks useful nevertheless.
4: Four new I/O APIs
These include: New filesystem API, File notifications, Directory operations, Asynchronous I/O. The latter permits an IO task to be defined using a Future, the Future delivering the result at a later point in time.
5: New GC
New garbage collector “Garbage First” should result in predictably low pauses, few full GCs and good throughput. Can be accessed in Java SE6 update 14 using:
-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions –XX:+UseG1GC
This will be switched on by default in JDK 7.
Danny notes at this point that numerous other (small) features are also part of JDK 7.
JavaFX 1.2 Top 5
Danny begins by stating that Sun is trying to make up for lost time with JavaFX (as I have blogged in the past).
More platforms
JavaFX 1.2 runs on more platforms i.e. Linux and Solaris in addition to Windows and Mac. LG TV (purchasable in South Korea) incorporates JavaFX1.2. Finally, the HTC developer phone is also mentioned. Danny states that he hopes that phones will be available to consumers on the coming months. Don’t we all!?
New features
New widgets, charts, plus a new look and feel. L&F is possible via CSS, which is obviously a whole load easier than creating an L&F for Swing.
Improved layout management
Layout management: There are three new layout managers, but I know from experience these don’t yet cut it for non-trivial B2B apps.
There follow a series of nice looking demos, which highlight that JavaFx is scenegraph based.
Improved perforamance
Performance up: Realtime streaming for media is now supported, which improves media startup significantly. Various optimizations in generated code and scenegraph. Bytecode footprint is down 30%.
Improved data handling
More and better ways to use data. RSS and Atom feed support. A simple asynchronous framework is also included, plus a simple data storage API.
One final demo is really impressive: Using the bubblemark demo, Danny demos that JavaFX 1.2 performance is significantly better than Silverlight. Now that I would not have expected!
