The Evolution of Java

The Evolution of Java

The initial release of Java was nothing short of revolutionary, but it did not mark the end of Java’s era of rapid innovation. Unlike most other software systems that usually settle into a pattern of small, incremental improvements, Java continued to evolve at an explosive pace. Soon after the release of Java 1.0, the designers of Java had already created Java 1.1. The features added by Java 1.1 were more significant and substantial than the increase in the minor revision number would have you think. Java 1.1 added many new library elements, redefined the way events are handled, and reconfigured many features of the 1.0 library. It also deprecated (rendered obsolete) several features originally defined by Java 1.0. Thus, Java 1.1 both added to and subtracted from attributes of its original specification.

The next major release of Java was Java 2, where the “2” indicates “second generation.” The creation of Java 2 was a watershed event, marking the beginning of Java’s “modern age.” The first release of Java 2 carried the version number 1.2. It may seem odd that the first release of Java 2 used the 1.2 version number. The reason is that it originally referred to the internal version number of the Java libraries, but then was generalized to refer to the entire release. With Java 2, Sun repackaged the Java product as J2SE (Java 2 Platform Standard Edition), and the version numbers began to be applied to that product.

Java 2 added support for a number of new features, such as Swing and the Collections Framework, and it enhanced the Java Virtual Machine and various programming tools. Java 2 also contained a few deprecations. The most important affected the Thread class in which the methods suspend( ), resume( ), and stop( ) were deprecated.

J2SE 1.3 was the first major upgrade to the original Java 2 release. For the most part, it added to existing functionality and “tightened up” the development environment. In general, programs written for version 1.2 and those written for version 1.3 are source-code compatible. Although version 1.3 contained a smaller set of changes than the preceding three major releases, it was nevertheless important.

The release of J2SE 1.4 further enhanced Java. This release contained several important upgrades, enhancements, and additions. For example, it added the new keyword assert, chained exceptions, and a channel-based I/O subsystem. It also made changes to the Collections Framework and the networking classes. In addition, numerous small changes were made throughout. Despite the significant number of new features, version 1.4 maintained nearly 100 percent source-code compatibility with prior versions.

The next release of Java was J2SE 5, and it was revolutionary. Unlike most of the previous Java upgrades, which offered important, but measured improvements, J2SE 5 fundamentally expanded the scope, power, and range of the language. To grasp the magnitude of the changes that J2SE 5 made to Java, consider the following list of its major new features:

     Generics

     Annotations

     Autoboxing and auto-unboxing

     Enumerations

     Enhanced, for-each style for loop

     Variable-length arguments (varargs)

     Static import

     Formatted I/O

     Concurrency utilities

This is not a list of minor tweaks or incremental upgrades. Each item in the list represented a significant addition to the Java language. Some, such as generics, the enhanced for, and varargs, introduced new syntax elements. Others, such as autoboxing and auto-unboxing, altered the semantics of the language. Annotations added an entirely new dimension to programming. In all cases, the impact of these additions went beyond their direct effects. They changed the very character of Java itself.

The importance of these new features is reflected in the use of the version number “5.” The next version number for Java would normally have been 1.5. However, the new features were so significant that a shift from 1.4 to 1.5 just didn’t seem to express the magnitude of the change. Instead, Sun elected to increase the version number to 5 as a way of emphasizing that a major event was taking place. Thus, it was named J2SE 5, and the developer’s kit was called JDK 5. However, in order to maintain consistency, Sun decided to use 1.5 as its internal version number, which is also referred to as the developer version number. The

“5” in J2SE 5 is called the product version number.

The next release of Java was called Java SE 6. Sun once again decided to change the name of the Java platform. First, notice that the “2” was dropped. Thus, the platform was now named Java SE, and the official product name was Java Platform, Standard Edition 6.

The Java Development Kit was called JDK 6. As with J2SE 5, the 6 in Java SE 6 is the product version number. The internal, developer version number is 1.6.

Java SE 6 built on the base of J2SE 5, adding incremental improvements. Java SE 6 added no major features to the Java language proper, but it did enhance the API libraries, added several new packages, and offered improvements to the runtime. It also went through several updates during its (in Java terms) long life cycle, with several upgrades added along the way. In general, Java SE 6 served to further solidify the advances made by J2SE 5.

Java SE 7 was the next release of Java, with the Java Development Kit being called JDK 7, and an internal version number of 1.7. Java SE 7 was the first major release of Java since Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle. Java SE 7 contained many new features, including significant additions to the language and the API libraries. Upgrades to the Java run-time system that support non-Java languages were also included, but it is the language and library additions that were of most interest to Java programmers.

The new language features were developed as part of Project Coin. The purpose of Project Coin was to identify a number of small changes to the Java language that would be incorporated into JDK 7. Although these features were collectively referred to as “small,” the effects of these changes have been quite large in terms of the code they impact. In fact, for many programmers, these changes may well have been the most important new features in Java SE 7. Here is a list of the language features added by JDK 7:

•  A String can now control a switch statement.  Part

•  Binary integer literals.         

•  Underscores in numeric literals.   

•  An expanded try statement, called try-with-resources, that supports automatic resource management. (For example, streams can be closed automatically when they are no longer needed.)

•  Type inference (via the diamond operator) when constructing a generic instance.    

•  Enhanced exception handling in which two or more exceptions can be caught by a single catch (multi-catch) and better type checking for exceptions that are rethrown.  

•  Although not a syntax change, the compiler warnings associated with some types of varargs methods were improved, and you have more control over the warnings.

As you can see, even though the Project Coin features were considered small changes to the language, their benefits were much larger than the qualifier “small” would suggest. In particular, the try-with-resources statement has profoundly affected the way that stream-based code is written. Also, the ability to use a String to control a switch statement was a long desired improvement that simplified coding in many situations.

Java SE 7 made several additions to the Java API library. Two of the most important were the enhancements to the NIO Framework and the addition of the Fork/Join Framework. NIO (which originally stood for New I/O) was added to Java in version 1.4. However, the changes added by Java SE 7 fundamentally expanded its capabilities. So significant were the changes, that the term NIO.2 is often used.

The Fork/Join Framework provides important support for parallel programming. Parallel programming is the name commonly given to the techniques that make effective use of computers that contain more than one processor, including multicore systems. The advantage that multicore environments offer is the prospect of significantly increased program performance. The Fork/Join Framework addressed parallel programming by    

•  Simplifying the creation and use of tasks that can execute concurrently

•  Automatically making use of multiple processors     

Therefore, by using the Fork/Join Framework, you can easily create scaleable applications that automatically take advantage of the processors available in the execution environment. Of course, not all algorithms lend themselves to parallelization, but for those that do, a significant improvement in execution speed can be obtained.