New features coming to Java SE
Ed Burnette has a concise and tantalizing summary of Graham Hamilton's presentation during the Sun general Technical session at JavaOne (2006). You can see a Web cast of the presentation via Sun's site. Two really interesting things popped out for me.
First, it looks as if Java 7 will have some important language changes. For instance, there will (perhaps) be direct support for XML. If you have ever accessed an XML file using Java, you know that there are many lines of code required just to open the file—let alone pull out a value.
Second, Project Semplice. Project Semplice is an attempt to allow Visual Basic programmers to use their VB skill in Java. From the article:
The goal is to enable VB developers to use Java platform. It's not for porting existing applications, it just lets you use your VB skills. Compile from VB source into Java classfiles, make VB source code calls into Java platform APIs, etc. It's a new language for the Java latform. It will support standard VB.net concepts.This is exciting because it removes a barrier to entry for many programmers. In my opinion, there have been two major barriers for VB programmers to get into Java. The first has been a lack of solid IDE. There are a lot of IDE's for Java and have been from some time, but if you were interested in trying Java the price of the IDE's was somewhat prohibitive. Eclipse and Netbeans solved this problem. Both are excellent IDE's and both are free. The second problem was the complexity of the Java APIs. Java itself is quite a simple language, but compared to using an ActiveX control in VB or calling a DLL, the Java API's can seem quite complex and confusing to a newbie. Once you get past the learning curve you have quite a bit of power at your finger tips, but the curve is steep. Allowing someone to dip there toes by using code they are used to will help to at least entice them to the platform.
In our shop, I watched my team make the transition from ASP to .Net. It was interesting because instead of sticking with Visual Basic (the core ASP language), our developers quickly switched to C#. A familiarity with the development environment and the Framework helped them get over the hurdle of learning a new language, and once they did, they never looked back.
I can't wait to try it out. It will be fun to dust off my old VB knowledge.
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