burek for breakfast

Food For Tests: 7u40 Build b26 & 8 Build b91

Thu, 30 May 2013 18:45:54 GMT

This week brought new Early Access builds of the JDK and related projects.

On the JDK 7 side, the JDK 7 Update 40 Early Access Releases have been updated to 7u40 Build b26. A list of changes is available here - this build updates HotSpot to hs24-b45 and upgrades JAXP to 1.5.

On the JDK 8 side, the JDK 8 Early Access Releases Build b91 is now available for testing. An extensive list of changes in this build is linked off the download site - it includes the aforementioned JAXP 1.5 update, a new HotSpot build (hs25-b33), Nashorn replacing Rhino, and a big bouquet of other small and not so small changes making it into this build as one would expect at this stage in the JDK 8 development cycle.

As Tori Wieldt says over on the Java Source blog:

Please download the latest preview updates JDK 8, the next generation of the Java Development Kit. Kick the tires, give it a test drive and share your feedback.

- and of course, if you're looking forward to 7u40, please give it a spin as well and provide feedback through the usual channels.

QotD: Mark Reinhold on OpenJDK Wiki

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:38:19 GMT

The OpenJDK wiki is now available for use:

http://wiki.openjdk.java.net

Mark Reinhold in an e-mail announcing a new wiki instance.

CFP Time: PPPJ

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:51:25 GMT

The 2013 International Conference on Principles and Practices of Programming on the Java platform: Virtual machines, languages and tools takes place in Stuttgart, Germany, just a few weeks ahead of JavaOne. They have already announced a couple of interesting keynotes on Kotlin, Truffle and Lambdas.

The Call for Papers can be found here.

CFP Time: JavaOne

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:11:04 GMT

With about a week to go, the deadline to submit your proposals for this year's JavaOne conference is approaching quickly. If you're like me, you've thought about what you'd like to submit, thrown some ideas around colleagues and are ready to click the shiny "Submit Now!" button on the CFP web site.

If you're better then me, then you've submitted your JavaOne proposals already and can lean back, watching the "JavaOne" and "submit" keywords get repeatedly mentioned on twitter in the week to come, as more people realize that time for submissions is almost up.

If, on the other hand, you haven't given much thought to a JavaOne submission yet, check out the Tips and Guidelines section of the CFP web site, submit your proposal, and, hopefully, see you there in September!

QotD: Oracle's Stewardship of Java

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:26:11 GMT

Along with encouraging more JCP participation, Oracle is actively pushing forward the development of the Java SE platform with increased participation from the OpenJDK project. Oracle is committed to OpenJDK as the best open-source Java implementation and actively promotes community contribution to the project. Today there are more than 30 OpenJDK projects lead by a wide range of community members and employees of companies like AMD, Apple, IBM, Red Hat, SAP, and Oracle. In addition, OpenJDK has strong representation from academics, open-source operating system distribution developers, and individual software developers. The increased push to promote the OpenJDK effort has been highly effective in attracting talented contributors.

Quote from an article titled "Oracle's Stewardship of Java".

Thank You: 7000 @OpenJDK Followers

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:08:05 GMT

A little while ago, the OpenJDK twitter feed reached 7000 followers, about five months after reaching 6000 last autumn.

Thanks for following along on the journey towards JDK 8.

Next Gig: JUG Mannheim

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:43:04 GMT

I'll be speaking at Java User Group Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany on Thursday, February 28th about Java SE 8.

See you there!

Next Gig: FOSDEM

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:44:31 GMT

I'll be speaking in the Free Java dev room at FOSDEM on Sunday afternoon on Project Nashorn and OpenJFX.

See you there!

Next Gig: JUG Ostfalen

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:57:00 GMT

I'll be speaking at Java User Group Ostfalen in Braunschweig, Germany on Thursday, January 17th about Java SE 8.

See you there!

QotD: Rory O'Donnell on JDK 8 Early Access Build Test Results

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:33:49 GMT

Starting this week, we will begin posting test results every week. These results are generated by running the open regression tests on the JDK 8 Early Access Build on Oracle Linux 6.

Results for the latest Early Access build will be posted, usually within two to three days of the build becoming available. Test results for build 71 are now available at http://jdk8.java.net

Rory O'Donnell, Quality Engineering Manager at Oracle in a post to the OpenJDK quality-discuss mailing list.

Food For Tests: 7u12 Build b05, 8 b68 Early Access Builds + Builds with Lambda & Type Annotations

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:07:11 GMT

This week brought along new Early Access builds of the JDK and related projects.

On the JDK 7 side, the JDK 7 Update 12 Early Access Releases have been updated to 7u12 Build b05.

On the JDK 8 side, the JDK 8 Early Access Releases Build b68 is now available for testing.

As Mike Duigou announced on the lambda-dev mailing list,

A new promotion (b68) of Early Access binaries for OpenJDK Java 8 with lambda extensions is now available at http://jdk8.java.net/lambda/ .

On the Type Annotations Project mailing list, Steve Sides announced that

the latest binary builds of the JSR 308 Reference Implementation are available at http://jdk8.java.net/type-annotations

Please see the Type Annotations project page for a link to the JSR 308 Specification. There is also a changelog, which is important to review as there have been significant spec changes in 2012.

Last but not least, the NetBeans team has been busy publishing preliminary NetBeans builds supporting Lambda. As the NetBeans wiki page says,

Many features, including code completion, code highlighting, go to declaration, have been updated to know about lambda expressions and method references.

A new convertor is available, that allows to automatically convert anonymous innerclasses into lambda expressions. It not only marks anonymous innerclasses that can be converted inside the editor, but can also be applied to the whole project via the Refactor/Inspect and Transform.

Happy testing!

Next Gig: JDays

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:04:30 GMT

I'll be speaking at the JDays conference in Gothenburg, Sweden on December 4th on Project Lambda & JDK 7 Updates and I'll have the honor of doing that day's keynote.

See you there!

PodFodder: Bruce Lowenthal and Milton Smith on Java Security

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:52:11 GMT

In episode 106 of the Java Spotlight podcast, we interviewed Bruce Lowenthal and Milton Smith on Java Security.

As usual, you can grab just this episode or fetch the whole feed.

PodFodder: Mark Reinhold on the Future of Java

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:58:15 GMT

In episode 105 of the Java Spotlight podcast, we interviewed Mark Reinhold, in what's now become a traditional way to start a new year of Java Spotlight podcast episodes.

As usual, you can grab just this episode or fetch the whole feed.

QotD: Ubuntu 12.10 Release Notes on OpenJDK 7

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:38:11 GMT

Ubuntu 12.10 ships OpenJDK7 as the default Java implementation. This brings improved performance, new features and better compatibility with other Java 7 implementations.

Use of the OpenJDK6 is now deprecated and the openjdk-6-* packages in universe for Ubuntu 12.10 will not be provided in future releases of Ubuntu.

Taken from the release notes for Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop release.

QotD: Heather Vancura-Chilson on 2012 JCP EC Election Ballot

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:44:31 GMT

The JCP Executive Committee (EC) Election ballot is now open and all of the candidates' nominations materials are now available on JCP.org -- note that two new candidates were nominated late last week: Liferay and North Sixty-One. It is shaping up to be an exciting election this year!

The ratified candidates are: Cinterion, Credit Suisse, Fujitsu and HP.
The elected candidates are (9 candidates, 2 open seats): Cisco Systems, CloudBees, Giuseppe Dell'Abate, Liferay, London Java Community, MoroccoJUG, North Sixty-One, Software AG, and Zero Turnaround.

Heather Vancura-Chilson in a post on the JCP Program Office blog.

Next Gig: EclipseCon Europe

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:51:18 GMT

I'll be speaking at EclipseCon Europe on Project Lambda and JDK 7 Updates next week in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

See you there!

QotD: Eben Upton on Raspberry Pi Model B Shipping With 512MB of RAM

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:08:59 GMT

One of the most common suggestions we’ve heard since launch is that we should produce a more expensive “Model C” version of Raspberry Pi with extra RAM. This would be useful for people who want to use the Pi as a general-purpose computer, with multiple large applications running concurrently, and would enable some interesting embedded use cases (particularly using Java) which are slightly too heavyweight to fit comfortably in 256MB.

The downside of this suggestion for us is that we’re very attached to $35 as our highest price point. With this in mind, we’re pleased to announce that from today all Model B Raspberry Pis will ship with 512MB of RAM as standard.

Eben Upton, a founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi foundation, in a blog post announcing the change.

QotD: Roger Yeung on Oracle's Java Uninstall Applet

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:29:25 GMT

We have a build of an Applet that will assist in the removal of older versions of the JRE. The Applet is available for testing on http://java.com/uninstall-tool . At this stage the Applet only targets the Windows platform, as it represents the largest installed base and the need for platform specific elements made Windows the logical starting point. We are deliberately not giving documentation on how to use the applet - we want feedback of the tool standing on its own.

The intent of making this build available is to gather feedback; ideas, suggestions, comments, good and bad, what works, what does not work, what could be improved, etc. Please try it out and give us feedback to ensure a smooth release.

Roger Yeung in a post with more details on providing feedback.

PodFodder: All of JavaOne, Right Now!

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:23:19 GMT

No, really!

Go enjoy the keynotes, talks, BOFs and tutorials from a great JavaOne - made available to the Java Community in less then a week after the conference ended.

OpenJDK In The News: AMD and Oracle to Collaborate in the OpenJDK Community [..]

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:31:55 GMT

During the JavaOne™ 2012 Strategy Keynote, AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced its participation in OpenJDK™ Project “Sumatra” in collaboration with Oracle and other members of the OpenJDK community to help bring heterogeneous computing capabilities to Java™ for server and cloud environments. The OpenJDK Project “Sumatra” will explore how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as well as the Java language and APIs, might be enhanced to allow applications to take advantage of graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, either in discrete graphics cards or in high-performance graphics processor cores such as those found in AMD accelerated processing units (APUs).

“Affirming our plans to contribute to the OpenJDK Project represents the next step towards bringing heterogeneous computing to millions of Java developers and can potentially lead to future developments of new hardware models, as well as server and cloud programming paradigms,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Heterogeneous Applications and Developer Solutions at AMD. “AMD has an established track record of collaboration with open-software development communities from OpenCL™ to the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation, and with this initiative we will help further the development of graphics acceleration within the Java community.”

“We expect our work with AMD and other OpenJDK participants in Project “Sumatra” will eventually help provide Java developers with the ability to quickly leverage GPU acceleration for better performance,” said Georges Saab, vice president, Software Development, Java Platform Group at Oracle. "We hope individuals and other organizations interested in this exciting development will follow AMD's lead by joining us in Project “Sumatra."

Quotes taken from the first press release from AMD mentioning OpenJDK, titled "AMD and Oracle to Collaborate in the OpenJDK Community to Explore Heterogeneous Computing for Java ".

OpenJDK In The News: Oracle Outlines Roadmap for Java SE and JavaFX at JavaOne 2012

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:26:19 GMT

The OpenJDK Community continues to host the development of the reference implementation of Java SE 8. Weekly developer preview builds of JDK 8 continue to be available from jdk8.java.net.

OpenJDK continues to thrive with contributions from Oracle, as well as other companies, researchers and individuals.

The OpenJDK Web Site Terms of Use was recently updated to allow work on Java Specification Requests (JSRs) for Java SE to take place in the OpenJDK Community, alongside their corresponding reference implementations, so that specification leads can satisfy the new transparency requirements of the Java Community Process (JCP 2.8).

“The recent decision by the Java SE 8 Expert Group to defer modularity to Java SE 9 will allow us to focus on the highly-anticipated Project Lambda, the Nashorn JavaScript engine, the new Date/Time API, and Type Annotations, along with numerous other performance, simplification, and usability enhancements,” said Georges Saab, vice president, Software Development, Java Platform Group at Oracle. “We are continuing to increase our communication and transparency by developing the reference implementation and the Oracle-led JSRs in the OpenJDK community.”

Quotes taken from the 14th press release from Oracle mentioning OpenJDK, titled "Oracle Outlines Roadmap for Java SE and JavaFX at JavaOne 2012".

OpenJDK In the News: Oracle Outlines Plans to Make the Future Java During JavaOne 2012 [..]

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:19:45 GMT

Phil Rogers, AMD Corporate Fellow and HSA Foundation President, joined Oracle on stage to discuss Project Sumatra, which was recently approved in the OpenJDK Community. Project Sumatra will explore how Java can be extended to support heterogeneous computing models for improved performance and power consumption.

Oracle plans to propose Project Nashorn, a new JavaScript engine for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), later this year in the OpenJDK Community. Oracle expects to enhance Project Nashorn with the support of several other OpenJDK Community contributors, including IBM, Red Hat and Twitter.

The OpenJDK Community continues to host the development of the reference implementation of Java SE 8. Weekly developer preview builds of JDK 8 continue to be available from jdk8.java.net.

Quotes taken from the 13th press release from Oracle mentioning OpenJDK, titled "Oracle Outlines Plans to Make the Future Java During JavaOne 2012 Strategy Keynote".

OpenJDK in the News: Oracle Announces Winners of the 2012 Duke’s Choice Awards

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:14:51 GMT

London Java Community – The second user group receiving a Duke’s Choice Award this year, the London Java Community (LJC) and its users have been active in the OpenJDK, the Java Community Process (JCP) and other efforts within the global Java community.

Quote taken from the 12th press release from Oracle mentioning OpenJDK, titled "Oracle Announces Winners of the 2012 Duke’s Choice Awards".

PodFodder: Cliff Click on Benchmarking

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:03:50 GMT

In the 98th episode of the Java Spotlight podcast, we interviewed Cliff Click, CTO and Co-Founder of 0xdata on Benchmarking.

As usual, you can grab just this episode or fetch the whole feed.