Mark Reinhold
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Tigers and Mustangs and Dolphins, Oh My!

This talk will present the release roadmap for the Java™ 2, Standard Edition platform. We'll discuss recent changes to the release model, describe the planning process for the next two feature releases (code-named "Mustang" and "Dolphin"), and present some of the features currently proposed for those releases. We'll end with a survey of the various JDK-related community projects on java.net to which anyone may contribute.

Evolving the Java™ Language

This talk will discuss Java language evolution, including some of the features being considered for the J2SE 7.0 ("Dolphin") release. We'll explain some of the guiding principles of the Java language, especially the focus on readability. We'll recap how those principles led us to the new language features in the Java 5 ("Tiger") release, and also how they led us to avoid some features. Looking ahead, we'll outline some of the language features being considered for Dolphin, especially in the areas of XML support and improved inter-package access mechanisms.

Mark Reinhold is the Chief Engineer for the Java™ 2 Platform, Standard Edition, at Sun Microsystems. His past contributions to the platform include character-stream readers and writers, reference objects, shutdown hooks, the NIO high-performance I/O APIs, and generification. He has been deeply involved in the development of the Java platform since the 1.1 release. Like many in the Java community, Mark is actually an old Lisp hacker in disguise. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked on garbage collection, compilation techniques, type systems, semantics, and the visualization and analysis of program performance, and where he found enlightenment in the true essence of the lambda nature. Email: mr@sun.com