28242310
submission
twofishy writes:
After an undeniably rocky start, which saw high profile resignations from the JCP, including Doug Lea (who remains active in the OpenJDK), and the Apache Software Foundation, Oracle is making significant efforts to re-engage with the wider Java ecosystem, a theme which it talked up at the most recent JavaOne conference. The company is working hard to engage with the Java User Group leaders and Java Champions, membership of the OpenJDK project is growing, and the company is making efforts to reform the Java Community Process to improve transparency. The firm has also published a clear, well-defined Java roadmap toward Java 8 and Java 9. Problems still exist however.
27035754
submission
twofishy writes:
SpringSource have announced the general availability of Popular Java framework Spring 3.1 today. Adds Java 7 Support, Environment Abstraction and Cache
25509140
submission
twofishy writes:
Azul Systems have released Zing 5.0, eliminating their previous requirement for a hypervisor, and therefore bringing their pauseless garbage collector, C4, to unmodified 64-bit Linux for the first time.
The C4 algorithm was first deployed on Azul’s Vega systems, and has evolved and matured since it was first commercially introduced in 2005. It is now available on both Vega and x86-64 architectures. On Vega’s custom processors, GPGC made use of a special loaded value barrier (LVB) instruction to perform the barrier checks. Recent improvements in Intel and AMD processors have allowed Azul to bring the same capabilities to Intel and AMD based servers. While a single-cycle LVB instruction does not currently exist on x86-64 architectures, Azul uses its JIT compiler to generate a semantically equivalent set of x86 instructions and efficiently interleave it with the normal instruction stream. Specifically for Intel, Azul exploits the EPT (Extended Page Table) feature (which first appeared in Intel's Xeon 55xx, and later in Xeon 56xx, 65xx and 75xx chips), and for AMD the NPT (otherwise know as AMD-V Nested Paging) feature. This works in conjunction with the x86 virtual memory subsystem to remap and protect GC-compacted pages and thereby achieve the same loaded value barrier effect, and maintain the same algorithmic invariants needed for the Pauseless GC algorithms to work. The loaded value barrier set of instructions is emitted by the JIT compilers and efficiently interleaved into the regular instruction stream.
To simulate the “fast traps” on x86 Azul inject a sequence of x86 instructions that perform a semantically equivalent set of tests and a conditional call at the loaded value barrier site, all using a single conditional branch in the hot case. Tene described this as analogous to an "LVB" instruction using x86 instructions as "micro-code".
25211718
submission
twofishy writes:
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend attacked Apple's iTunes for bleeding artists 'like a digital vampire' during a speech in honour of the late BBC DJ John Peel. The rocker called on Apple to do more to help the artists they are profiting from at the inaugural event in memory of the radio legend in Salford yesterday.
Amongst his suggestions:
"Employ 20 A&R people from the dying record business. Have them respond to tracks sent in from new artists. If they feel the artists are bad, or aren't ready, say so. But have them tell the truth, kindly and constructively. Guide them to other helpful resources, don't just send them to the wolves of Blogland where it seems to me a lot of the vilest bile comes from people who could be drunk, or just nuts. A fledging musician at the start of a career is a delicate thing – even a rapper. (You'll just have to take my word for that.) (Apple do already have back-room people assessing what's hot, but they don't have this kind of power. I'll bet they'd love it. 20 John Peels inside Apple – imagine it)."
He also tackles areas such as Financial support, Creative Nurturing, Manufacturing, Publishing, Marketing, Distribution and Payment.
7695084
submission
twofishy writes:
Following the final approval vote for Java EE 6 last week Sun has today Java EE 6 SDK, GlassFish version 3, and Netbeans 6.8. Java EE 6 itself is a significant update, introducing a number of new APIs including support for RESTful web services though JAX-RS, and a new dependency injection standard and API, and standard data validation library that works across the different application tiers. APIs have also seen important updates with Servlets gaining asynchronous support, JSF 2.0 getting a new templating language based on Facelets and many other enhancements, and JPA getting a new criteria DSL conceptually similar to .NET's LINQ. Sun has also introduced the concept of Profiles, first used in JavaME, to provide a lower cost entry point for new vendors wanting to implement a subset of the full Java EE spec. The first JavaEE profile is aimed at Web Development. EE 6 Spec Lead Roberto Chinnici describes this as an initiative that will bring significant benefits to developers but others are not so sure. Jürgen Höller, co-founder of the Spring framework, for example states "Implementing this profile is not very attractive. I am yet to see a vendor
who is aiming to implement this profile but not the full profile."
6800530
submission
twofishy writes:
The release of Java Card version 3 is imminent. The new version includes a new Connected Edition representing the first major update to the Smart Card platform architecture for 10 years. It includes support for an embedded servlet container and a JDK6 compatible virtual machine. From the article
"The new architecture is designed to allow a smart card to act as a secure network node, either providing security services to a network or requesting access to network resources. Developers can integrate smart cards within IP networks and web services either through an embedded Servlet 2.5 compatible web container or by managing the connections directly"
6448887
submission
twofishy writes:
Java is often criticsed for the slow pace of its evoloution. Whilst the argument is often overplayed (Java has been through 4 major revision since C++ was last updated) anything that encourages langauge experimentation within Java is posotive provided it can be done in a way that doesn't impact the langauge directly. InfoQ has an interesting article which examines three alternative techniques that allow this – DSLs, the Java 6 annotation processor, and moving the default place for adding syntactic sugar from the language to the IDE.
