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NetBeans 6.8 Released

Friday December 11, 2009

NetBeans 6.8 has been released and is now available for download. Looking at the release notes, this release has improved support for Java EE 6 and GlassFish v3, JavaFX v1.2.1, Java Server Faces 2.0 and Project Kenai.

There's a detailed look at what's new on the Netbeans 6.8 - New and Noteworthy page.

Related Articles:
What is NetBeans?

Project Lambda

Thursday December 10, 2009

Just to follow-up on the inclusion of closures in JDK 7. Mark Reinhold has posted a Q&A in response to the reaction to his announcement at Devoxx '09. He's also now heading Project Lambda which is looking to bring together a closure proposal and prototype as a basis to create a JSR for JDK 7.

There's already a starting proposal on the site and a mailing list has been set up if you want to follow or participate in the discussions.

Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 1

Friday December 4, 2009

Apple have released Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 1 (or if you're like me and not on Snow Leopard yet, the release is Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 6). It's a security update that addresses the vulnerability fixes released in Java 6 Update 17.

The update will come through the software updater or can be downloaded from the Apple downloads page.

Project Coin Update

Thursday December 3, 2009

Another interesting piece of news for JDK 7 can be found on Joe Darcy's blog this week. As announced at the Devoxx '09 conference, the release of JDK 7 has been pushed back to late 2010 and this has given another one of the Project Coin proposals a shot at being included.

Joining the ranks of the other seven changes accepted could be improved exception handling. I've always had a soft spot for this proposal as I like the simplification of being able to write one catch clause for multiple exception types. Hopefully after reconsideration it makes it in.

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