Welcome to the OpenJDK Community

This is where Java SE platform developers and researchers gather to collaborate on the core reference implementation of Java technology - the JDK. Here's How to Get Started.

Open Sourcing the JDK

At JavaOne 2006, Rich Green, Sun's Executive VP of Software, said, "It's not a question of whether, but its a question of how." One year later at JavaOne 2007, Sun delivered on that promise and announced the source for a fully buildable JDK is now available under the GPL v2 license on java.net.

Get started now: OpenJDK Project

You can find more information about this announcement and other open source Java news at Sun's open source website

JDK 6 is out! A big THANK YOU to you, the JDK Community, in helping us get Java SE 6 out the door. You can download your copy here.

Stephen Colebourne: Kijaro - for Java language changes

I'd like to announce the creation of a new project - kijaro. Kijaro is designed as a place where ideas for changes to the Java language can be implemented.

(Nov 11, 2007)

Stephen Colebourne: Java 7 - Extension methods

A recent document revealed some possible language changes that are being proposed. One of these is is extension methods.

(Nov 27, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (jn): OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 1

The work to create OpenJDK/JDK7 Mercurial repositories is progressing, but before I tell you anything significant, I'll bore you with some basic details about JDK building. ;^) JDK Build Promotions First, let me explain a little about the JDK...

(Nov 16, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (jn): My Ant Adventure (Updated 1/23/2007)

Update for 1/23/2007, just a very short note on windows. The findbugs target needs to add vmlauncher="false", so the line: <exec executable="findbugs" failonerror="true"> changes to <exec executable="findbugs" failonerror="true" vmlauncher="false"> It's not exactly clear why this is necessary, but this...

(Nov 16, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (jn): JVM TI Agents Article

Just a plug (and additional reference) on my December 2006 article on JVM TI at http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/jvm_ti. I really had not expected this article to be very popular, but I was assuming that only people writing JVM TI agents would...

(Nov 16, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (jn): OpenJDK Builds (Solaris & Linux)

OpenJDK Builds (Solaris & Linux) Anyone building the new OpenJDK bundles from openjdk.java.net should find that this is an easier build procedure than the JRL building from jdk7.dev.java.net. First off, it's just the basic JDK sources, no plugin or...

(Nov 16, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (jn): OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 7

Update 7 Ok ok, call us snails if you want... but things are progressing, really. We are currently going through a "dry run" event of having team integrators and developers learn Mercurial, clone the experimental repositories, push fake changes,...

(Nov 15, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 7

Alexander Schunk: LinAlg API: on international development

This Blog is on the development advancement of LinAlg API and the problems to keep track of java.net project membership. — Alexander Schunk
(Nov 15, 2007)

Terrence Barr: Happy Birthday Free and Open Source Java!

Updates: Check out videos by Mark Reinhold, Ray Gans, and John Muhlner And here is the blog by Rich Sands A year ago to this day on November 13, 2006, Sun released Java (ME, SE, and EE) under GPLv2. Wow,... — Terrence Barr
(Nov 13, 2007)

David Herron: Java freedom day

Funny how we all have different names for this day. For Tom Marble it's l'anniversaire du Java Libre, for Rich Sands it's November 13 is Java Liberation Day, the same name used by Mark Weilaard ... but I like to... — David Herron
(Nov 13, 2007)

Tom Marble: The Java Experience

Today marks l'anniversaire du Java Libre -- it's hard to imagine all that has happened in the past year. Fortunately Rich Sands provides a great chronology of open sourcing Java SE. Of all the work that has gone into open sourcing Sun's implementation of Java SE one milestone stands out clearly: Sun's choice of GPLv2 and the Classpath Exception for OpenJDK. Despite the overwhelming success ...

(Nov 13, 2007)

Welcome, Red Hat!

This just in … Red Hat has signed both the Sun Contributor Agreement and the OpenJDK Community TCK License. (Nov 05, 2007)

JavaOne Conference 2008: Call for Papers

It's that time again! The deadline is November 16, just around the corner. (Oct 31, 2007)

Mark Reinhold: Welcome, Red Hat!

This just in … Red Hat has signed both the Sun Contributor Agreement and the OpenJDK Community TCK License.

(Nov 05, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: LinAlg API: Contributors needed

I have already posted a Project Help wanted Ad on this site but did not gain much feedback so i am using this site to Blog for this again. — Alexander Schunk
(Nov 05, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 6

Update 6 Build 23 has been promoted, so far there is at least one build bug found (see 6624808 or this openjdk build-dev email). But these sources will be used pretty much 'as is' to start the Mercurial repositories and... — Kelly O'Hair
(Nov 02, 2007)

Mark Reinhold: Mercurial rocks!

Whooosh! (Nov 01, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: Working in a Mercurial World

So how do you work with a Distributed SCM? There are many answers, the easy answer is that you clone the forest, make the change in your local forest, create the changeset and push the changeset. Well, that works. But maybe you are working on multiple fixes, and you don't want to repeatedly clone over the network (even if it is fast), so here ...

(Oct 31, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: OpenJDK: Repositories overview

In his recent Blog Kelly Oheir is giving an overview of the current development and transition phase of OpenJDK. He points out that all Java APIs and API development will be synced and transformed into one Master repository. — Alexander Schunk
(Oct 30, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: OpenJDK Mercurial Wheel

Sorry Dorothy, we aren't in Kansas anymore, and there isn't just one repository anymore. ;^)

(Oct 29, 2007)

Mark Reinhold: Publishing code reviews

One of the engineering practices that’s served the JDK development team well for many years now is that of peer-based code reviews. What’s the most expedient way to enable any OpenJDK contributor to publish code-review materials on the open web for all to see?

(Oct 11, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair (bsc): Glossary for JDK Builds

A work in progress. Probably belongs on a wiki page, but for now...

(Oct 11, 2007)

Patrick Curran: Travel and JCP Elections (and ravens and writing-desks)

It's been a busy couple of months as I've been coming up to speed in my new job. In August I went to Munich for an Executive Committee (EC) meeting. The work of the JCP is carried out by two Executive Committees: one deals with Java ME while the other deals both Java SE and EE, but we meet as a single group. We ...

(Oct 08, 2007)

David Herron: OpenJDK Encumbrances being cleared

The OpenJDK project is about 95% of a complete Java implementation. That last 5% or so is what we've called 'encumbrances', code which we weren't able to open source. The last two weeks has seen a lot of interesting movement... — David Herron
(Oct 04, 2007)

Mark Reinhold: Constitutional conversations commence

The OpenJDK Governance Board held its ﬁrst two meetings this past July. The minutes have just been posted; herewith the highlights.

(Oct 04, 2007)

Stephen Colebourne: Java 7 - Update on Properties

Whilst I was on holiday there was a bit of discussion about properties in Java. (Sep 27, 2007)

j2se is obsolete.. use jdk instead

According to Kelly Oheirs Blog use of j2se is obsolete and jdk should be used instead. Is SUN now really going to get rid of its old marketing driven Versioning system? — Alexander Schunk
(Oct 11, 2007)

Alexander Potochkin: Why I don't use Swing hacks (in production code)

The recommended techniques seems to be too boring for some people, when you use a hack it's like you use a hidden knowledge, isn't it? — Alexander Potochkin
(Sep 27, 2007)

Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein: No tabs? Yes, you ARE nuts!

Kelly O'Hair informs the OpenJDK source repository is about to be cleaned out of tab characters... too bad! Here is a small utility to help programmers who like and know how to use tabs. — Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein
(Sep 26, 2007)

Kirill Grouchnikov: An article on multi-core client side development in Java

Interested to see what awaits the client-side Java development in the near future? (Sep 26, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: The votes are in.

I've got a free moment here at the MidWest Tech Days (and if you are in the MidWest you should be here too!) so I thought I would tally the votes generated by my previous blog: You vote for your... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 26, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 3

Update 3 Build 20 now contains a separate "langtools" (javac, javah, javap, apt, and javadoc) directory in the Build 20 source bundles. Build 21 (could be 22) will have separate corba, jaxp, and jaxws directories. Build 20 had some...

(Sep 25, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: Transitioning from TeamWare to Mercurial

Just thought I would pull together some basic guidelines for anyone transitioning from TeamWare workspaces to Mercurial repositories.

(Sep 22, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: You vote for your favorite article and I'll write it!

I'm thinking of working on another article or two over the next few weeks, but I don't know what to write about. Oh sure, I have lots of ideas, but I don't know what's most interesting to you. Ultimately my... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 20, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: A question about SocketPermissions

I'm going to abuse my celebrity and world renowned fame today (world renowned means the 5 mile radius around my house, right?). I have a technical question to ask my wonderful audience of readers (who are all beautiful, smart, and... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 20, 2007)

David Dagastine: Sun HotSpot JVM Talk at Intel IDF

I'll be presenting tomorrow at Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco with an esteemed colleague from Intel, Kingsum Chow.The session is SSGS003: "How to Get the Most Performance from Sun* JVM* on Intel® Multi-Core Servers".Take a look at this link for more information, just search by last name.The conference is rather interesting. I've run into a lot of Sun folks working ...

(Sep 19, 2007)

Chet Haase: Shutup About the Book, Already

I have nothing to say about our Filthy Rich Clients book today. But other people do. (Sep 19, 2007)

Carol McDonald: Sample Application using JAX-WS, JSF, EJB 3.0, and Java

This Sample Store Catalog application shows how to expose a Catalog Service as a Web Service for remote client applications. — Carol McDonald
(Sep 19, 2007)

Lance Andersen: Updated list of JDBC drivers supporting JDBC 4.0

More JDBC 4.0 drivers are available including recent offerings from Oracle and MySQL. — Lance Andersen
(Sep 18, 2007)

See Joshua Marinacci speak about JavaFX at the Midwest Java Technology Days

Every year lots of developers come to San Francisco for JavaOne. More than fifteen thousand I think. But even more don't come to JavaOne; which might be a good thing since there are over four million of us Java developers... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 15, 2007)

OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update 2

Update 2 The work to create OpenJDK/JDK7 Mercurial repositories is still progressing, we had a hickup getting the langtools split off from the j2se and it did not make Build 19 as you probably well know. We integrated the split into Build 20... — Kelly O'Hair
(Sep 12, 2007)

Daniel Fuchs: More on premain and JMX Connectors

In my previous blog entry, I have talked about how to take advantage of java agents in order to start a custom JMX Connector in a Java application, without modifying the application. This is particularly useful when you need to monitor Java applications which are located behind a firewall. In that case, it makes it possible to write a java agent that will start ...

Tim Boudreau: Nice review of Rich Client Programming; more updates

David Sills posted a very thorough review of our book, Rich Client Programming on JavaLobby; more adventures in the NetBeansMobile... — Tim Boudreau
(Sep 11, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: JavaFX != JavaFX Script

I recently gave a presentation at the Portland Java Users Group about Java FX. After talking to some of the fine members of PJUG I realize that there is a lot of confusion about JavaFX and JavaFX script. JavaFX Script... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 10, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: R as in record

Some interesting stuff I've been working on recently: the never ending story of object-relational mapping. Instead of breaking objects into relations, I've looked into mapping annotated classes directly onto Oracle user-defined object types, or basically records.

(Sep 09, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: New Adventures

Friday was my last day at CoreMedia, after a long long time. I've had a great time and got to work with a bunch of people I highly respect. Fare well!

(Sep 09, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: Knee Jerk

How simple-minded have I become? Patrick Logan holds a hammer to my knee and my immediate jerk: "by no means does that pattern matching look particularly readable to me" and "I can do it just as well in Java". Although that is indeed the case, it isn't Patrick's point and I also thought I had long given up on contests like these. It must ...

(Sep 09, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: Nimbus Nears Completion

My friends back at the Swing ranch have been working very hard on the new Nimbus look and feel for Swing. When I first saw it my only complaint was that I couldn't get my grubby little hands on it... — Joshua Marinacci
(Sep 08, 2007)

Simon Phipps on Open Source

The meanings and motivations of open-source communities from a JavaOne '07 tech session given by Simon Phipps that I attended. — Janice J. Heiss
(Sep 06, 2007)

Sergey Groznyh: Generating Print Preview of Swing Text Components

How to create print preview of Swing Text components: what are the necessary parts involved and how do they cooperate. — Sergey Groznyh
(Sep 05, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: Compatiblity vs. Diversity: Will OpenJDK help Java survive?

In his last Blog David Herron was thinkin aloud about Javas failure and the Unix wars. He thinks that Unix "died" due to too many incompatible distributions and specs. Now whats the future of Java, OpenJDK and Java 7? — Alexander Schunk
(Sep 05, 2007)

Kedar Mhaswade: Effective Java - 1 Companion

I have created a Effective Java - 1 Companion (ready reckoner, if you will) at: GlassFish Wiki. I will be enhancing it in the days to come and invite you to participate in related Wiki to improve the correctness of... — Kedar Mhaswade
(Sep 04, 2007)

Chet Haase: Aversion 1.0: It's About Time

Version 1.0 of the Timing Framework is [finally] available. About time, eh? (Sep 04, 2007)

David Herron: The Unix wars and Java compatibility

There was a little throwaway idea in my previous posting, Java is doomed to failure, which is growing on me. While writing I had this thought about the Unix wars.. and really that period, the fallout from which is still... — David Herron
(Sep 04, 2007)

Tom Marble: A Couple More Minutes

Today my 15 will be complete when my interview with Kuldip gets published on SDN-TV. You will get an update on OpenJDK and the work the community has already accomplished towards a completely Free runtime in creating IcedTea. Currently on SDN you can see Barton talk about our work on packaging our Java Stack for GNU/Linux and our announcement with Ubuntu earlier this year. ...

(Aug 31, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: My new life in JavaFX

I'm exhausted so I'll just make this a brief lead-in to more blogs coming next week. The short news is that I've switched teams (again :). I'm now on the JavaFX team working on new tools. In fact, I've been... — Joshua Marinacci
(Aug 31, 2007)

Gregg Sporar: Javadoc Hints

It's great when a development tool provides help, but sometimes you only want that help in small doses. NetBeans IDE 6.0 provides a nice feature for Javadoc hints in small doses. — Gregg Sporar
(Aug 30, 2007)

Kirill Grouchnikov: An article on Swing EDT violations

A new article on java.net on tracing and automatically detecting Swing EDT violations. — Kirill Grouchnikov
(Aug 30, 2007)

Joe Darcy: Forward to the Past: Toward OpenJDK 6

Previously, Sun has committed to providing an open source implementation of Java SE 6 in addition the already open sourced and in-progress JDK 7. Inside Sun, I've been busy leading up efforts to figure out a good way to do this.

(Aug 28, 2007)

David Herron: Headline rewind - Java is doomed to failure

In the wake of The Rise of JAVA - The Retirement of SUNW I thought something I discovered on osnews.com was more than interesting... — David Herron
(Aug 27, 2007)

Laird Nelson: Objects and Strings and the Wrangling Thereof

PropertyEditors, Formats, and JFormattedTextFields, oh my! — Laird Nelson
(Aug 27, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: OpenJDK: LinAlg API

I am currently writing a tiny API for linear Algebra operations that provides common used operations for Vector, Matrix and Complex Numbers. This Blog gives an overview of what you can do with it so far. LinAlg API is a java.net project so you can join it and improve or use it. LinAlg is published under GPL 2. I will add a GPL notice to it. — Alexander Schunk
(Aug 24, 2007)

Kedar Mhaswade: How to Use JMX to Monitor JVM under GlassFish V1, V2 ...

In GlassFish V1 and V2, a JMX Connector Server is always available out of the box. This is how it looks like: What... — Kedar Mhaswade
(Aug 23, 2007)

Praveen Mohan: FX animations contd - A rudimentary screensaver

I was little off the hook with FX for a week now since Consumer JRE has taken up most of my time. As stated in Chet's blog, there is so much of cool stuff lined up for the Java community through consumer JRE and catch a glimpse of it when you get time... (Aug 23, 2007)

Chet Haase: Code Complete Nonsense: More Language Proposals

I'm not a language guy, but I know what I like. Here are some more language features for Java for extremely serious consideration. (Aug 23, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: OpenJDK Mercurial Transition Update

See http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kellyohair/archive/2007/08/openjdk_mercuri.html for the latest on the OpenJDK Mercurial Transition.

(Aug 22, 2007)

Chet Haase: Another Chetcast

Daniel Steinberg interviewed me at OSCON for a JavaWorld podcast. Check it out to hear more about Swing, 2D, and Java Desktop in general. (Aug 22, 2007)

John O'Conner: Learning Curve Series for JavaFX Script

I'm an early adopter of JavaFX Script, and I'm experimenting with the language. Since I've never been too afraid to let you sit next to me as I explore new things, I've decided to share my experience learning JavaFX Script too. — John O'Conner
(Aug 21, 2007)

Marc Hadley: Comments on JSR 311

Patrick Mueller has some nice things to say about JSR 311 but also has some concerns that I'd like to address. The first and easiest to address is the license under which the RI (Jersey) is distributed. Rather than GPL... — Marc Hadley
(Aug 17, 2007)

David Herron: Code for Freedom

A couple years ago I ran a contest asking y'all to find regression bugs in JDK6 (the project formerly known as Mustang) and while that was fun I'm glad I'm not involved in running this new contest we've launched. — David Herron
(Aug 16, 2007)

Dionysios Synodinos: The Taming of the Stack Trace

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Java Stack Trace, but were afraid to ask. — Dionysios Synodinos
(Aug 16, 2007)

Jean-Francois Denise: Securing JMX Web Services Connector

I have been contacted by a customer of the JSR 262 Early Access 2 who asked me for some material on how to enable HTTPS. I realized that no material was provided. No sample, no blog entry, nothing... Why is there such a lack of documentation? Thinking at it, it appeared that the extreme simplicity of enabling HTTPS for the WS Connector made us ...

(Aug 16, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: JVMPI

For a long time now, since we released JDK 1.5, we have been warning people that the VM profiling interface JVMPI is going away, and in JDK 6 it was officially disconnected by default, and only people with magic powers could get it back. But with the next JDK 6 update release, it will be gone for good, and no magic will bring it ... (Aug 16, 2007)

Kohsuke Kawaguchi: Yet more plugins from the community

The list of plugins for Hudson just keeps expanding. The last week added a plugin to interface with PMD/FindBugs/checkstyle/CPD as well as a plugin to scan through all FIXME/TODO kind of comments. — Kohsuke Kawaguchi
(Aug 13, 2007)

Praveen Mohan: FX animations - Capture the falling objects

As a continuation of my learning process, I wanted to find out What would it take to write a blocks game in FX... (Aug 13, 2007)

Kohsuke Kawaguchi: Mercurial plugin for Hudson

I wrote a Hudson plugin to integrate Mercurial VCS to Hudson. — Kohsuke Kawaguchi
(Aug 12, 2007)

John O'Conner: Learning the JavaFX way of doing things

I discovered that although using JavaFX Script's declarative syntax to define the visual UI is easy, I was being simple-minded to think I'd be able to just return that whole UI structure to Java. — John O'Conner
(Aug 10, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: OpenJDK: Coordination and Announcements

After one month of joining the OpenJDK project and gathering information via email and java.net articles i think its time to set up a project coordination basis to coordinate all community efforts that are currently going on by the various contributors. — Alexander Schunk
(Aug 10, 2007)

Simon Phipps: A JCK for OpenJDK

After many weeks of soul-searching, I'm delighted to say that the OpenJDK community has v1 of a license for use of the Java SE 6 JCK. — Simon Phipps
(Aug 10, 2007)

David Herron: Java-in-browser availability

One of the questions/concerns about Java is, can a web site author assume that it's there? Part of the popularity of Flash or Javascript is it's in all browsers, but the belief is that Java probably is not installed. I... — David Herron
(Aug 09, 2007)

Tom Marble: The Java Promise

Sun is announcing today the availability of a new license that will fulfill our promise to the Free software world to make it possible to test OpenJDK-based implementations for compatibility. We are about to start an IRC discussion to talk about it. Please check out the OpenJDK TCK License and also the updated FAQ. ...

(Aug 09, 2007)

David Herron: Source code isn't text

This is a thought that popped out of my mouth yesterday, and the more I think about it the truer it seems. "Source code isn't text, despite how much it looks like text". Simple text editors (/bin/ed) can edit source... — David Herron
(Aug 09, 2007)

Chet Haase: Done? Done. It's Here

The advance copies of Filthy Rich Clients have arrived; a comparative analysis is in order.

(Aug 07, 2007)

Alexander Potochkin: Validation overlays with JXLayer - the followup

The complete guide for the validation overlays with JXLayer. Outside the component decoration included — Alexander Potochkin
(Aug 06, 2007)

David Herron: On the naming of Java releases

J2EE or JEE, Java 5 or Java 1.5 - Is SUN Crazy?.. Maybe we are crazy, who knows. But it's not unknown in the history of marketing to have product name changes for various purposes. At OSCON last week one... — David Herron
(Aug 01, 2007)

Sergey Groznyh: Removing elements from Swing HTML in JDK6

How to remove elements from Swing HTMLDocument in JDK6 — Sergey Groznyh
(Aug 01, 2007)

Chet Haase: Of Interviews, Java, JavaFX, and Other Filthy Things

There are a couple of video interviews posted with me talking to other Sun people about Java, JavaFX, and Filthy Rich Clients. And there are more Filthy Rich demos available.

(Jul 31, 2007)

James Stauffer: Method return values for null objects

Would it be beneficial to be able to define a return value for a method when the object of that method is null? — James Stauffer
(Jul 31, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: Generics in Reflection

Generics haven't really arrived in relective libraries yet. Most libraries reflect over class objects, not types. For example, while JAXB knows how to marshal a List, when presented a Holder it will reflect over the erased Holder.class and conclude that its value is of type Object, not X. Note to self: whenever designing a reflective library I will try and accept instances of Type ...

(Jul 31, 2007)

Neal Gafter: Internal Versus External Iterators

In the "Gang Of Four" Patterns book's discussion of the Iterator pattern, we read (page 260):

(Jul 31, 2007)

Tom Marble: FLOSS week

A week ago I was in Menlo Park to tape a SDN-TV segment with Kuldip on OpenJDK. Then starting on Sunday I was with our team in Portland at the UbuntuLive conference and gave a presentation. In the segue from UbuntuLive to OSCON I was able to attend a meeting of open source community leaders to discuss, among other things, trademark law and open ...

(Jul 27, 2007)

Meet Tom Marble, OpenJDK Ambassador for Sun Microsystems

Janice Heiss interviews the OpenJDK ambassador. (Jul 27, 2007)

Elie Levy: Java Dock with a better bouncing effect

In my last blog I explained how I built a Dock bar using the Timing Framework and the Glass pane. This one is a continuation, where I explain briefly a slight improvement on the bouncing effect. — Elie Levy
(Jul 27, 2007)

Swing Frameworks: Catch the Wave

"Open Source Convention". Isn't that a bit like "Anarchy Government"? Or "Military Intelligence"? Or "Personable Programmer"? (Jul 27, 2007)

David Herron: ANNOUNCING: Sun has open sourced its Java implementation, named OpenJDK

SANTA CLARA, CA (Nov 13, 2006) - (Somewhat tongue in cheek...) Today is a day which will be henceforth known as Java Freedom Day. Today Sun announces the immediate availability of portions of the source of its Java SE and... — David Herron
(Jul 27, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: Starter Kits for the Java SDK

Microsoft provides so calles Starter Kits for developers which are tiny stand alone applications you can build and they run without writing any line of code. Having this for the Java plattform should push Java ahead on the Windows Plattform. — Alexander Schunk
(Jul 26, 2007)

Chet Haase: FXtive Programming

The JavaFX Script team has released important some new pieces recently in this in-development project. (Jul 26, 2007)

Dmitry Fazunenko: Effective Development of Java Conformance Tests Meta-programming

This article presents a case study of the use of meta-programming in Java compatibility testing. It shows how parts of the source code can be shared between different products and modified to generate programs targeting specific functions and describes the approach Sun Microsystems has used for building Technology Compatibility Kits (TCK) for more than five years. (Jul 25, 2007)

Daniel Fuchs: Connecting Through Firewall Using JMX - Without modifying the server application

In a recent comment on my blog about Troubleshooting Connection Problems in JConsole I was asked the following question:

(Jul 25, 2007)

Felipe Gaucho: The Gods Must Be Crazy - Java Edition

A sample code to expose the secret Calendars in your JDK. — Felipe Gaucho
(Jul 23, 2007)

Chet Haase: Final Filthy Content on Safari

The publisher has posted the final content of Filthy Rich Clients to the Safari online book site. For anyone that was not satisfied with the typos and formatting of the Rough Cut and is eager for book before it's available in print in mid-August, have at it. (Jul 23, 2007)

John O'Conner: Using JavaFX Script for UI Declarations

My skills aren't UI design, and I don't really want to create new, fascinating UIs either. However, I do want to know how a Java programmer and a UI designer would work together -- one using Java for the business logic, event handlers, and models, and the other using JavaFX Script. — John O'Conner
(Jul 21, 2007)

Joshua Marinacci: Java FX updated, and a visit to the future of client Java

Open JFX updated OpenJFX, the open source version of Java FX, was just updated. It has lots of improvements and demos, but the biggest thing is the first compiler, which will compile Java FX Script directly into bytecode rather than interpreting... — Joshua Marinacci
(Jul 20, 2007)

Masood Mortazavi: To Find Things on Java DB

Sometimes, you need to be smart when looking for things on the web. — Masood Mortazavi
(Jul 20, 2007)

Eamonn McManus: Comparing objects that might be arrays

I was using this Java idiom today, not for the first time, and thought I'd blog it for people not aware of it. You probably know that if you compare two objects x and y using x.equals(y), the result will be false if they are distinct arrays, even if their contents are the same. There is an easy way to get the right result for arrays. — Eamonn McManus
(Jul 20, 2007)

Tom Ball: The Birth of the JavaFX Script Compiler

An incubator project to build a compiler for the JavaFX Script language has been started. Not much there yet, but developers have a chance to get in on the bottom floor and help make it a killer tool. — Tom Ball
(Jul 20, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: Explicit template instantiation in shared libraries

When explicit template instantiation saves the day.

(Jul 19, 2007)

Amy Fowler: Embedding Swing components in a JEditorPane

I was talking to a developer at JavaOne who didn't realize you can use the tag to embed Swing components inside HTML within a JEditorPane. This turns out to be easy, modulo a small hook in the javax.swing.text package. Here I explain in reasonably short form how to do this. — Amy Fowler
(Jul 19, 2007)

Nigel Daley: Getting Paid to Test Open Source Software

Perhaps getting paid to work on open source is becoming more common for developers, but it is certainly a rare occurrence for a quality engineer, such as myself. — Nigel Daley
(Jul 19, 2007)

Ray Gans: Open Source -- Then and Now: A Conversation With Ray Gans

Few have been closer to the day-to-day processes involved in open sourcing the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) than Ray Gans, a manager at Sun Microsystems with a long history of working with Java compatibility programs. He currently manages the OpenJDK and Mobile & Embedded community programs, where he works to improve the collaboration between Sun and the open-source Java developer community. We met with him to gain a better understanding of how the open sourcing of the Java SE platform is going and where it is headed. (Jul 19, 2007)

Roman Kennke: What's Sun's interest in OpenJDK?

In response to a comment on one of my previous posts, I’d like to elaborate and speculate on this question a little... (Jul 17, 2007)

Onno Kluyt: Time for change

The observant web browser may have read our calm statement on the JCP's web site: I'm stepping down as the chair person. In Patrick Curran I believe we have found a qualified and motivated successor. As you can read on Patrick's blog he has broad experience in compatibility and certification (one of the cornerstones of the JCP) and has seen from personal experience how ...

(Jul 16, 2007)

Arun Gupta: soapUI - Testing JAX-WS Web service in NetBeans

Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) provides a complete API to develop and invoke Web services over multiple transports (for example HTTP). NetBeans IDE provides first-class support for developing and invoking a JAX-WS based Web service. The missing... — Arun Gupta
(Jul 16, 2007)

Patrick Curran: A new role

For several years now I've been managing the development of TCKs (conformance test suites) for Java. As I explained in an earlier post, the requirement to develop TCKs - together with the specification and the Reference Implementation - is defined by the Java Community Process (the JCP). As the standards body that guides the evolution of Java, the JCP is responsible for defining the processes through ...

(Jul 16, 2007)

Marina Sum: A Video Interview With Sun's DTrace Team

Bryan Cantrill, Mike Shapiro, and Adam Leventhal delve into the nuances of DTrace. — Marina Sum
(Jul 16, 2007)

Felipe Gaucho: The backslash of ResourceBundle

When you create an i18n file, you must escape some special characters with a preceding backslash, right? :value! or \:value\! ? — Felipe Gaucho
(Jul 16, 2007)

A. Sundararajan: Week-end fun with the java compiler source code

I downloaded java compiler (javac) source code from the JDK 7 site. I did not download entire JDK – I just downloaded compiler-7-ea-src-b15-05_jul_2007.zip I've installed JDK 6 and NetBeans 5.0

(Jul 14, 2007)

Kohsuke Kawaguchi: Binding 3rd party classes witih JAXB

One common complaint from the JAXB users is the lack of support for binding 3rd party classes. The scenario is this --- you are trying to annotate your classes with JAXB annotations to make it XML bindable, but some of the classes are coming from libraries and JDK, and thus you cannot put necessary JAXB annotations on it. — Kohsuke Kawaguchi
(Jul 12, 2007)

David Herron: JDK-Distros updated for JDK6u2

In the Operating System Distributor License for Java (DLJ) project, I've just posted the JDK 6u2 bundles. See the project page for more information. The DLJ bundles are versions of Sun's binary Java release for Solaris and Linux. It is... — David Herron
(Jul 11, 2007)

Roman Kennke: Contributing to OpenJDK, no thanks

It is such a ridiculous pain to get a patch into OpenJDK, I get the feeling that this is not the kind of project, I would feel comfortable with. Both of the above linked patches have been rather trivial. Davids patch even came with a testcase. And still it has to go through a week-long process before it can show up in the build. This will scare off most voluntary contributors quickly I guess. (Jul 12, 2007)

Kohsuke Kawaguchi: JAXB RI 2.1.4 release

I just released the JAXB RI 2.1.4. This version contains a number of bug fixes and should be good for anyone using 2.1.x RIs today. — Kohsuke Kawaguchi
(Jul 11, 2007)

Terrence Barr: How are we doing? ... and what does Dalibor Topic think?

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the just-published podcast with Dalibor Topic I highly encourage you to do so. Dalibor is a well-known and respected open source Java advocate, a lead developer on the Java VM "Cafe"... — Terrence Barr
(Jul 11, 2007)

OpenJDK Swing on Gtk peers

Against all odds, I got the first bits of OpenJDK’s Swing working on top of GNU Classpath’s GTK peers quite quickly. (Jul 10, 2007)

IcedTea graphics

It’s been a crazy month with Sun’s release of the OpenJDK, and Red Hat’s response with the fully-free IcedTea. While my previous Classpath graphics work was interesting, there was always a bit of a cloud hanging over it, knowing that the OpenJDK was going to be released eventually. Now, however, I’ve been able to put some of that experience to use in replacing encumbered OpenJDK code. (Jul 10, 2007)

Bryan Varner: OpenJDK : How Open?

I’ve followed up with Ian on our conversation at IndyJUG with an e-mail describing why I (we?) don’t know where to start with OpenJDK and attempting a platform port... (Jul 10, 2007)

OpenJDK Releases Early Open Source Java Module

The OpenJDK project has released an early access source code snapshot of implementations of the Java Module System (JSR 277) and Improved Modularity Support (JSR 294). JSR 277 addresses modularity from a deployment unit perspective, addressing distribution format, versioning, dependencies, repositories, runtime, and support tools necessary for modules. JSR 294 addresses modularity from a development perspective, introducing a new language construct, called "superpackages," for information hiding. (Jul 10, 2007)

John O'Conner: Could you cut your development time in half?

Application frameworks are supposed to save you time and effort. That's probably true for most frameworks after you slog through the complex APIs, tutorials, docs, forums, a few just-in-time courses, and maybe even a couple nightmarish starts and stops... — John O'Conner
(Jul 10, 2007)

Luis-Miguel Alventosa: JConsole local process list on Windows systems

Several times in the JMX and M&M SDN forums I have seen developers post questions like What should I see in the connection dialog's local process list in JConsole when running on Windows platforms?. There are several answers to this question depending on how both JConsole and the target Java application have been deployed, and more precisely, how the TMP and/or TEMP environment variables ...

(Jul 09, 2007)

Train Req: Want to Intern at Sun?

Definition: "train req": An opening for a position that provides on-the-job training. And a darn good pun. (Jul 09, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: Generics and Delegation

Alex hates template methods and I think he's right. I prefer delegation, too, but traditionally it has a drawback: the delegate's type is obscured. In Alex' example, I have to cast to the specific ConnectionFactory type if I wanted to use one of its specific methods. That's why I've started to parameterize delegating classes with the type of their delegates like so:

(Jul 07, 2007)

Kelly O'Hair: JDK Builds on Windows

I need to add this to the JDK build documentation, but it may be helpful to have it posted here for some people. Building the JDK on Windows can be difficult at times, so if it hasn't been mentioned...

(Jul 01, 2007)

Evan Summers: A Short Note About Properties And Politics

Another reason why we need properties in the language.. — Evan Summers
(Jul 07, 2007)

Cay Horstmann: Number melancholy

Today is 07-07-07, "lucky sevens" day, considered fortuitous for weddings and gambling. But for me, it was not a lucky day. I read the Java (TM) SE 6 Update Release Notes and was overcome with number melancholy. — Cay Horstmann
(Jul 07, 2007)

Alexander Schunk: Java 7 GA 09 too late?

According to SUNs "Production Cycle" Java 7 will be available in 2009 which may seem a bit to late since .NET 3.0 is already there and massively gaining ground on Windows Vista. — Alexander Schunk
(Jul 07, 2007)

Jitendra Kotamraju: JAX-WS RI and Compression

JAX-WS RI provides way to send/receive compressed messages on the client side. On the server side, many of the servlet containers like Glassfish, Tomcat provide support for compression. JAX-WS applications can take advantage of this to save bandwidth. First,... — Jitendra Kotamraju
(Jul 06, 2007)

Neal Gafter: Constructor Type Inference

One of the ideas for improving the Java Programming Language is "type inference" on variable declarations. The idea is to simplify a pattern of code that now appears in programs due to generics:

(Jul 06, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: Raw page table access

Solaris x86 code demonstrating raw access to CPU's page table. As usual, don't try this on sensitive machines (although this code is pretty safe).

(Jul 05, 2007)

Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein: Sun JDK 6.0u2 is available

Matthias Ernst: Bytecode Instrumentation for Jist

I've added some bytecode instrumentation support to Jist using the always excellent ASM library. Agent#instrument(class, methodName, n) returns an Activity that enters and exits as the method is called/returns. Example:

(Jul 01, 2007)

Stanley Ho: OpenJDK Modules project: Early snapshot, video, and more

We have just made an early snapshot of the JSR 277 and JSR 294 implementation available through the Modules project on openjdk. — Stanley Ho
(Jun 28, 2007)

Andreas Sterbenz: Source Code for the OpenJDK Modules Project

We just posted the first source drop of the OpenJDK Modules project on the project page. The Modules project covers the implementation of JSR 277 and JSR 294 and you now have a chance to get a really early look at it, try it out, and contribute to it.

(Jun 28, 2007)

Evan Summers: Entity Equals

A quick look at neatening up those messy equals() and hashCode() methods in our entities. — Evan Summers
(Jun 28, 2007)

Chet Haase: The Book: Making Progress

Website posted, demos being uploaded weekly, editing nearly done - what more do you want? Oh - the book.... (Jun 28, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: VTBL games

Virtual functions table in C++ - an easy target of accidental or intentional override. (Jun 27, 2007)

James Stauffer: Don't return in a finally clause

Some things that look ok at first can cause major problems. One of them is returning in a finally clause. — James Stauffer
(Jun 27, 2007)

Matthias Ernst: ariadna for Windows x64?

I'm always happy to hear that someone is using ariadna. Now Neil Ferguson is asking for a Windows x64 build of the agent dll which I cannot provide. Can someone help out? Thanks in advance.

(Jun 26, 2007)

Marina Sum: Implementing Basic Authorization With Sun Java System Access Manager

Part 1 of a new series on SDN steps you through the configuration procedure for a role-based authorization model. — Marina Sum
(Jun 26, 2007)

Alexander Potochkin: Enabling/Disabling Swing Containers

The fact that disabling a Swing container doesn't mean disabling its child component has always been surprising for Swing beginners. Alexander shows the most proper solution for this problem. — Alexander Potochkin
(Jun 26, 2007)

Tom Marble: Debconf7

This past week I attended the eighth Debian Developers Conference (Debconf7) in Edinburgh, Scotland. Debian is one of the Free Software distributions which is very important for the success of the Sun's Java Stack (OpenJDK and the rest of our Java portfolio including NetBeans and Glassfish). In addition to myself Sun also had presence at Debconf7 from Simon, Martin, and Barton. Ironically I spent ...

(Jun 25, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: Overriding symbols on Win32

Override symbol in runtime on Win32, a-la LD_PRELOAD+RTLD_NEXT on Linux.

(Jun 26, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: Memory debugger for Windows

Debugging memory access on Windows using x86 debugging registers.

(Jun 26, 2007)

James Stauffer: Declaring variables

A. Sundararajan: JavaScript, JSON and JavaFX Script

JavaFX Script, as you may know already, is a declarative and statically typed scripting language. It has first-class functions, declarative syntax, list-comprehensions, and incremental dependency-based evaluation.

(Jun 25, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: More fun with SEH

How to modify other frame's exception handler (don't try this at home).

(Jun 24, 2007)

Remi Forax: Beansbinding goes to the wrong direction

After reading the Shannon Hickey's Blog about the recent release of beanbinding 0.6, i've decided to take a look to beanbing and i think that the API doesn't guide the user enough. — Rémi Forax
(Jun 23, 2007)

John Reynolds: Recyling old rants... Getter and Setter Methods

Shannon Hickey: Beans Binding 0.6.1 Release Available

Two days after the 0.6 release of Beans Binding, the 0.6.1 release is out with simpler and more intuitive method names and constants.

(Jun 22, 2007)

Jon Masamitsu: Size Matters

I recently had an interesting exchange with a customer about concurrent mode failures with the low-pause collector. My initial response was with my litany of whys and wherefores of concurrent mode failures. But it got more interesting, because it turned out to be an example of where object sizes and the young generation size made an unexpected difference. ...

(Jun 22, 2007)

David Van Couvering: Derby 10.3 Beta Available

A quick announcement that Derby 10.3 is in beta. — David Van Couvering
(Jun 22, 2007)

Masood Mortazavi: Thesis Work with Java DB (Apache Derby)

Egil SÃ¸rensen, a student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Computer and Information Science, has just completed and submitted his MS thesis work on "Derby: Replication and Availability" to the Apache/Derby community. — Masood Mortazavi
(Jun 22, 2007)

Michael Nascimento Santos: Desktop development made easier with genesis

genesis 3 has just been released. This post explains what genesis is about and why you should consider it for your Swing, SWT or Thinlet application. — Michael Nascimento Santos
(Jun 21, 2007)

Nikolay Igotti: Simple JIT compiler for your application

Using dynamical code generation for squeezing optimal performance out of your application.

(Jun 21, 2007)

InfoQ: Hybrids Combine GNU Classpath and OpenJDK

The first GNU Classpath/Sun Java hybrids have begun to appear. The hybrids combine GNU Classpath with Java code that Sun has recently released under the GPL either to improve an existing project or to further the goal of having a completely Free JDK... (Jun 21, 2007)