Java's development cycle

[Paul D. Anderson]

Sun has announced that their next language release, Java 7, which was expected in 2008 will now occur sometime in 2010. The big changes that were expected were the additions of closures and properties. Neither of those seems likely now. The focus for the next release now seems to be modularity, but it looks to me like it's one of those "everybody thinks it's a good idea, but nobody wants to do it the same way" kind of problems, which was the big problem with closures.

To be fair, they have released a significant update, Java 6 update 10, and a new scripting language, Java FX Script,  built on the JVM. But it just seems like the language and the community have gotten so big  and unwieldly that it can't evolve any more. Like everyone else, Sun is looking for "the next Java".

Of course, participants in this forum know that "the next Java" is already here...

Paul