Check out the new functionality in the Java “Tiger” release. Looks like the major .NET languages and Java language oriented functionality are going to be walking lockstep for the forseeable future. Though my professional emphasis has moved to the .NET side of “the fence”, it’s good to see Java moving along in positive directions. The originally simplicity of the Java language was probably an over-reaction to what happened to C++ in terms of language complexity and the expertise needed to use the language effectively.
Competition is good! Java kicked Microsoft out of it’s slumber with respect to development environments that are both powerful and productive. Now hopefully .NET is going to kick Java along to be even more productive, have better IDEs and get better on the GUI/startup performance front.
When reading about the Tiger functionality, the term “annotations” jumped out as it was unfamiliar at first. It’s an equivalent to the .NET attribute concept and it seems a more appropriate term to use. The term “attribute” can be confused with fields/properties when someone is not familiar with the .NET context of it’s meaning.