The Plan for JDK 7

Mark Reinhold has just updated the JDK 7 schedule and made a list of the approved features on the OpenJDK website. This initial schedule has the next milestone (M3) completed on May 21, in time for JavaOne, with the final milestone aimed at Feb 2010.

One of the more interesting features for the next milestone is the implementation of JSR 292: VM Support for non-Java languages.  Another highlight in the feature list is JSR296: Swing Application Framework , pencilled in for the fifth milestone.

As Mark points out in his latest blog entry, the JDK 7 project is "creating a prototype of what might - or might not - wind up in the JavaSE 7 Platform Specification.. When the SE 7 Platform JSR is submitted then the features under development in JDK 7 will be proposed for inclusion therein, except for those that are VM-level or implementation-specific."

It's really good to see a transparent schedule and feature set for JDK 7. So here's a copy of that feature list - is there anything in there that you think doesn't belong in Java7?

VM:

• Compressed 64-bit object pointers
• Garbage-First GC (G1)
• JSR 292: VM support for non-Java languages (InvokeDynamic)

Lang:

• JSR 308: Annotations on Java types
• JSR TBD: Small language enhancements (Project Coin)
• JSR 294: Language and VM support for modular programming

Core:

• Modularization (Project Jigsaw)
• Upgrade class-loader architecture
• Method to close a URLClassLoader
• Unicode 5.1
• Concurrency and collections updates (jsr166y)
• JSR 203: More new I/O APIs for the Java platform (NIO.2)
• SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol)
• SDP (Sockets Direct Protocol)
• Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC)

Client: 

• XRender pipeline for Java 2D
• Forward-port 6u10 features
• Create new platform APIs for forward-ported 6u10 features
• JSR 296: Swing application framework
• Swing updates

EE:

• Update the XML stack