Language and Virtual Machine Changes in Java 1.5
Presented by Andrew Swan of Panasonic

The next release of Java (1.5) will make significant changes to the language specification and virtual machine which should make development easier and more robust. The changes are covered by the following change requests, all going through the Java Community Process at the moment.

JSR-014 Add Generic Types to the Java Programming Language
Support for "parametric polymorphism" (like C++ templates). Mainly for the benefit of type safe collections.

JSR-65 Concise Object-Array Literals
Support for a short hand syntax for declaring arrays in Java. Primarilay used as a mechanism for passing variable arguments to methods.

JSR-121 Application Isolation API Specification
Support for running more than one application using the same VM, thus reducing startup time, class loading and memory footprint.

JSR-201 Extending the Java Programming Language with Enumerations, Autoboxing, Enhanced for loops and Static Import enhancements to the language to avoid the current verbose syntax for declaring enumerations, using static methods and constants, and creating for loops. Also support for "autoboxing", the process of converting primitive types to objects and vice versa.

During his presentation, Andy provided information on these changes and demonstrated code segments using these proposed mechanisms for the language.

The zip file contains Andy's presentation.