Closures in Java 7: It's (Maybe) Off Again
It was merely 294 days ago when I blogged about Closures In Java 7: It's On Again, in which I said:
Me: I'll believe it when I see it. Remember, they promised XML literals for Java 7, and I'm still bitter that they dropped it. :(
Well guess what? It seems that it may be off again. The reality is more complicated than this, please read Mark Reinhold's latest blog Re-thinking JDK 7:
Mark Reinhold: To summarize:
Plan A: JDK 7 (as currently defined) Mid 2012 Plan B: JDK 7 (minus Lambda, Jigsaw, and part of Coin) Mid 2011 JDK 8 (Lambda, Jigsaw, the rest of Coin, ++) Late 2012 (As always, our intent is that JDK 7 will ship concurrently with a Java SE 7 JSR, and likewise for JDK 8 and Java SE 8, and also that there will be JSRs for Lambda and Coin.)
Here at Oracle we’re leaning heavily toward the lower-risk Plan B.
At this moment in time, I think Plan B would work out better for everybody. It will give us Java 7 four and a half years after the release of Java 6 in December 2006. And it will also give us something to look for in Java 8.
Actually, if the Java 7 of Plan B is delivered on time (before June 30, 2011), I wouldn't mind a longer release cycle, say, two and a half years, between Java 7 and Java 8.