davidflanagan.com > February 2005

First peek at Java 6.0

[Update: March 24th: welcome JavaBlogs readers! Note that this blog entry is a month old. I changed my archive format, changing the permalink for my blog entries, and this caused JavaBlogs to pick up and list a bunch of old entries. Sorry!]

The umbrella JSR for Java 6.0 ("Mustang") has just been released. It provides some preliminary details about what we can expect to see in the next major release of Java. Overall, it looks like we've been spoiled by all the great usability features of Java 5.0. This next release is going to be much less dramatic (unless you love XML). These are the "themes" for the release:

Compatibility and Stability

Diagnosability, Monitoring, and Management

Ease of Development

Enterprise Desktop

XML & Web Services

Transparency

Its all important stuff, I suppose, but a lot of behind the scenes stuff, rather than exciting new features. On the postive side, a boring release makes it easier for me to update my books!

The JSR also tells us someting about the release schedule for Java 6.0:

Early Draft - April 2005
Public Review - Late 2005
Final Release - Mid 2006

It seems reasonable to assume that the final release of the JSR will be around the same time as the release of Java 6.0 itself.

Finally, and this is the real substance of umbrella JSRs like this, here is the preliminary list of JSRs being considered for includsion in Java 6.0:

JSR 105: XML Digital Signature
JSR 199: Java Compiler API
JSR 202: Java Class File Specification Update
JSR 221: JDBC 4.0
JSR 222: JAXB 2.0
JSR 223: Scripting for the Java Platform
JSR 224: JAX-RPC 2.0
JSR 260: Javadoc Tag Update
JSR 268: Java Smart Card I/O API
JSR 269: Pluggable Annotation Processing API
JSR TBD: JAXP.next

Nothing too dramatic on this list. The class file spec. update and the compiiler API are JSRs that were originally targeted at Tiger, but weren't ready in time. The scripting language API sounds the most interesting to me. Note, however, that this is not the Groovy JSR, but one that lays groundwork for scripting languages in general.

Who is pinging abcdefghigklmn.htm?

Okay, so I was looking at my web server logs to see how many people had looked at the Jude user's guide (see the previous entry), and I noticed an unusual number of 404 errors like this:

61.135.131.236 - - [01/Feb/2005:09:52:40 -0500] 
  "HEAD /abcdefghijklmn.htm HTTP/1.1" 404 0

30 of these in the first two days of February. Another 15 from January 23rd through the end of the month. All are HEAD requests. No GETs or POSTs. And they all come from the 61.135.131 subnet, which is somewhere in China, according to whois.

I have no idea what this is about. But googling for abcdefghijklmn.htm brings up lots of site statistics showing that lots of sites are getting hit with this. It also brings up this blogger's musings about the same problem.

Google only finds one page that actually has that URL. Its a conspiracy site, however, so I won't bother linking to it.

Add a "l" to the end of the URL to make ".html" instead of ".htm" and Google brings up, and offers to translate, two Japanese sites. One has this url: homepage3.nifty.com/alchemy/abcdefghijklmn.htm. The word "alchemy" interests me. The translation begins with the intriguing "Here is the door to the room of the secret which is hidden". But it degenerates from there into gibberish: "Being to be the feeling which includes the woman direction member element delicately".

I suppose we'll never know what this is about. Makes me feel kind of like I'm in a William Gibson novel, though.

Comments on (until the spammers find it) in case anyone knows something about this.

Goodbye Javadocs, Hello Jude

After more than a year, I have finally released a new version of Jude, my Java documentation browser application. Jude combines the quickref format of Java in a Nutshell, the definitive documentation of javadoc, and the searchability and quick navigation of an online help system.

The latest beta version is 0.98. It now supports Java 5.0 syntax. And it runs on Mac OS X. The application architecture has been completely overhauled. Jude is no longer a XUL interface wrapped around an applet. It is now a web server, which means that installation is now much easier. Just start it up and point your browser to it.

Read more about Jude, or download it and try it out here.

If you've tried Jude in the past, you may want to give it another try; it has improved over the last year!