What are the new features in Java 7

Question

What is the most official Java 7 feature list? I find very little useful information regarding this on the official JDK 7 site. Apart from that I can only find blogs with people summarizing "some" of the new features.

However, some of these blog entries are old and some of them claim that these features "may or may not" be included in Java 7.

1. Can anyone provide a list of features that will definitely be included in Java 7?

2. I would also very much like to know the estimated release date.

3. Will it be backwards compatible with my existing Java EE 6 stuff. That is, will I be able to switch seamlessly using EJBs, JPA2, Glassfish 3 and so on.

The feature I am mostly interested in is Closures, so I'll happily switch to Java 7 as soon as a stable release comes out.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The JDK 7 has a dedicated features page. For a list of features that are already implemented, the milestones page is useful. That also gives a hint at when the release could possibly be expected.

"Closures" (officially they are "lambda expressions") are part of Project Lambda.

Answer 2

The best source for Java 7 information is not Sun, but Alex Miller: http://tech.puredanger.com/java7/

Answer 3

Can anyone provide a list of features that will definitely be included in Java 7?

As mentioned several times here on SO (check for example the New features in java 7), the "place to be" for Java 7 is indeed Alex Miller's Java 7 site.

I would also very much like to know the estimated release date.

Q3/Q4 this year is a good estimate.

Will it be backwards compatible with my existing Java EE 6 stuff. That is, will I be able to switch seamlessly using EJBs, JPA2, Glassfish 3 and so on.

The runtime (Java 6, Java 7) to run a given container will depend on the containers. Some may support Java 7, others may not.