Software Update: J2SE 5.0

After a previous release candidate, Sun has now released the final of its Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0. J2SE 5.0 is an important release for Sun with many updates and new features, but still remains compatible with older versions. The documentation is excellent but very long, so we only refer to the pages where the New Features and Enhancementsthe J2SE 5.0 in a Nutshell and the full JDK 5.0 release notes can be found.

The development of J2SE 5.0 was led by Sun and progressed following the Java Community Process (JCP) to include input from a variety of constituents. Some highlights of J2SE 5.0:

• New language updates: Metadata, Generics, Enumerated types, Autoboxing or primitive types
• New JVM Monitoring and Management API
• Improved out-of-box performance
• New (but compatible) default Java look and feel