Preliminary JDK 1.1 design specs unveiled

August 28, 1996 — Today JavaSoft made the first official, public information available about the contents of the upcoming version 1.1 of its Java Development Kit.

The announcement notes that an “early access” (beta) release of the JDK 1.1 “is scheduled for release in Q4 1996,” and that the final release dates “are not yet determined.” This news is of particular concern to the many folks who took to heart earlier rumors that the JDK 1.1 would be available by early September.

The JDK 1.1 design specification site is to eventually contain a wealth of information about the software, but currently provides only a strictly preliminary summary of the “likely features”:

• JAR Files Support — These Java ARchives files will be the official replacement for the current use of such things as .zip files to bundle Java applets and their attendant components into a single, transportable unit.
• Internationalization — Support for localizing Java code to various environments.
• Security Enhancements — Add real security features to your code, such as cryptography and access control.

• AWT Enhancements — Including a completely rewritten Win32s version (which doesn’t use the MFC).

• Networking Enhancements

  :

  • Extendable Socket and ServerSocket classes
  • More Socket options
  • Socket exceptions
• Remote Method Invocation — Execute code running in a different Java virtual machine environment.
• Object Serialization — The Java I/O primitives now support marshaling and un-marshaling (i.e., writing and reading) as a byte stream.
• Reflection — JavaSoft describes this as the ability to “discover information about the fields, methods and constructors of loaded classes, and to use reflected fields, methods, and constructors to operate on their underlying counterparts on objects, within security restrictions.”
• Byte and Short Classes — These join the Int, Float, etc. wrapper classes.
• JDBC Support — Java DataBase Connectivity
• New Native Method Interface — A “standard” API for writing native methods.
• JIT Compiler Interface Information — Documentation for writing low-level code that runs as a part of or adjunct to the Java run-time system.
• Nested Classes — Adding support to make it easier to write classes implementing the Adapter pattern.
• Performance Enhancements — Includes speed improvements in garbage collection, the AWT GUI, the Java interpreter core, and the handling of synchronization monitors.

For more details, see JavaSoft’s JDK 1.1 design specification.