> > I've skipped Java 1.5 for various reasons: > > 1 - the 'enhanced for loop' is just crap
I notice that few people ares disputing this one... > How *anyone* does not need generics is beyond me. This is *huge* in my > book. The amount of silly double-checking I can avoid by knowing the > compiler has done this checking for me is immediately worthwhile. Being > able to type: So far I haven't needed them. I haven't been hampered by the old (<=1.4) collections in the slightest. I've not come across a problem and thought, "this would be so much easier with generics". I guess I'm just used to casting/boxing by myself. I agree that pushing the correctness problem into the compilation, instead of the runtime phase is valuable in general. > I already have make heavy usage of annotations for JMX -- which is the > other big reason for Java 5: built-in support for JMX and JSR 160 > (rather than the ugly mish-mash of generally proprietary JMX > communication protocols that proceeded this). I've not had chance to play around with JMX yet. But in general, adding annotations to the language means that you have declarative parts of code mixed in with procedural code (I think this was mentioned previously). So far (to me) it looks like the annotations were added because .net had them. Indeed a lot of the Java5 changes suggest a little too much "me too", not real language innovations. > > > 6 - Jikes doesn't support it, WebLogic doesn't support it (then > > WebLogic barely supports Java) > > This is a reason to stop using Jikes! Seriously if the tool holds you > back from the latest technology and there is an equally workable tool > out there, then stop using it. Jikes may be faster than javac, but > that's not the bottleneck on my productivity. > Jikes is a fabulous compiler (some people prefer the eclipse compiler), and it certainly speeds up my development (better error messages, quick compiles, so not tempted to compile only one file etc etc). WebLogic on the other hand is holding me back, and I'd switch to another appserver at the drop of a hat (if only the customers weren't fixated on WebLogic). Anyway, we've veered way off-topic from the original thread now - I can barely see my way back to civilisation from here :) Kev --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
