Presents your 
JAVA E-NEWSLETTER for March 4, 2004

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SEE WHAT'S NEW IN THE JAVA 1.5.0 BETA RELEASE 
 
Sun has released a beta version of Java 1.5. Even though many shops 
will not be moving to the latest version of Java for quite some time, 
it's never too early to start planning. This tip highlights some of the 
more important changes in Java 1.5 and will hopefully convince you that 
the new version is worth taking out for a spin--if only to get an idea 
of what it can do. 
 
Java 1.5 contains lots of new features and changes that will affect 
Java users across the board; but, from a programmer's perspective, Java 
1.5 is a programmer's release. Here are some of the new features and 
enhancements that are important to programmers. 
 
ENUM SUPPORT 
 
Enumerators have been missing from Java since the beginning. 
Programmers no longer have to use workarounds to get typesafe 
enumerators. 
 
AUTOBOXING/UNBOXING 
 
When calling a method that takes an int as an argument, you won't have 
to do this: takesInt(someInteger.intValue()). Instead, the compiler 
will do it for you. 
 
GENERICS 
 
By far, the most hyped feature of the language is generics. In a 
nutshell, generics will allow you to use typesafe collections. This is 
advantageous because you'll get ClassCastExceptions at compile time 
instead of runtime. 
 
A NEW FOR LOOP 
 
Sun calls it the enhanced for loop. The enhancement is that the for 
loop now works with collections and arrays naturally. 
 
for ( Object o : someCollection ) { 
    System.out.println(o); 
} 
 
for ( String s : someStringArray ) { 
    System.out.println(s); 
} 
 
VARIABLE ARGUMENT LISTS 
 
Methods may now accept a variable number of arguments. This is achieved 
by declaring the method with ellipsis notation (three dots) between the 
type and argument name, like this: static void flexible(String ... 
names). 
 
SYSTEM.OUT.PRINTF 
 
You can use printf-like formatting to create console output and strings 
just like your C-coder companeros. The class that gets the work done is 
Formatter, which has a complementary class called Scanner that can 
parse strings using regular expressions. 
 
There are too many new features to list here, but upcomging tips will 
go into further detail about specific features. To find out about all 
the new features in Java 1.5, install it and take a look, or visit 
Sun's site and peruse the online documentation for Java 1.5. 
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/index.html 
 
David Petersheim is the Director of Application Development with 
Genscape, Inc. He designs and develops server-side applications to 
acquire and process real-time energy data. 

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