Summary

Features are listed in order, more or less, from lowest to highest in the overall JDK  software stack.

Features that were once planned for JDK 7 but later deferred to JDK 8 or a later release are listed at the bottom of this page.

Virtual machine JSR 292: Support for dynamically-typed languages (InvokeDynamic) Extensions to the JVM, the Java language, and the Java SE API to support the implementation of dynamically-typed languages at performance levels near to that of the Java language itself Milestone target: M3 Strict class-file checking As specified in 

JSR 202, which was part of Java SE 6, and in the recently-approved maintenance revision of JSR 924, class files of version 51 (SE 7) or later must be verified with the typechecking verifier; the VM must not fail over to the old inferencing verifier. Lead: Karen Kinnear Milestone target: M9 Language JSR 334: Small language enhancements (Project Coin) A set of small language changes intended to simplify common, day-to-day programming tasks: Strings in switch statements, try-with-resources statements, improved type inference for generic instance creation ("diamond"), simplified varargs method invocation, better integral literals, and improved exception handling (multi-catch) Milestone target: M11 Core Upgrade class-loader architecture Modifications to the ClassLoader API and implementation to avoid deadlocks in non-hierarchical class-loader topologies Lead: Karen Kinnear Milestone target: M3 Method to close a URLClassLoader A method that frees the underlying resources, such as open files, held by a URLClassLoader Milestone target: M2 Concurrency and collections updates (jsr166y) A lightweight fork/join framework, flexible and reusable synchronization barriers, transfer queues, concurrent linked double-ended queues, and thread-local pseudo-random number generators Milestone target: M5 I/O and Networking JSR 203: More new I/O APIs for the Java platform (NIO.2) New APIs for filesystem access, scalable asynchronous I/O operations, socket-channel binding and configuration, and multicast datagrams Milestone target: M2 NIO.2 filesystem provider for zip/jar archives A fully-functional and supported NIO.2 filesystem provider for zip and jar files Milestone target: M11 SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) An implementation-specific API for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol on Solaris Milestone target: M3 SDP (Sockets Direct Protocol) Implementation-specific support for reliable, high-performance network streams over Infiniband connections on Solaris and Linux Milestone target: M3 Use the Windows Vista IPv6 stack Upgrade the networking code to use the Windows Vista IPv6 stack, when available, in preference to the legacy Windows stack Milestone target: M1 Security & Cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) A portable implementation of the standard Elliptic Curve Cryptographic (ECC) algorithms, so that all Java applications can use ECC out-of-the-box Lead: Vincent Ryan Milestone target: M5 Database Connectivity JDBC 4.1 Upgrade to JDBC 4.1 and Rowset 1.1 Lead: Lance Andersen Milestone target: M11 Client XRender pipeline for Java 2D A new Java2D graphics pipeline based upon the X11 XRender extension, which provides access to much of the functionality of modern GPUs Milestone target: M9 Create new platform APIs for 6u10 graphics features Create new platform APIs for features originally implemented in the 6u10 release: Translucent and shaped windows, and heavyweight/lightweight component mixing Lead: Anthony Petrov Milestone target: M3 Nimbus look-and-feel for Swing A next-generation cross-platform look-and-feel for Swing Milestone target: M3 Swing JLayer component Add the SwingLabs JXLayer component decorator to the platform Milestone target: M5 Gervill sound synthesizer Drop the old, proprietary, encumbered sound synthesizer in favor of Gervill, a synthesizer created as a proposal for the 

Audio Synthesis Engine Project Lead: Karl Helgason Milestone target: M1 Web Update the XML stack Upgrade the components of the XML stack to the most recent stable versions: JAXP 1.4, JAXB 2.2a, and JAX-WS 2.2 Lead: Joe Wang Milestone target: M12 Management Enhanced MBeans Enhancements to the existing 

com.sun.management MBeans to report the recent CPU load of the whole system, the CPU load of the JVM process, and to send JMX notifications when GC events occur (this feature previously included an enhanced JMX Agent, but that was dropped due to lack of time) Lead: Frederic Parain Milestone target: M13 Deferred to JDK 8 or later JSR 294: Language and VM support for modular programming Enhancements to the Java language and virtual-machine specifications to support modular programming, at both compile time and run time JSR 308: Annotations on Java types An extension to the Java annotation syntax to permit annotations on any occurrence of a type JSR TBD: Language support for collections Literal expressions for immutable lists, sets, and maps, and indexing-access syntax for lists and maps JSR TBD: Project Lambda Lambda expressions (informally, "closures") and defender methods for the Java programming language Modularization (Project Jigsaw) A simple, low-level module system focused upon the goal of modularizing the JDK, and the application of that system to the JDK itself JSR 296: Swing application framework An API to define the basic structure of a typical Swing application, thereby eliminating lots of boilerplate code and providing a much-improved initial developer experience Swing JDatePicker component Add the SwingLabs JXDatePicker component to the platform