The new features of Java 7

With Java 6 set to be released, here is a peek into Java 7. It's a PDF of a slide deck by Danny Coward, the Java SE platform lead.

Among the interesting features are: BigDecimal overloads of arithmetic operands, strings in case/switch statements, better XML and Xpath support, and the invokedynamic instruction, which facilitates the use of dynamic languages on the JVM. (Note: in my September 1 post, I mistakenly described this instruction as a feature of Java 6. It is actually in Java 7, as a commentator thoughtfully pointed out in response to that post, and revisited by this presentation.)