Update Release 21 for Java SE6 has been newly released and the Java SE6 release notes are at this link. Dr. Dobb's blogger Eric Bruno writes that the update mainly includes support for more operating systems and bug fixes.

He writes that the new OS and environment support includes:

• Oracle Enterprise Linux, versions 4.8, 5.4, and 5.5
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, versions 5.4 and 5.5
• Oracle's Virtual Machine environment (Oracle VM), v2.2.0.0.0
• Google Chrome, v4.0

Bruno also notes that a new feature is the addition of an optional progress indicator that can be displayed and updated when a Java application launches. For more on this, check out the tutorial, Customizing the Loading Experience.

Also worthy of mention, Bruno continues, is the inclusion of the latest version of VisualVM, which is an excellent tool to help analyze what's happening inside both a running Java virtual machine and the application it's hosting. With this tool one can view threads and their activity, observe heap usage and garbage collection activity, profile your application, and more. Further, all this can be done in real-time as your application executes. He provides a link to Visual VM.

Bruno also helpfully provides a link to the bug fixes in this release, most of which have to do with the HotSpot compiler and the G1 soft-real-time garbage collector

The download for the update itself is available here. [...read more...]

		fullsource
Print Email Current Profile Archive Blog Generate newsletter

Other articles in the Java Technology section of Volume 149, Issue 2: Java SE 6, Update 21 (this article) See all archived articles in the Java Technology section.

Top 10 Most Popular Articles in Current Issue (Vol 167, Issue 4) Simplified Administration with ZFS Documentation for Common Sysadmin Tasks Solaris 10 OS and ZFS Cut Costs, Boost Uptime as Alternative to RAID Oracle Certified Associate (OCA), Oracle Solaris 11 System Administrator MySQL: An Introduction for Oracle DBAs illumos Meetup at FOSDEM Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users MySQL 5.0 and 5.1 available on Solaris 11 World Record x86 TPC-C Result Java Spotlight Episode 65: Deployment & Plugin Recent Blog Entries as of February 4, 2012, 11:22 am Oracle Enterprise Manager Enables Cerner Health Care to Cut Capital Expenditures by $9.5 Million Beefing Up Xeon Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability: Slide Set Java Spotlight Episode 54: Stuart Marks on the Coinification of JDK7 Getting PostgreSQL HA to Work in vFabric Data Director November 9th, Oracle Solaris 11 Launch, New York City The [System] Developer's Edge: 322 page pdf Oracle Global IT Upgrades to Sun Storage Products UNIX - Dead or alive? LibreOffice Adopts ODF 1.2 as an OASIS Standard The Growth Prospects for Tape vs. HDD and NAND as a Storage Devices Blog RSS Feed