Java Version wise Enhancements


Version wise Name
JDK 1 called OAK
J2SE 1.2 called Playground
J2SE 1.3 called ​ Kestrel
J2SE 1.4 called Merlin
J2SE 5.0 called Tiger
Java SE 6 called Mustang
Java SE 7 called Dolphin
After Java SE 7 Codename culture dropped

Version wise Features


Java SE 9 Features
Possible Release Date​ : ​ September 22, 2016

Proposed features are:
  • Support for multi-gigabyte heaps
  • Better native code integration
  • Self-tuning JVM
  • Java Module System
  • Money and Currency API
  • jshell: The Java Shell
  • Automatic parallelization
Java SE 8 Features
Release Date​ : ​ March 18, 2014
Code name culture dropped. Included features were:
  • Lambda expression support in APIs
  • Functional interface and default methods
  • Optionals
  • Nashorn – JavaScript runtime which allows developers to embed
  • JavaScript code within applications
  • Annotation on Java Types
  • Unsigned Integer Arithmetic
  • Repeating annotations
  • New Date and Time API
  • Statically-linked JNI libraries
  • Launch JavaFX applications from jar files
  • Remove the permanent generation from GC

Java SE 7 Features
Release Date​ : ​ July 28, 2011
This release was called “Dolphin”. Included features were:
  • JVM support for dynamic languages
  • Compressed 64-bit pointers
  • Strings in switch
  • Automatic resource management in try-statement
  • The diamond operator
  • Simplified varargs method declaration
  • Binary integer literals
  • Underscores in numeric literals
  • Improved exception handling
  • ForkJoin Framework
  • NIO 2.0 having support for multiple file systems, file metadata and symbolic links
  • WatchService
  • Timsort is used to sort collections and arrays of objects instead of merge sort
  • APIs for the graphics features
  • Support for new network protocols, including SCTP and Sockets Direct Protocol
Java SE 6 Features
Release Date​ : ​ December 11, 2006
This release was called “Mustang”. Sun dropped the “.0” from the version number and
version became Java SE 6. Included features were:
  • Scripting Language Support
  • Performance improvements
  • JAX-WS
  • JDBC 4.0
  • Java Compiler API
  • JAXB 2.0 and StAX parser
  • Pluggable annotations
  • New GC algorithms

J2SE 5.0 Features
Release Date​ : ​ September 30, 2004
This release was called “Tiger”. Most of the features, which are asked in java interviews,
were added in this release.Version was also called 5.0 rather than 1.5. Included features are listed down below:
  • Generics
  • Annotations
  • Autoboxing/unboxing
  • Enumerations
  • Varargs
  • Enhanced f ​ or each​ loop
  • Static imports
  • New concurrency utilities in ​ java.util.concurrent
  • Scanner​ class for parsing data from various input streams and buffers.
J2SE 1.4 Features
Release Date​ : ​ February 6, 2002
This release was called “Merlin”. Included features were:
  • keyword
  • Regular expressions
  • Exception chaining
  • Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support
  • New I/O; NIO
  • Logging API
  • Image I/O API
  • Integrated XML parser and XSLT processor (JAXP)
  • Integrated security and cryptography extensions (JCE, JSSE, JAAS)
  • Java Web Start
  • Preferences API (java.util.prefs)
  • Assert
J2SE 1.3 Features
Release Date​ : ​ May 8, 2000This release was called “Kestrel”. Included features were:
  • HotSpot JVM
  • Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)
  • Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA)
  • JavaSound
  • Synthetic proxy classes


J2SE 1.2 Features
Release Date​ : ​ December 8, 1998
This release was called “Playground”. This was a major release in terms of number of
classes added (almost trippled the size). “J2SE” term was introduced to distinguish the
code platform from J2EE and J2ME. Included features were:

  • Swing graphical API
  • Sun’s JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time
  • Java plug-in
  • Collections framework
  • Strictfp

JDK 1 Features
Release Date​ : ​ January 23, 1996
This was the initial release and was originally called ​ Oak​ . This had very unstable APIs
and one java web browser named ​ WebRunner​ .
The first stable version, JDK 1.0.2, was called Java 1.
On February 19, 1997, JDK 1.1 was released havind a list of big features such as:
  • AWT event model
  • Inner classes 
  • JavaBeans
  • JDBC
  • RMI
  • Reflection which supported Introspection only, no modification at runtime
  • was possible.
  • JIT (Just In Time) compiler for Windows