Java Version wise Features

JAVA 11 Features : September 25, 2018

New String methods
New File Methods
Pattern recognizing methods
Epsilon Garbage Collector
Removed the Java EE and CORBA modules.
Removal of thread functions
TimeUnit Conversion
Optional.isEmpty()
Local-Variable Syntax for Lambda Parameters.
New HTTP Client and WebSocket API
Nests
Removed Features:
Removal of com.sun.awt.AWTUtilities Class
Removal of Lucida Fonts from Oracle JDK
Removal of appletviewer Launcher
Oracle JDK’s javax.imageio JPEG Plugin No Longer Supports Images with alpha
Removal of sun.misc.Unsafe.defineClass
Removal of Thread.destroy() and Thread.stop(Throwable) Methods
Removal of sun.nio.ch.disableSystemWideOverlappingFileLockCheck Property
Removal of sun.locale.formatasdefault Property
Removal of JVM-MANAGEMENT-MIB.mib
Removal of SNMP Agent
Removal of Java Deployment Technologies
Removal of JMC from the Oracle JDK
Removal of JavaFX from the Oracle JDK
JEP 320 Remove the Java EE and CORBA Modules
Depricated:
following nine modules
were marked as deprecated for removal:
java.xml.ws (JAX-WS, plus the related technologies SAAJ and Web Services Metadata)
java.xml.bind (JAXB)
java.activation (JAF)
java.xml.ws.annotation (Common Annotations)
java.corba (CORBA)
java.transaction (JTA)

JAVA 10 Features March 20, 2018:

Parallel Full GC for G1
Garbage Collector Interface.
Application Data-Class Sharing.
Consolidate the JDK Forest into a Single
Repository.
Local-Variable Type Inference.
Remove the Native-Header Generator Tool.
Thread-Local Handshakes.
Time-Based Release Versioning
Root Certificates
Heap Allocation on Alternative Memory Devices.
Experimental Java-Based JIT Compiler.
Additional Unicode Language-Tag Extensions.

JAVA 9 Features: September 2017

Java 9 - JShell (REPL)
Diamond Operator for Anonymous Inner Class
Factory Methods for Immutable List, Set, Map and Map.Entry
Interface with Private methods
Java 9 Module System
Optional Class Improvements
Process API Improvements
Try With Resources Improvement
HTTP 2 Client
HTML5 Javadoc
Reactive Streams
Stream API Improvements
Enhanced @Deprecated annotation
Multi-Resolution Image API
CompletableFuture API Improvements
Stack-Walking API
Compact Strings
GC (Garbage Collector) Improvements
Javadoc Search
Parser API for Nashorn
Filter Incoming Serialization Data
Deprecate the Applet API
Indify String Concatenation
Enhanced Method Handles
Java Platform Logging API and Service

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
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 for 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:

assert 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)

J2SE 1.3 Features

Release Date : May 8, 2000

This 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:

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

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