Why they don't just tell us what's happening is beyond me. Why not have a public roadmap? Why keep it behind closed doors? The only thing this does is make people lose faith. Other competing languages are completely out in the open, talking about proposed features with the community and getting early feedback. Can someone from Sun answer why they choose to keep us in the dark?

Java has a big dilema. people want it to evolve but also want it to be backwards compatible. either you create a brand new better and incompatible plataform (as .net people does) or you keep it compatible and stop complaining about quick evolution. I think java people should dedicate more efforts in better tools instead of wasting time in better sintax sugars.. do people really believe it is simple for an administrator to install, configure and suport glasshfish? no, it is not. do people really believe the SOA tools like OpenESB, JAX-stuff, WS-*, are really reliable and ready-to-use? no, they are not. they don't even have good documentation. Netbeans creates weak builds, demands heavy workstations, has a poor CVS merge tool (much inferior that Eclipse). it is really not just drag-n-drop JSF at says the prophecy. look, I think we should really invest in tools first. only after they reach the limits we touch the language. otherwise, if we change the sintax and paradigms every month, no team will be able to provide good tools.

Except for some people maybe wanting to rush the release through the JCP in order to get their pet features in it without proper consideration and review about whether they make sense at all, there's no reason for a quick release. And given that the vast majority of development is still on 1.4 and 1.5 there's no reason for a new release at all, it might in fact be better to roll back 6 and continue 1.5 development rather than think about 7.

All of the 6u10 improvements will be folded into OpenJDK 7. This will take time to do right I'm sure. I'd rather wait for those improvements to make their way into the codebase before a 7 release -- going back to the pre-6u10 browser plugin would be murder. But on the other hand, as a Linux user, I can't want for 7 to come out -- the GTK L&F in 7 is much improved over the one that ships with Java 6.

Software development running late is hardly headline news. I do appreciate the improved regularity of the bug fix releases. The trouble with the big releases is that they get so many wishes attached to them that running late and disappointing people with what is eventually omitted is inevitable.

The question was asked in the past tense. If in 2006, someone told me we wouldn't even have the umbrella JSR end 2008, I'd have been surprised. But less and less surprised as time goes on and as people leave Sun (jumping before the push?) I'll vote "yes but surprised" based on my initial expectations. But I'm no longer surprised. I completely agree with Kirill's opinion on the opaque state of affairs. It seems Sun are moving towards Apple's level of transparency regarding Java's future! - Chris