Last week the new JDK was released. Funny thing is that Sun couldn’t decide which version number to give to that new release.

The web-site tells us that it is J2SDK 5.0, but the name of the installation file is jdk-1_5_0…. and the default installation directory is also jdk1.5.0. So what is it now?

Now we have three version numbers for the same release. The platform number hasn’t changed for while. It’s still Java 2. Then we have 5.0, which seems to be a marketing department version number, and 1.5.0, which is probably the version number the development department has chosen.

This is maybe a conspiracy theory, but it seems that two groups at Sun fought over the version number and none of them won the fight. There are those who say, that this release contains so much new features, that it has to be 5.0. Others may say, that JDK 1.4.0 also had many new features. So why should it not be 1.5.0?

I think it’s all only confusing. It doesn’t help Java when none knows how to call this new release.

Nevertheless the features in this release are big and will have a great impact on how software will be developed with Java in the future. The inclusion of generics alone is a big step. In addition we have annotations, typesafe enums, autoboxing and more.