Java Concurrency (&c)

For those who haven't been paying attention, there is a new project from Sun to attract proposals for small language changes to JDK7 . Even in the first day of open calls for proposals , the entries have been very interesting: Strings in Switch, a proposal from Joe Darcy to be able to use Strings in switch statements. Automated Resource Blocks, a proposal from Josh Bloch to be able to say things like: try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path)) { return br.readLine(); } instead of: BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path)); try { return br.readLine(); } finally { br.close(); } based on having BufferedReader implement a Disposable interface. Block expressions, a proposal from Neal Gafter to be allow things like: double pi2 = (double pi = Math.PI ; pi*pi)**; // pi squared* Basically, the principle here is that the (parenthesis-delimited) block would return a value. Exception handling improvements, another proposal from Neal Gaft