By Heather VanCura  

From original post: Learn the Latest from the JCP at JavaOne 2015 San Francisco

It is that time of year again!  Time to attend the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.  Learn what's happening with the JCP program, JCP.Next, Adopt-a-JSR, meet the 13th Annual JCP Award nominees and potential new JCP Executive Committee (EC) members. There will be plenty of opportunities on Sunday through Thursday during JavaOne 2015. We look forward to seeing you there (full article).

by guest blogger Heather VanCura

Earlier this month we held an Adopt-a-JSR meeting with Java EE 8 Platform Specification Lead, Linda DeMichiel, and we also recorded an Adopt-a-JSR meeting in Prague with several of the Java EE Spec Leads -- JAX-RS (JSR 370), WebSocket (JSR 356) and JSON-B (JSR 367), Java EE Management (JSR 377). You can listen to the recordings and view the slides on the JCP.org multimedia page: https://jcp.org/en/resources/multimedia

Right now the Java EE 8 JSRs are in the early stages of development and are still forming their Expert Groups, but some of the suggestions for feedback at this early stage include providing feedback on requirements, use case development, or commenting/voting on issues in the JIRA issue tracker. Please use 'adoptajsr' tag in the JIRA issue tracker. You can find all of the links you need on the JCP.org page for each JSR, for example, for JSR 366 the url is: https://jcp.org/en/egc/view?id=366 (just change the last 3 characters of the url to the JSR number you are interested in: https://jcp.org/en/egc/view?id=xxx) or see full list of the Java EE 8 JSRs, filed to date. 

We are planning our next Adopt-a-JSR online meeting for this Friday, 19 December at 10 am pacific time with JCP Spec Leads Antoine Sabot-Durand, Manfred Riem and Ed Burns, on some of the Java EE 8 JSRs:
- JSR 365, Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) 2.0;
- JSR 369, Java Servlet 4.0;
- JSR 371, Model-View Controller (MVC) 1.0;
- JSR 372, JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.3.


Details for Java EE 8, Adopt-a-JSR call:

Friday, 19 December 10 am PST
Join WebEx meeting: https://jcp.webex.com
Meeting password: 23678
1 866 682 4770 (in the US)
Outside the US find your country number or dial : +1 (408) 774-4073:
https://www.intercallonline.com/listNumbersByCode.action?confCode=5731908
conference code: 5731908
password: 23678

If you cannot join the meeting at this time, it will be recorded on posted on the JCP.org multimedia page. I look forward to speaking with some of you on Friday. 

By Guest Blogger Bob Larsen, Java.net Editor

The Java Community Process (JCP) presented the tenth annual JCP Awards and celebrated its fifteenth birthday at a gathering atop the Hilton Hotel on Monday night.  

Heather VanCura (above, left) received the award for JCP Program Member of the Year for her leadership in the Adopt-a-JSR program, which provides a mechanism for Java User Groups and individuals to easily contribute to Java Specification Requests and encourages grassroots participation in crafting the future of Java. VanCura's effort in organizing and facilitating adoption sessions, workshops, and webinars, as well as in recruiting JUGs, has greatly advanced Adopt-a-JSR's progress.

The Most Significabt JSR was awarded to JSR 360, Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) 8. CLDC brings language features from Java SE into Java ME. These features, including generics, enumerations, and try-with-resources, dramatically increase the power and flexibility of Java ME. JSR 360 has been the first update applied to Java ME in almost seven years. Michael Lagally (above, right) was recognized as Outstanding Spec Lead for his efforts in spearheading JSR 360. 

Otávio Gonçalves de Santana (right) was awarded Outstanding Adopt-a-JSR Participant for his efforts in supporting JSR 354, Java Money and Concurrency—specifically in migrating the codebase from Java 7 to Java 8.  Gonçalves de Santana is also a strong supporter of OpenJDK and has been assisting in making JSRs more compatible with OpenJDK from the beginning, streamlining their implementation.

Following the award presentations, the festivities continued with musical acts including the debut performance of the NullPointers, a band composed entirely of Java Community members, followed by birthday cake, and the obligatory out-of-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Read about the JCP Award Nominees

Read about the JCP Award Winners

By Guest Blogger Reza Rahman

For the Java EE track at JavaOne 2014 we are highlighting some key sessions and speakers to better inform you of what you can expect, right up until the start of the conference.

To this end we recently interviewed Greg Wilkins. Greg is the mastermind behind Jetty and a long-time key contributor to the JCP, particularly for the foundational Servlet specification. In fact Greg is likely to be instrumental in the upcoming Servlet 4 specification slated to be included in Java EE 8. He will likely be the only person in the Servlet 4 expert group that is also part of the IETF HTTP 2 working group. We wanted to talk to Greg about his Jetty/Servlet sessions at JavaOne 2014 and HTTP 2 generally:

font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Greg has several sessions on the track that he talked about:

• Jetty Features: In his open-ended Birds-of-a-Feather session, Greg will share the latest features added and to be considered in Jetty.
• Into the Wild with Servlet Async IO: In this deeply technical session, Greg will be exploring the ins-and-outs of the Servlet 3.1 asynchronous I/O feature. If this is a topic that interests you, the session is probably your best opportunity to gain knowledge from a true subject matter expert.

Bear in mind, Oracle's own Ed Burns will have a detailed session on Servlet 4/HTTP 2. Besides Greg's sessions, we have a very strong program for the Java EE track and JavaOne overall - just explore the content catalog. If you can't make it, you can be assured that we will make key content available after the conference just as we have always done.

In this interview, Heather Vancura, Program Office Manager for the Java Community Process (JCP) discusses what the JCP is doing to make it easier for YOU to participate.

Resources 

JCP.org: Home of the Java Community Process.

JSR-364: Broadening JCP Membership

What's In It For Me? JUG Members Learn the Benefits of Active JCP Participation

In this video, Bruno Souza and Java Community Manager Tori Wieldt discuss JavaOne, the Java Community Process (JCP), cloud computing and mad scientists.

by Timothy Beneke and Janice J. Heiss

In a festive room teeming with over 200 people, including many celebrated Java luminaries,
along with excellent food and drink, the 9th annual JCP Program Awards were handed out atop the majestic Hilton Hotel on Monday night. As the JCP states, “The Java Community Process (JCP) program celebrates success. Members of the community nominate worthy participants, Spec Leads, and Java Specification Requests (JSRs) in order to cheer on the hard work and creativity that produces ground-breaking results for the community and industry in the Java Standard Edition (SE), Java Enterprise Edition (EE), or Java Micro Edition (ME) platforms.”

The JCP added a new awards category this year for Adopt-a-JSR program participants, bringing the total to four: JCP Member/Participant of the Year, Outstanding Spec Lead, Most Significant JSR, and Outstanding Adopt-a-JSR Participant.

The room was full of good cheer, playful humor, a music band of Java developers, and enthusiastic appreciation of much that has been accomplished on behalf of Java technology in the previous year.

The nominees and winners in their respective categories were:

JCP Member/Participant of the Year

--Azul Systems, Gil Tene

--London Java Community (LJC), Ben Evans, Martijn Verburg, Richard Warburton, Graham Allan

--Mohamed Taman

The winner was Azul System’s Gil Tene. The JCP said, “Gil has worked diligently to provide clear advice on matters of Software Patents, IP and licensing that seeks to benefit both non-profits/individuals etc as well as organizations with vested commercial interests in Java. It's not easy delving into the depths of the legal aspects and the potential impacts of changes to the JCP, but with help from folks like Gil we're hopeful for a solid and fair outcome.”

Tene characterized his approach to the JCP as follows: “I represent Azul Systems on the JCP EC, but I try to apply an approach of ‘do the right thing first’ in my choices and positions. Coming from a small company that depends on Java and its ecosystem for its livelihood, I see my role as representing the interests of an entire sector of non-big-company commercial folks and of individual and professional developers out there, and providing some offset and balance to the normal mix of such boards.”

Outstanding Spec Lead

--Brian Goetz, Oracle

--Jitendra Kotamraju, Oracle

--Anatole Tresch, Credit Suisse

--Chris Vignola, IBM

The winner, Oracle’s Brian Goetz, was recognized, “For tirelessly working away at an incredibly complex JSR - JSR 335, Lambda Expressions for the Java Programming Language. From a community point of view, we've appreciated his willingness to listen and consider ideas from other technologists as well as spending time with groups of developers to understand the impact of Lambdas on Java.”

Goetz offered a statement in response to the award for his leadership in creating Lambda Expressions for the Java Language, which also won for most significant JSR. He said that lambdas, “represent a coordinated co-evolution of the Java SE platform, including the VM, language, and core libraries to provide developers with a powerful upgrade -- quite likely the largest ever -- to the Java SE programming model. We started this JSR in early 2010, but the topic of closures-in-Java had already been in play in the community for many years prior, and, of course, there was a broad diversity of opinions as to what direction, how far, and how fast to evolve the Java programming model. In the end, the most significant dimension of the challenge turned out to be: how do we integrate these new features in the language and libraries without them feeling grafted on after-the-fact. I think developers will find programming with this ‘new and improved Java’ to be a very pleasant experience -- I know I have.”

Most Significant JSR

--JSR 335, Lambda Expressions for the Java Programming Language

--JSR 344, JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.2

--JSR 352, Batch Applications for the Java Platform

--JSR 354, Money and Currency API

--JSR 355, JCP Executive Committee Merge

“This brings Java kicking and screaming into the modern programming language age and is seen as a catalyst for the second age of Java. It's underlying discoveries and improvements with regards to Type Inference has also resulted in a stronger JVM for all.”

Spec lead Brian Goetz, in picking up the award, remarked, “This is something we’ve been working on for three-and-a-half-years and it’s nice to be looking at it through the rear-view mirror.”

Outstanding Adopt-a-JSR Participant

--BeJUG, Johan Vos

--CeJUG, Helio Frota, Hildeberto Mendonça

--JUG Chennai, Rajmahendra (Raj) Hegde

--Morocco JUG and EGJUG, Mohamed Taman, Faissal Boutaounte

The winner was Morocco JUG and EGJUG, Mohamed Taman, and Faissal Boutaounte, who were praised, “For adopting JSR 339, JAX-RS 2.0 specification, along with many other JSRs. One JIRA issue filed by Morocco JUG on JSR 339 was classified as a ‘release-stopper’. A quick JIRA search using the ‘adoptajsr’ tag shows that most of the JIRA issues have been created by MoroccoJUG members. Several presentations and source code have been organized by these groups. Mohamed presented sessions about the upcoming technologies to widen the range of users in the future, especially Java EE 7 JSRs and spreading of community progress and contributions that make us encouraged to participate. Mohamed sent a clear message that Africa is here and is full of talented people who are willing to take it to the next level. Mohamed was responsible for translating an Arabic Adopt-s-JSR web page to allow more Arabs to participate.”

Taman said that, “Currently, I hold two positions, one as a Business Solutions Systems Architect and design supervisor and Java Team leader, at a big financial services company in Egypt, which affects all the country by building solutions affecting Egyptians every day, by providing more facilities for businesses and enhancing the economy… I am passionate about Java. I really love it and have fun coding, and love seeing it grow, day by day, as if it were my kid.”

The Annual Java Community Process Program Awards at  JavaOne is an event and party not to be missed!

The Java Community Process