Oracle, with lead engineer Brian Goetz, have launched an experimental OpenJDK project to bring long-awaited features to the Java platform.

Major enhancements to generics & new ‘value types’ are planned. Highlights include:

• Value Types;  highly-efficient small ‘objects’ without inheritance.
• Reified Generics;  retaining their actual type at runtime.
• Generic Specialization;  List<int> would be valid & highly efficient.
• ‘volatile’ enhancements.

The effort is named Project Valhalla. Here’s a preview: Continue reading →