This book is a good idea as a quick survey of new features in Java 7, but it is missing a crucial piece. I don't mind that the author did not cover all features in in the survey, but it would have been useful for me see a complete list of other enhancements that were included in Java 7. This way I would know if I was interested in finding more details on something else. I looked up the release notes on the Oracle web site and including an index below in case someone will find that information useful for reference as well. For example, I have to deal with the mixed environment which has Java and non-Java languages, and there are enhancements in that area that are potentially critical for my needs: the Garbage-First Collector and JVM support for non-Java languages. I would have liked to see all areas mentioned, even if there were no additional details.
The areas the author covers are easy to understand and give you just enough details to know if these features are going to be useful/relevant.
From Oracle release notes, the following areas have enhancements in Java 7:
* Swing
* IO and New IO
* Networking
* Security
* Concurrency Utilities
* Rich Internet Applications (RIA)/Deployment
o Requesting and Customizing Applet Decoration in Dragg able Applets
o Embedding JNLP File in Applet Tag
o Deploying without Codebase
o Handling Applet Initialization Status with Event Handlers
* Java 2D
* Java XML - JAXP, JAXB, and JAX-WS
* Internationalization
* java.lang Package
o Multithreaded Custom Class Loaders in Java SE 7
* Java Programming Language
o Binary Literals
o Strings in switch Statements
o The try-with-resources Statement
o Catching Multiple Exception Types and Rethrowing Exceptions with Improved Type Checking
o Underscores in Numeric Literals
o Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation
o Improved Compiler Warnings and Errors When Using Non-Reifiable Formal Parameters with Varargs Methods
* Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
o Java Virtual Machine Support for Non-Java Languages
o Garbage-First Collector
o Java HotSpot Virtual Machine Performance Enhancements
* JDBC
And here is the index from "What's new in Java 7" by Madbusudban Konda.
Language Enhancements
Diamond operator
Using Strings in switch statements
Automated resource management
Numeric Literals with underscores
Improved exception handling
New file system API (NIO 2.0)
Working with Path
File change notifications
Fork and Join
Supporting Dynamism
Ali Julia review
