[Java 7 Update from Mark Reinhold at Devoxx](http://hamletdarcy.blogspot.com/2008/12/java-7-update-from-mark-reinhold-at.html)

That link has the full list of announcements of stuff that will be in Java 7. This isn’t everything but it’s a good list. Here’s my favorites:

What will be in

• Modularization - 294 and project Jigsaw

Cool.* 292 - JVM Support for dynamic languages

Yay!* Null dereference expressions - Null checks with ‘?’ syntax similar to Groovy… lettingn developers avoid a nest of null checks.

This is objectively awesome. Less code is a big win.* Multi-catch - (yes!) allows a comma seperated list of disjunctive exception types in catch clause.
What will not be in

• BigDecimal syntax

One of the commenters on this post questions the lack of mention for JSR310 which is a revamp of the Date/Time system. I’d love to see this go in and since there’s already a great implementation in use I hope it makes it. Dates are second in my list of complaints right behind BigDecimal in terms of API confusion.

In all, I’ll be excited to see how Java 7 evolves as it comes closer. It’s still a year away probably but it’ll include some nice changes.