Java Tiger (Java 5) is a history now after one more release from the sun, now we have Java 6. Sun has finally announced the availability of Java Standard Edition 6‘ final release.
The new release has an improved JIT, with better runtime analysis. This has been well tested and agreed upon by the users of the pre-release version. Those who used the pre-release version have put the improvement in performance between 5%- 24%. The new release also has dynamic language support as now it comes with JavaScript engine (Netscape’s Rhino) and support for many other scripting languages like Ruby, and Python.
For the guys who are working with the rich clients, the new release has splash screen, system tray support etc.
The new Java6 profilers and debuggers can now attach to a running JVM without specifically using a debugging-capable configuration. For example, if a problem is found at run-time for a production server, a debugger can attach to it without restarting the server, a valuable feature for issues that show up after the server has been running for a long period. This is a great feature for the guys in the enterprise community.
You can read more in detail at http://java.sun.com/javase/6/
Happy Programming!