What is new in jdk1.4?

1. Classes and interfaces: from 212(jdk1.0) to 2738
2. jdk1.4 specification is defined and developed by the diversity of the Java community, not only by SUN now.
3. A new keyword assert is added in.
4. Support for the latest hardware and software like IPv6 networking support and 64-bit support for Solaris.
5. A regular expression facility (a hidden perl in J2SE 1.4)
6. A preferences facility (store user preferences with very little effort)
7. New I/O-Related Capabilities
   • A new logging API
   • Scalable I/O operations for both sockets and files
   • Regular expression package for pattern matching
   • Encoders and decoders for character set conversions
   • Improved file system support like file locking and memory mapping
8. New JFC Capabilities
   Improvements to:
   • AWT(graphics)
   • Swing(JFormattedTextField, sequenced selection, JSpinner, etc.)
   • Drag and Drop
   • Java 2D
   • Printing API
   • A new Image I/O framework(pluggable architecture for loading and saving images)
9. New Deployment Facilities
   • Update to Java Plug-in(support for accessing the Common DOM API, processing XML API)
   • Standard support for Java Web Start
   • Support for directly replacing the browser JVM, enabling support of the <Applet>tag in IE4.0+ and NS6.0
10. Extensions Become Standard
    • Standard XML features
      • Support for processing Document Object Model(DOM)(level 2)
      • Support for Simple API for XML(SAX) 2.0
      • XSL Transformations(XSLT) 1.0
    • CORBA capabilities
    • JDBC 3.0 capabilities
11. New security features:
    • Kerberos V5 support
    • Certificate chain building
    • 3 new libraries:
      • The Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) API, offering encryption and decryption capabilities.
      • Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) API, providing support for Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS).
      • Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS), offering identity-based permissions for access control.
12. The above list is not exhausted, just list them for your information.