I recently enjoyed reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. In his book, Bill goes back to basics and delves into the history of many things we take as facts. One memorable observation is a reminder that we are all just collections of trillions of atoms assembled in a unique configuration, a one off, never to be repeated again.

Given this cosmological randomness I'm at a loss to explain how we ended up with two very fine articles about JNI this month. The random skew doesn't end there. I recently presented a session at the JavaOne conference about the J2SE 5.0 release, code named "Tiger." At the same time, Apple was headlining the OS X.4 release at the WorldWide Developer Conference, barely a block away, and their release was also code named "Tiger."

However, this is where the parallel universe stops. While Apple users were bemoaning the lack of access to key information like bug reports, the Java community was treated to a cute tiger cub, new open source projects, Java3D and Project Looking Glass, and the arrival of the next update to the Java platform, now renamed J2SE 5.0.

I have attended all nine JavaOne conferences and this year's conference reminded me of some of the best. Packed with technical content and with nearly 15,000 attendees, it represented a renewal in the community. A renewal that will result in new tools, new books, and new products based on the J2SE 5.0 foundation. By the time you read this, the J2SE 5.0 JSRs will be heading into the final stages of the Java Community Process, the Final Approval Ballot. Although that marks the end of the JCP and engineering cycle, it also represents the first day of J2SE 5.0 in real deployments and ultimately the success of the platform.

You may be thinking, what's in it for me, the regular JDJ reader? Well, I will make two promises. First, expect the same high-quality technical articles that you have been used to. I've been reading and writing for JDJ for many years and wouldn't settle for anything less. My second promise is that there will be a special focus on J2SE 5.0 throughout the year. Don't worry, there will still be room for content for older releases too.

There has been a fair amount of attention centered on the language features, like Generics, Metadata, and the enhanced for loop, to name a few. The language changes are certainly a core part of the release; however, there are many other features that are just as useful yet not as well known. Features like performance and monitoring can be used with existing applications without changing a single line of code. Some features, like the new profiling API, will require a fair amount of porting. To help make that transition easier, I will be searching for case studies. My aim is to give you the tools and techniques to ramp up to using J2SE 5.0. This is also your opportunity to help out fellow developers. If you are interested in writing some J2SE 5.0 material, please send your proposal to grids.sys-con.com/proposal.

Finally, I would like to thank Joe Ottinger for steering the JDJ ship for the past year. Joe suggested I use my J2SE 5.0 experience to guide the core section this year and I hope to make good on that suggestion. Let us make this a year to remember.