Sun has recently the new update for the Java 6 platform after one year of beta testing. We’ll see in this article what are the most important changes and news in this release.

Probably the most evident change is that the Java6 comes packaged with the Java DB, which is a Sun’s supported distribution of the open source Apache Derby. Java DB is known for its versatility so that it can be deployed anywhere from embedded applications to medium/big size applications even with complex features like data replication or disk encryption.

But what Sun has been mostly working on for the update 10 is the Java plug-in, which offers a much better approach for executing Java code on browsers.

With the Java Plug-in the java applets won’t be executed anymore in the same system process as for the browser; a new virtual machine will be instanciated and the applet executed in there.The Java Plug-in will take care of the communications between the browser and the application.

This grants more stability. For example if a java applet becomes irresponsive, the Java Plug-in will handle the error, not affecting the browser process.

With the Java Plug-in each applet is now able to choose it’s specific runtime version, clearing the way from possible compatibility issues.

The update 10 has a new, completely rewritten bridge for communications between Javascript and the Java programming language, the  new bridge has been reimplemented. The new implementation is backward compatible and it improves reliability, performances and cross browser portability.

The Java-live feature, formerly available only for firefox is now available on all browsers. this means that now javascript can call static Java Functions without too much troubling.

I believe this new update has some fascinating new features, I look forward to have some spare time to test them, I’ll post my esperiments on WikiJava.