This fact has somehow slipped by me unnoticed so far: As the JSR-341 websites claim, Java is going to add full .NET-Style LINQ support to its expression language 3.0!
While the JSR-341 website doesn’t explicitly mention these feature additions to the expression language, a lot of details can be seen here:
http://java.net/projects/el-spec/pages/CollectionOperations
This is very interesting, and raises a lot of questions:
- Is Microsoft on board – i.e. are they part of the expert group?
- Will Microsoft surrender / sell their LINQ-related patents to Oracle?
- … or will Oracle challenge those patents?
- Why would LINQ be added to the EL before it is added to the platform?
Anyway, the mailing lists don’t seem very active and the draft specs is still in a rather early stage. We’ll see where this goes, but this is clearly an addition that I will follow closely in the future!
See also my previous blog post on the subject
Yup, that definitely to keep an eye on. I’d personally love to see something like LINQ integrated natively into the Java platform.
But, taking into account the glacial speed that new features land into Java that’s probably matter of more than a few years from now.
I’m not sure if a “native” integration can happen any time soon. It was a huge effort for Microsoft’s .NET to enhance both the platform and the various languages to accommodate LINQ. I don’t see that happening in Java any time soon.
As for an interpreted (not compiled) implementation in the EL specs, I see better chances. However, I don’t really see the point, as LINQ *should* be typesafe and compiled