I don't think anyone would disagree with you; we definitely went through a stagnation of Java between 6 and 7 where it seemed Sun was trying to find it's footing with Java, trying to not sink the company, trying to be bought up, trying to figure out where Netbeans fit in the scheme of everything, etc. etc.
It is like the Java world hit the 'pause' button on really ambitious stuff for a few years and the only things that got into releases were the laser-sharp-focused features that the teams needed no variation on. They knew exactly what the feature was, where to take it and when to ship it.
I think it was for the better, because now there is all this pent up energy getting reinjected into the platform and we'll see 8 next year with the rest of all these goodies and hopefully 9/10 2 years after that.
Pretty good recovery IMO. At least it didn't languish and die a horrible death or something.
It is like the Java world hit the 'pause' button on really ambitious stuff for a few years and the only things that got into releases were the laser-sharp-focused features that the teams needed no variation on. They knew exactly what the feature was, where to take it and when to ship it.
I think it was for the better, because now there is all this pent up energy getting reinjected into the platform and we'll see 8 next year with the rest of all these goodies and hopefully 9/10 2 years after that.
Pretty good recovery IMO. At least it didn't languish and die a horrible death or something.