The Java Collections Framework
Introduction
J2SE 1.2 was a special one with sufficient quality and it was released in December in nineteen ninety eight and included a set of classes called the Java Collections Framework for manipulating data collections. Early comparisons pitted JGL against the Collections Framework. Even though the two were meant to serve different purposes-JGL was an STL replacement, and the Collections Framework was not. Former C++ developers tended to use JGL because JGL's sheer size required a steep learning curve that came more natural to those already familiar with the STL. JGL had approximately 130 classes and interfaces while the Collections Framework was about 20 percent of that size.
Jakarta Commons Collections component
The Jakarta Commons Collections component, was released in July two thousand one and it was another alternative, which extended J2SE 1.2 APIs with specialized abstract data types and new methods to test set theory. A second version was released in April 2002, adding even more specialized implementations.
Not much changed between the initial release of the Collections Framework and J2SE 1.4's release beyond the addition of a few more classes and interfaces. Support for generic types (i.e., templates) was debated with JSR (Java Specification Request) 14 but didn't make it into the J2SE 1.4 release. JSR 14 released a working prototype for generic-types support, but it is only targeted at the developer community and is unsupported.
JSR 166
JSR 166 was established in this past January. This is a community effort to incorporate much of the high-level concepts in his previously mentioned util.concurrent library into the Java core libraries. And it is so much useful.
Object Space
There is no that much news about Object Space with regard to JGL until the day before J2SE 1.4's release when a company named Recursion Software announced its acquisition of JGL and related Object Space product lines.
JGL 4.0
Delegation Software released JGL 4.0 in July two thousand two, integrating JGL collections and algorithms with the standard Collections Framework. That brings us to today. The present available pieces are:
1. Generic-types support, available as a prototype for JSR 14.
2. Two nonstandard libraries from Doug Lea, evolving into a core standard with JSR 166.
3. The Jakarta Commons Collections component, freely available under the Apache Software License.
4. The Collections Framework, a part of the Java core libraries that defines key interfaces to be shared by all data structure implementations.
5. JGL 4.0.
