Java News

Hibernate 2.0 final version is out.  Download at SourceForge.  2.0 adds "powerful new query language features, JCA support, and much more."  I played around with 1.0 versions and it was pretty simple to use.  I wouldn't recommend it for enterprise applications, but it has proved it's worth in small projects.  Roller, a java-based blog server, switched to Hibernate and improved performance significantly.

Java Web Services Developer Pack 1.2 is out.  WSDP is basically a web services platform for Java developers, meaning no production use.  While it has latest versions of production-quality XML packages, significant number of packages are Early Access versions.  For example, it comes with Alpha version of Tomcat version 5.  Expect some blood in your hands if you want to play.  As for me, I have butcher's hands when it comes to technologies.