During these 18-month cycles, Sun does release incremental updates addressing bug and performance issues. However, major functional releases such as Merlin also add or augment existing APIs as well as make changes to the base language. While Merlin does make some small changes to the Java language, Hamilton says that the release limits most changes to performance and API enhancement. A community process Sun did not design the new release behind closed doors. Java is used extensively for large-scale server development.
Quality is more important that new features.
Performance and scalability are very important. Producing a solid, reliable release for both the client and server is paramount. Just as Merlin's specification has been developed under the JCP, so to has every new feature. Smaller changes are handled through the JCP maintenance rules. Hamilton used the rest of his session to outline new functionality, point out what functionality didn't make it into the release, and give the attendees a status on the beta.