Tomcat 6.0 Comet support allows a servlet to process IO asynchronously, recieving events when data is available for reading on the connection , and writing data back on connections asynchronously.

Servlet 3.0 specification is currently under Review Ballot at Java Community Process - JCP as Java Specification Request JSR-315. Proposed new features include web framework pluggability, EoD (ease of development) features, async and Comet support, security, alignment with other specifications, and various other improvements. It is targeted for inclusion in Java EE 6 with a rough schedule putting final release in Q4 2008.

Summary Of Proposed JSRs for Java SE 7 Platform

JSR 277: Java Module System

JSR 294: Improved modularity support in the Java programming language

JSR 295: Beans binding

JSR 303: Bean validation

JSR 292: Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages

JSR 296: Swing application framework

JSR 203: More new I/ O APIs for the Java Platform (NIO.2)

JSR 220: Enterprise JavaBeans™ 3.0

JSR 255: JMX specification, version 2.0

JSR 262: Web services connector for JMX agents

JSR 260: Javadoc™ Tag Technology Update

JSR(s) TBD Java Language changes

In past if you have worked with JDBC than you may know that keeping track of the indices of preparedStatement is very difficult for larger queries having tens of parameters. If you needs to insert or delete a parameter in the middle of a query, you must renumber all the parameters following it. With NamedParameterStatement, instead of question marks, parameters are represented as a colon followed by an identifier. It makes easier to insert delete or modify parameters in large queries.

First question, which may arise in your mind is ,despite of being a Java developer & a big fan of Java, why have I hosted my own site on a php host? The only reason is cost.Java is too much costly when it comes to hosting a privately-held/budget-aware website, now days hosting a site is a matter of around 1.5 to 6 dollar, but its for php or .Net not for Java,One could get a fairly good shared hosting package for around 1.5-6$ per month for php .Net, but when it comes to Java, its unbelivable. Why so?