Why will there be no native properties in Java 7?

Question

Is there any rational reason, why native properties will not be part of Java 7?

Answer 1

There are some high-level reasons related to schedule and resources of course. Implementation of properties and understanding all of the ramifications and intersections with other language features is a large task similar to the size of various Java 5 language changes.

But I think the real reason Sun is not pushing properties is the same as closures:

1) There is no consensus on what the implementation should look like. Or rather, there are many competing alternatives and people who are passionate about properties disagree about crucial parts of the implementation.

2) Perhaps more importantly, there is a significant lack of consensus about whether the feature is wanted at all. While many people want properties, there are also many people that don't think it's necessary or useful (in particular, I think server-side people see properties as far less crucial to their daily life than swing programmers).

Properties history here:

• http://tech.puredanger.com/java7#property