App Engine 1.7.3 Released

For our October release we have a number of offerings, fixes, and small refinements as colorful as the fall season.



General Enhancements

• Django 1.4 is now fully supported for Python 2.7

• Java classloading priority can now be granted to specific JAR files.  This is an experimental feature. More information can be found here.

App Engine SDK support for Java 7


With Java 7, many new language enhancements have been added, including:

• The ability to use the String class in Switch statements

• Expression of binary literals using simple prefixes 0b or 0B

• Single catch blocks that can handle multiple exceptions

• Improved type inference for generic instance creation

• Auto closing of resources when enclosed within a try-with-resources statement

• Simplified varargs method invocation

We’re happy to announce that as of this release the App Engine Java SDK has support for running and testing your applications using a local Java 7 installation. To get started now, developers should download the latest App Engine Java SDK and a Java SE 7 or JDK 7 distribution. From there they can follow the existing documentation for running and testing applications locally.  


In an upcoming release, we will be including some of the new Java 7 functionality as well as formal Java 7 support within the App Engine Java runtime. Before this is available, we strongly encourage developers to start testing their applications using Java 7 and the latest App Engine Java SDK. 


And while Java 7 support is not yet available within the App Engine Java runtime, developers interested in an early preview can sign up for our trusted tester program.


Want more information?


The complete list of features and bug fixes for 1.7.3 can be found in our release notes. For App Engine coding questions and answers check us out on Stack Overflow, and for general discussion and feedback, find us on our Google Group.

- Posted by the Google App Engine Team