#AboutLastWeek: Angular 2 makes a cameo, blockchain breaks its promise

Each Monday we take a step back and analyze what has happened in the previous week. Last week Angular 2 made a cameo on our portal, Bitcoin’s blockchain steered away from its original purpose and we asked you if Java EE should be developed independently from Oracle.
When will Angular be ready?
We still don’t have an answer to this million-dollar question, but the Angular team has assured impatient developers that updates and additional documentation will continue to pour in the next few months.
Angular 2.0.0-rc2 Now Available! https://t.co/kYx4HLIGTo
— Angular (@angularjs) June 15, 2016
The latest update brings us one step closer to the final release and gives us a flavor of everything that has happened during the last month: countless bug fixes, features and breaking changes. For what it’s worth, the final release of Angular 2 should take place later this year.
What does the stagnation in JavaEE mean for Spring?
Oliver Gierke, the lead of the Spring Data project at Pivotal, formerly known as SpringSource, and member of the JPA 2.1 expert group, told us that even though the relationship between Spring and JavaEE is characterized as “one dominated by competition, if you look at it more closely, you’ll very quickly realize there have always been (and still are) synergetic effects and there are a lot of shades of gray rather than a strong black and white.”
Generally speaking, we’re more focused on the technical merits of individual specifications and never really bothered with the umbrella JSR, with one crucial exception: the schedule. This primarily stems from the fact that API development takes the time it can take. So if the umbrella release is delayed for a couple of months, there’s no incentive for the individual API to finalize sooner.
Gierke opined that the interest of participating parties (in Java EE 8) seems to decline because all the major players are focusing on their Cloud efforts (Oracle with Oracle Cloud, RedHat with OpenShift, IBM with BlueMix, and yes, Pivotal with CloudFoundry). He also revealed that for Spring, “the most important aspect in JavaEE 8 is the Servlet 4.0 API with its HTTP 2.0 support.Should Servlet 4.0 be finalized someday, we’re surely going to add support for that in a minor release,” the lead of the Spring Data project at Pivotal added.
Bitcoin blockchain’s ‘no banks involved’ policy has turned to dust
Bitcoin’s blockchain technology was originally created to “avoid banks,” but according to an article by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), this technology “may end up helping them.” The authors weigh in on the simplicity and speed of transactions and inevitably include Bitcoin in the conversation as they ponder on digital disruption.
Bitcoin—or more precisely, the underlying technology that allows it to function, called distributed ledgers, or blockchain—could allow what many see as radical rewiring of the financial sector.
We’ve asked the International Monetary Fund’s senior communications officer Andreas Adriano, one of the authors, to comment on the blockchain’s use in the financial industry, so keep an eye on JAXenter.com!
Poll: Should Java EE be developed independently from Oracle?
The discussion about the current state of Java EE continues. We’ve asked some Java EE Guardians to comment on the future of Java EE and whether the community should take over the reigns. Now it’s time to ask you the following question: Should Java EE be developed independently from Oracle?
JAXenter offers an important if somewhat premature poll – “Should Java EE be developed independently from Oracle?” https://t.co/hDAjVR8rGv
— Reza Rahman (@reza_rahman) June 17, 2016

If you’d like to give a more complex answer or none of these answers reflects your opinion, please share your viewpoint in the comments section. We look forward to your feedback!
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