Why collection literals?

Question

From the various online articles on Java 7 I have come to know that Java 7 will be having collection literals¹ like the following:

List

        

Answer 1

They might have been inspired by the declarative programming style of JavaFX. If that is the case however, I'm disappointed that they didn't go all the way to support object literals as well. Here's an example of object literals in JavaFX:

Stage {
    title: "Group-Nodes-Transformation"
    scene: Scene {
        width: 600
        height: 600
        content: Group {
            content: [
                Circle {
                    centerX: 300
                    centerY: 300
                    radius: 250
                    fill: Color.WHITE
                    stroke: Color.BLACK
                },
                Text {
                    x: 300
                    y: 300
                    content: "Mr. Duke"
                },
                ImageView {
                    image: Image {
                        url: "D:\\TEST\\Documents\\duke.png"
                        width:50
                        height:50
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    }
}

I think that this style of programming certainly lends itself to certain application areas. In the end it's always a matter of taste...