2007 Java Predictions

jg21 writes "Java Developer's Journal has published the results of its end-of-year poll of various Internet technology players, from its own internal editors to industry high-ups like the founder of Apress, Gary Cornell, and including too the thoughts of professor Tony Wasserman of Carnegie Mellon West. Participants were asked to foretell what they saw happening in 2007. Among the predictions — Cornell: 'The open-sourcing of Java will have no effect whatsoever on Java's slow decline in favor of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python) and C#'; Wasserman: 'The use of the GPL 2 for open-sourcing Java will inhibit the completion and acceptance of the GPL 3 proposal'; and Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson: 'The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.'"

Comments

Java's dead!

[Rik Sweeney]

I read this on a messageboard years ago, it still makes me laugh to this day:

No one uses Java anymore, it's all flash these days.

Re:Java's dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently Cornell doesn't realize C#/.Net is just Microsoft's implementation of a p-machine and framework, the same as Java.

What makes you think that realising that stands in the way of it becoming more popular?

Umm...what stigma?

[Aphrika]

'The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.'

Am I missing something here, I was unaware that there was a stigma attached to being a web programmer using Windows. Right tools for the job, whether it's Ruby on Rails or not I'm afraid. Last project was PHP on Apache and MySQL, current project is ASP.NET and SQL Server 2005. My next project will be PHP on Windows using MySQL and IIS. I do what's best for my clients, not what's flavour of the month.

Attaching a stigma to certain platforms or technologies for certain jobs is just stupid and childish. Are we going to start lambasting publishers that don't use Macs next, or Linux users that do accounting on their machines? Bizarre...

Re:Umm...what stigma?

[Aphrika]

Interesting. Well firstly I'd like to say that I don't consider myself a fanboy of any particular database/OS/web server/development product, I work to solve problems, not increase/decrease some software/hardware company's market share.

In most cases, SQL Server is right becasue a company has in-house SQL Server Admins and deploying another database platform is a waste on company resources. That would entail another complete platform and maintenance/admin skillset. In many cases companies don't want this, which makes perfect sense as there's no point having a disparate bunch of technologies that you need to manage. If I was ever deploying a .NET solution, SQL Server 2000/2005 is also what I'd recommend as it talks to .NET code much more effectively than MySQL or other alternatives. Performance of SQL Server against MySQL with .NET code is way better to the extent that I wouldn't recommend MySQL in that situation, regardless of deployment cost. As you work with various platforms, technologies and languages, you tend to fit the ones which fit together best - that's something that comes with experience. You also have to look at an outfit before you start on a new database project. If a company is using a lot of Windows boxes, has sysadmins who are Windows-based, then chances are that they'll be much more at home doing admin of a SQL Server on a Windows platform. In an ideal world, I'd all roll out what I personally love best. In a business world (the real world) I roll out what's best long term for the client, and that's looking at return on investments, total costs of ownership and what they already have in place. There's no point in rolling a shiny new Windows 2003 server into an Oracle datacenter and asking them to admin it. These are all factors that'll affect what I'm recommending/using/deploying.

Personally speaking, I've never had any issus with any SQL Server versions in either performance, scaling or security. A well installed, maintained and managed setup will work really well and be considerably cheaper than alternatives such as Oracle. While MySQL may be cheaper, it's not as fully featured as SQL Server. Off the top of my head, I reckon I've dealt with around 40 or 50 SQL Server setups since version 6.5 and I don't have a bad word to say about them - never had an intrusion, never had database corruption, havce ported databases between machines with no problems, run them on VMware etc. etc. It's certainly one of Microsoft's better technology platforms and though many people would like me to, I can't really fault it. Same goes for MySQL - I like it and I use it where necessary and relevant, i.e. conversely, I'd tend to roll out MySQL in a Linux-house if I were developing PHP on Apache for instance. As I said earlier, you find technologies fit together through experience.

Although as with anything out there, chances are someone's had some really bad experiences with it and couldn't recommend it though personal experiences, YMMV.

Hope that answers your question though.

Re:Umm...what stigma?

[SageMusings]

My experience has revealed a lot of Linux web developers are "learn PHP in 21 days" types. We weed you guys out at interviews all the time.

it isn't to say there are not Linux web developers out there that are not sharp as a tack, but by average --- there is a clear difference.

That quote was out of context

[brokeninside]

Hansson's prediction was that Apple will become the development platform of choice for techies and, consequently, other developers will laugh at any web devs saddled with using a Windows based laptop.

Trollpost

[Elektroschock]

Is is an ivory tower troll. In fact almost no one uses ruby. It may be hot among Nerds and its growing. Java went into the enterprises in the 90th as Cobol did before. C++ was less usable for enterprises. Java looked good and fostered plattform independency, helped to increase interoperability. "Java to go" is as off-topic as the prediction that FreeBSD would take over Linux. Ruby and Python are upcoming languages. Growing but you have to wait for another five years. Open Source Java will mean all Linux systems will ship free Java. Java will get a working GNU compiler native compilation. Java will be the trusted alternative to -- arrrgh patents --- Mono for enterprise applications. SUN knew exactly why they did it. Linux will become a strong Java plattform and with Linux on so many servers that will give Java and Linux a boost.

Re:Ever used Eclipse?

[drerwk]

Didn't have you coffee yet this morning?
The parent makes a living programming J2EE. He might even use Eclipse.
I think for many folks Java is used to write software that does not see the front of a web page.
In fact I have not used Java on the client side since about '98. But I write far more Java now than I did back then. I hope that the work Ethan Nicholas is doing to will help, but frankly Flash works fine for many web pages. And as long as I don't have to write the Flash code I'm fine with that. Is it still programming via dialog box? Can I use svn with my Flash code these days? I also hear AJAX is popular and effective for client side work. Anyway, Java is not likely to die anytime soon.

My own predictions

[mgkimsal2]

In no particular order:

Java as Open Source will help in creating smaller versions - perhaps very lightweight browser-plugins - optimized for particular use (media, number crunching, etc.). These browser plugins will help revive Java as a thin-client/web2.0 (3.0?) player in browser-based apps, possibly even making some small inroads against Flash. The 'apollo' project from Adobe may put the kibosh on this, but the increased-eyeballs angle will likely prevent a complete obliteration from happening to desktop Java.

Java will become even faster. Although this has happened in 2006, with the release of Java 6, the full impact will be a refitting of the niche Java apps out there to work specifically with Java 6 and the speed improvements there. This will give some Java some good PR points and case studies with the 'Java is slow' crowd (which I'm definately a member of).

(As I think one of the panelists in the article said) - there will be a greater acceptance of dynamic languages (ruby/php/python/etc) in Java shops, as Java6's support for dynamic languages (JSR 223 I think) will help increase productivity for Java devs willing to think outside their javaBox.

JAVA and GLP v3

[MMC Monster]

Did anyone really expect JAVA to be released as GPL v3? A license that hasn't even been written yet? Or wait until GPL v3 is released (is there a set date for that?)?

Re:Crystal Ball time...

[Anonymous Coward]

e) No major OEM computer maker will add the Sun JRE as a default part of their desktop, despite it being released as GPL.

My parents recently bought a new HP computer that came with the SUN JRE preinstalled.

Re:I think they're right

[Timesprout]

Of course, if Java had been an open standard for the past 10 years, there'd be dozens of independent implementations right now

I love statements like this. The specs for the language have been available since day one. There are a couple of very good alternative implementations (free as in beer) and some very mediocre OSS attempts. Its been a constant source of amusement to me that for all the 'we have all the best developers etc etc etc' the 'community' has harped on at Sun for years to open source because basically they have been unable to produce a comparable implementation on their own. It's for this reason I think Sun opening Java fully will make sod all difference, just as opening Solaris made sod all difference (yes different licence but very much a case of 'ta we'll just cherry pick the good stuff like dtrace and port it to linux').

Re:Ever used Eclipse?

[Directrix1]

I am personally really excited about Java becoming free. I quit using it a few years ago because of Stallman's The Java Trap (that and the dark side of easy unmaintainable web development in PHP drew me in... stupid me). I'm currently reevaluating Java right now and Python is really shaping up for the server side too. But back to the point, people forget that there is a MASSIVE collection of libraries out there for Java. And I mean massive. Check apache.org just for a little taste.

No Agreement

[WED Fan]

AJAX is dying. AJAX will grow. AJAX has no future. AJAX has a future.

JAVA is irrelevent. JAVA will grow.

Apple is irrelevent. Apple is irrelevent...oh, they agreed.

Anyway, anyone who takes these kind of articles seriously are wasting their time. Our shop does IIS, ASP.NET, SQL2005, Ruby-on-Rails, MySQL, VB.NET, C#, C++, Borland, MS, and Linux OSS flavors. In other words, we have the tools and the skills to do what is necessary to get the job done, the way our CUSTOMER needs it to be done. No tech prima-dona BS of telling the customer that we won't give them what they want. If the customer doesn't have implementation requirements, then we determine what they need, suggest and then build on their approval.

Re:I think they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Java has only in part been the license; mostly, it has been Sun's stifling control over the platform

You mean like preventing MSFT from writing their own incomptable version? How long have you been following java for? What exactly has Sun been stifling? Name a couple of things.

As a result, Java has numerous technical problems.

Such as?

It's cheaper.

[FatSean]

You don't have to buy the all-show no-go over-priced Apple hardware.

Re:David Heinemeier is a troll

[blowdart]

Except he's right! Windows is good for office applications and games, professionals* shouldn't be using it for anything.

Oh please, use what's right for your environment. And frankly in the web space what's on the back end shouldn't matter one bit, it all pumps out HTML/XHTML/RSS/whatever. Unless of course he's saying that Ruby just sucks on Windows; in which case whose fault is that really?

Re:Java is doing better than ever IMHO.

[TheNarrator]

Using an IDE no matter if one is a rockstar or an average programmer is going to make work go quicker. There's more than enough things to think about on any given project and and IDE just lets one focus better on the more interesting parts of the project instead of things like repetitively typing import statements.

Re:Ever used Eclipse?

[Maxo-Texas]

Java is great for writing business rules and the back end and for industrial enterprise level scalable code.

Other things are better for the front end these days. No big deal.

Front ends change a lot. Business rules tend to be stable. Do you really want to redevelop all your business rule every 3 to 5 years? With java, you write it once and for the foreseeable future don't have to rewrite it. But java is a bit heavy for fast moving stuff.

I Just. Don't. Get. It.

[IdahoEv]

The entire IT reporting industry, and Slashdot. Writes about languages these days as if there is only one task in the world: web apps whereby users insert and retrieve basic data to/from a database. Yeah, for those apps you bet Java is losing ground to modern interpreted languages.

But there are a thousand other types of projects for which other environments might excel.

One of my current projects is a desktop app that does real-time signal processing on a live microphone feed, and produces a full-screen GUI with output of the signal that updates at 30+ FPS. Between the signal processing and graphics, it needs to do some hundreds of megaflops, effective - interpreted languages are a couple of orders of magnitude slower doing raw math. Java is pushing the low end of speed for this app.

At the same time, we want the benefit of a multiplatform release, because the project is for the education and music professional markets - there are an awful lot of macs among our target market, and our competitors are PC-only. Java has actually come through on the write-once-run-anywhere promise for us, straight down to the live audio input. We're just 2 developers - how much longer would it have taken us to have to port C++ between different platforms' APIs? Way too long. And we can't even consider platform-specific environments like C# or ObjectiveC/Cocoa.

Use the right tool for the right job. There are times when Ruby's the right tool - and times when it ain't. There are plenty of niches still where nothing else can remotely fill Java's shoes.

Cornell = incompetent?

[Matz L.E.]

Cornell: 'The open-sourcing of Java will have no effect whatsoever on Java's slow decline in favor of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python) and C#';

In 2007, apples still won't be oranges.