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Father of Java, James Gosling Unloads
javab0y writes "The folks over at basementcoders did a podcast with James Gosling, The Father of Java, last week at a coffee shop in San Francisco during the JavaOne conference. In a raw and no-holds-barred interview, James let loose on Oracle, the Google Lawsuit, and his experience with IBM. You know its going to be good when he starts out saying, 'I eventually graduated in '83. Went to work for IBM which is, you know, is within the top 10 of my stupidest career decisions I've made.' The podcast was fully transcribed."
It was an hour long interview recorded on a handheld device, and we (basementcoders & TheServerSide) tried to get the transcription out as quickly as possible so those who didn't have the time to listen to the hour long interview could at the very least read through it. There's a few typos in there that we'll fix soon enough, but putting that aside, you really get to the heart of what's driving Gosling and what he hopes for the future of Java.
I hope he makes a new language called "Foam"... you know, what goes on top of a good cup of coffee?
I have plenty of respect for the guy's technical prowess. He was definitely also in the right place at the right time but also undoubtedly technically brilliant. And yet he runs his career like a schoolboy. You just don't go around openly rubbishing former employers like that as it makes prospective employers wary. After all you'll probably rubbish them when you're done too. I wonder how many opportunities he's missed acting that way.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Back when I was in high school and java was new I was taking a comp sci class where we were given the names of important people in the IT industry and asked to write a report on who they were and why they're important. I googled his name on altavista.com (there was no google) and found nothing (no wikipedia at the time) except an email address at Sun. So I emailed him a list of everything I needed to know and promptly received a reply. Good luck reaching any IT big wig these days.
So, that particular case is one I've been drawn into over and over again for years. If we could do benchmarks on sine and cosign on intel chips compared to C. We beat C on just about everything except benchmarks on Sine and cosign. It turns out there's a small issue with the way the sine and cosign hardware is implemented in the spec on the intel platform. And we actually work around it in software. For the ranges from plus or minus five, we are close to intel speeds. You get the larger values, where the intel thing rips. So lots of folks who use math on the Java platform because we do it accurately. We put a lot of effort into it.
The thing that I'm not sure about, the part about "benchmarks" - is he also referring to performance, as in, speed?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I went in expecting Gosling to have formulated this whole platform full of talking points why Oracle should do this, that, and the other, but instead I got a pretty cogent assessment which jibes with just about everything I suspected as an outsider. Oracle exists to make money and is very aggressive in its tactics: true. Android violates Sun patents: true. He even goes so far to say he would have no problem with Oracle maintaining stewardship of Java if it does right by the community (though he's a little unclear what he's referring to there).
The interviewers seem more eager to go with the whole "Oracle is the Devil" angle than Gosling. Gosling seems to more be saying Oracle has a tendency to be a bully, and who can argue with that?
On the other hand, I wish someone could have gone through the transcript and done a global search-and-replace for "intel" and "cosign," at least...
Breakfast served all day!
I actually did not know, until today, that Microsoft was paying a Java patent license fee for .NET's design.
Just before he said the above, he said this, which is probably obvious to many people, but I found it poignant all the same:
The Internet is full. Go away.
2. This isn't your typical dime a dozen BSCS or BSEE cubical wage slave that be easily replaced.
3. Unlike the folks in #2, he can say, "I created billions of dollars worth of revenue for x,y,z"
Of course he'll get hired - even by big unimaginative corporations who like their cookie-cutter employees.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I'll answer my own question: http://media.techtarget.com/TheServerSideCOM/downloads/James_Gosling_Interview.mp3
I skimmed the whole thing, and read a few good chunks of it, in about 5 minutes. Much better than listening to a full hour-plus of audio. Thanks to whoever did that!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I browsed through the interview and hope I can listen to the podcast soon.
He says some neat things:
Some...well...things that I don't think I can get behind:
and some interesting:
I'm still not sure how to regard Oracle right now, but I'm comfortable with the idea that Java needs a permanent and legal separate existence from Oracle.
import system.cool.Sig;
I have to laugh at his comments about oracle. and the oracle view of 'The Tee Shirt' (tm).
speaking of tee shirts, while at sun there was a 'java anniversary party' and mr java himself was there. some cute photos from the event, a few years back (when sun was still kind of fun to be at):
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/221/472512518_4f70840cd2_z.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/19/121342959_449ed7dea0_z.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/472513502_682f02afc2_z.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/19/121338473_07823a9da0_z.jpg
RIP sun. we all miss you.
and, duke, please turn out the lights when you leave, okay?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Without James I would only have to maintain half the servers I do today and would likely be out of a job.
Got Code?
I'd give you the link, but I haven't found the audio equivalent of goatse yet.
He needs to focus less on freedom, and more on achieving some semblance of feature parity with .NET. Microsoft is so far ahead with C# and CLR it's not even funny anymore. Dear James, why the fuck can't I new up an array of fully specialized generic objects in Java in year 2010? I mean, this is just bizarre crap. And this guy just keeps going around and telling everyone how much of a genius he is.
Go to school or not. Go to graduate school or not. Go to IBM or not. Go to Sun or not. Stay at Oracle or not.
It looks like he's had under 10 career moves total, so by definition aren't all of them in the top 10 worst? (And also all are in the top 10 best).
Did he stop everyone from working while he cleaned out his desk?
C-x C-s C-x k
I thought he either defecated or ejaculated.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"IBM's been kind of weird on the whole topic because on the one hand they do everything they can to try and screw Sun over, I mean they didn't name Eclipse casually"
Never crossed my mind but once pointed out it's obvious that an Eclipse is what can defeat the Sun!
You got your wires crossed. He's talking about MS licensing Java technology that they copied for .NET.
Nothing to do with MS's java implementation.
"Microsoft .NET just smears over a huge pile of Sun patents. When they did the .NET design, they basically cut and pasted from the Java spec. "
Ok, since he's unloading, let me "unload" too.
Mr. Gosling, the only reason Java is any good at all is because large numbers of technically competent people (many of them at IBM) fixed up the bad design decisions you made and patched up your horrible implementation. Unfortunately, there are limits to how much one can fix if a language is as broken as Java 1.0 was.
You have some gall criticizing Dalvik, which runs efficiently, unbloated, and apparently quite securely on millions of phones. The sandbox on your Java design and implementation on the other hand was insecure and buggy both conceptually and in terms of implementation, as a never ending stream of published problems showed. Of course, since Java failed for applets, hardly anybody cares anymore; nowadays, Java's sandbox is just bloat for most users.
And all the while you were promoting Java as an "open" language, you knew that it was covered by Sun patents that made any independent implementation impossible, what a cynical and evil thing to do.
Fortunately, its awful UI libraries kept Java from achieving any significance on the desktop or web, and for most server side software, people have developed alternatives based on less bloated platforms that are easier to develop for.
And of course, it's Java that sucked up all the development resources at Sun without yielding much in terms of revenue; it's the reason Sun eventually went out of business. And mobile Java's poor performance, poor compatibility, and horrible user interface killed mobile applications development until Apple came out with iPhone. What is Java going to kill next?
Python, Perl, Tcl, Lua, and CLR all run on many platforms. Python with Gtk+ or Qt is a much better cross-platform environment than Java: easier to develop for, with better desktop integration, and nicer looking UIs.
I don't know of any mainstream language or VM other than the old VisualBasic that ran on a single platform. Gtk+, Qt, and wx all are cross-platform toolkits, better than anything Java has ever provided.
(Besides, Sun didn't even design or develop Swing, they bought it.)