Java Creator James Gosling Hired At Google

jfruhlinger writes "Some months after leaving Oracle in a huff, father of Java James Gosling has joined Google. It's not clear what his job responsibilities will be there, but given some of his past statements about Google projects — that Android has no adult supervision, for instance — it will be interesting to see what develops."

Comments

Java

[devozx]

I think Java should just be let go. It's a terrible language coupled with slow runtime libraries that are constantly exploited by drive-by exploits. Java on mobiles is also horrible.. It's just so wrong on so many levels. On the other hand I've noticed C# to be what Java was supposed to be and a lot more. It's an awesome language with easy syntax, it has Visual Studio as development tool (who doesn't love VS?) and a ton of libraries and API support. It also has XNA and DirectX. Anyone who has tried developing for Windows Phone 7 loves it. It's great and so easy. Granted, Linux guys are lagging on the Linux runtime libraries, but that isn't Microsofts fault. C# is the way to go.

Re:Java

[tibbetts]

I would have expected Bill Gates to have a much, much lower Slashdot number.

Re:Java

[Z00L00K]

I think that Java and C# plays in the same division except that Java is a cleaner language than C# which suffers from infections from VB.

But it would be a lot more interesting to see what Gosling comes up with this time.

Re:Java

[Glock27]

Java is a fine language that not only is widely used in a lot of different settings (like, er, Android), but which clearly inspired C#. Without Java C# wouldn't exist, nor would its runtime library so closely mimic Java's.

The other thing to be admired about Java is it brought us the JVM, which hosts fine languages such as Scala and Gosu. Because of the widespread support Java enjoys, the JVM implementations have explored groundbreaking improvements in garbage collection performance, multithreading, IPC techniques and so on.

C#, on the other hand, is directly tied to Windows and will thus continue its descent into irrelevance. Perhaps Mono will start to get traction at some point, but many are wary of possible patent issues.

Re:Java

[mangu]

I would have expected Bill Gates to have a much, much lower Slashdot number.

And I would have expected him to have posted more than one comment.

Re:Java

[spiffmastercow]

I think that Java and C# plays in the same division except that Java is a cleaner language than C# which suffers from infections from VB.

But it would be a lot more interesting to see what Gosling comes up with this time.

Really? I see more influence from Python than VB.

Re:Java

[hsmith]

MS's favorite astroturfer strikes again

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

I generally post as AC.

Re:Java

[Laz10]

I hope that google will pick up Scala soon as a first level language at google.
Scala is just so damn cool and useful.

Re:Java

[diskofish]

C# is an open standard which anyone is free to use. A number of the libraries in Mono are also based on open standards. .NET MVC is MS-PL.

I don't know right now exactly what tech Microsoft has patented, but it's not in their best interest right now to destroy Mono. MVC + Mono + Linux is really the best option for enterprise web right now in my opinion. JSP never really was all it was cracked up to be. MVC ain't perfect, but it's usable.

Re:Java

[trcooper]

I do. And frankly, I prefer eclipse to Visual Studio.

Re:Java

[MetalliQaZ]

Insightful, except for the idea that anything from Microsoft will obviously descend into irrelevance. This is a company that took on government anti-trust assaults less than ten years ago and is still going today. Their mobile platform is way behind iOS and Android, and the jury is still out on the cloud platforms, but think about IE9, Windows, Xbox, and Office. C# has integration possibilities that Java just can't seem to match. JavaFX was a giant bomb, while MS Silverlight is gaining ground. That brings me to Mono. M$ has an interest in growing the platform by any means necessary to try and take on Flash, HTML5, and various mobile platforms. I would develop a product with Mono without worrying about patent issues.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, Linux guys are lagging on the Linux runtime libraries, but that isn't Microsofts fault.

So it wasn't Microsoft's decision to develop .NET for Windows only with no effort to make it cross-platform, leaving the development of Mono to third parties?

Intriguing. Your notions of cause and effect are quite odd. So tell me, if not Microsoft then who could have decided from the get-go to make .NET runtimes a cross-platform library?

I guess you'll just ignore this question, pretend that you never read it. That's the fashionable thing to do when someone raises a point for which you really don't have a good answer other than admitting you were mistaken. Isn't it, you cowards?

Re:Java

[uberjack]

Java paved the way for C#. I prefer C# as well, but you must remember that one of the reasons the language is so good is because it was able to build on top of what Java already had done, and in many cases, learn from its mistakes. I'm hoping that Gosling's new job will yield us a new language, especially in light of Oracle's recent assholery with Android.

Re:Java

[nschubach]

I don't know right now exactly what tech Microsoft has patented, but it's not in their best interest right now to destroy Mono.

Yeah, not right now. It's truly best for them to wait until their competitor is using it, then strike out with the patents. ;)

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Scala is interesting but it's far too easy to create "clever" code in it. I have written stuff that I couldn't easily decipher just a few days later. I consider it worse than even Perl in this respect. It's orders of magnitude worse when sharing code with other programmers.

If you discipline yourself to eliminate the cleverness then you end up with something not unlike any other normal compiled programming language (ie. there is no point in using Scala).

I do like some of the ideas in Scala but the language needs more robustness in terms of code maintainability. Lisp suffers from the same problem. It is possible to be too flexible and support too many programming paradigms at once.

Re:Java

[nschubach]

Of course he'll ignore it. It's a common troll lately posting only positive things on Microsoft articles and negative things on anything Google. He's resorted to creating new accounts and posting first post on these articles and dumping the account afterward:

Here are some of the common accounts... I know there are more than just this though:
http://slashdot.org/~devxo
http://slashdot.org/~deviok
http://slashdot.org/~devozx

Re:Java

[causality]

.NET MVC is MS-PL.

And MS-PL is not compatible with the GPL. If Microsoft really wanted to join hands with the Open Source community they wouldn't have deliberately created a license that is incompatible with the way the vast, vast majority of Open Source projects are licensed. I ignore their words. When I listen to their actions, the message is that they want to make a token gesture of openness that has severely limited practical use while discouraging community forks, all of which serves to make it possible for them to regain complete control if they later change their mind.

It's amazing how effective token gestures like this are, how impressed by them people can be. Really it's business as usual: if you want to actually benefit from the source they have provided you either do it Microsoft's way or you don't get to do it at all. Source that an Open Source developer can't use in their existing GPL projects may as well be closed source. Nowhere in here do you find any sort of community spirit, a cherishing of "free as in speech", an appreciation of compatibility, or a willingness to deal with the many Open Source developers as equals. It's either the Microsoft Way or the highway and that's why .Net is something I can easily live without, however convenient it may be.

I don't know right now exactly what tech Microsoft has patented, but it's not in their best interest right now to destroy Mono.

No, they usually wait until it becomes much more widespread and ubiquitous before they do that. They're too smart to stop playing nice this early on. A wolf in sheep's clothing doesn't reveal his fangs until he's well within the flock of sheep. They use underhanded techniques like this again and again because they work, because so many fools still don't see it coming after so many examples. Anyone who doesn't understand that this is the way Microsoft operates is either ignorant about their history and the way it repeats itself, a marketer/shill, or just plain naive.

Re:Java

[smelch]

Here is what I hate about C#, and I think it is JavaScript infection (they're doing the same to VB, which is pretty much now C# without braces): implicit and anonymous types. That shit is gross. The last thing I want is to come across this in code

var c = SomeFunction();

function SomeFunction() {
var result;
some code
return result
}

Wow.... really guys? And then you have named parameters in case you want to just... not specify parameters in the order they were declared? What stupid shit. This is unreadable, language weakening syntax sugar. Who is this for? Anytime somebody uses implicit typing in C# or VB I want to stab them. In the dickhole. With a bigger dick.

I see the appeal of writing JSON-style types, but its just lazy to not quickly make a struct somewhere. Its a pain in the ass to try to refactor.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

If the GPL crowd wanted to join hands with the Open Source Community they would have made their license compatible with the Mit License
which is free as in free and does not try to shove it down our throats like the brain washed/dead cult called GPL.

Re:Java

[firewrought]

Java is a cleaner language than C# which suffers from infections from VB

Java was clean to a fault though... it so steadfastly refused basic language innovations that the ecosystem moved to this weird hybrid world where every framework has stuff you've got to do from both the XML side and the Java side. Now C# has passed it by and Java's playing a very sloppy game of catch-up. It may yet come out on top because it won a huge installed based at a critical moment in internet history (and C# is starting to sniff to much XML too), but I can't say it's a joy to program in yet...

Re:Java

[abigor]

Actually, anonymous blocks and first-class functions are very powerful and far predate Javascript (by decades). You might want to look into a language called "Lisp" sometime.

Re:Java

[nschubach]

Actually, in JavaScript it would be:

var c = SomeFunction; // no paranthesis

function SomeFunction() { ...
}

And you can think of it like easy pointers in C. Appending the () would execute the method, which would be fine if you were returning the name of another function. Example:

function gimme() {
    function someFunc() { ... }
    return someFunc;
}
gimme()(); // would actually run someFunc

Contrived as that is, there is a usefulness to it that you'd not see immediately if you were only formally trained in OO programming.

Re:Java

[sapgau]

+1

Re:Java

[causality]

If the GPL crowd wanted to join hands with the Open Source Community they would have made their license compatible with the Mit License
which is free as in free and does not try to shove it down our throats like the brain washed/dead cult called GPL.

This is a classic troll that gets rehashed from time to time. That's because those who are willing to value what the GPL does (i.e. the overwhelming majority of all Open Source developers and users) already do so. Those who do not like the GPL have a different set of needs and values and cannot be convinced unless those needs and values change. Of course you knew that, and were counting on the irreconcilability of the positions to troll the more reactive types.

I for one appreciate what the GPL does. Really the only people who would have a solid reason to dislike the GPL are those with a strong desire to use someone else's work without ever having to contribute anything in return. I don't have that desire and I reject the entitlement mentality that would cause it. Those developers who want you to be able to do that with their hard work can always use a BSD-style license. Those who don't want you to be able to do that never owed you anything in the first place and their wishes should be respected.

I do not believe it's a concidence that Open Source as a movement was never anything the average user might have heard of until the GPL. Yes, the BSD license and those like it have been around for much longer, but for a long time they were something with which only geeks would be familiar. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that the most famous and widely-used Open Source software, such as Firefox, Linux, etc. are all GPL licensed.

Re:Java

[GooberToo]

the JVM implementations have explored groundbreaking improvements in garbage collection performance, multithreading, IPC techniques and so on.

Okay, I'll give you gc, but multi-threading and IPC? I do Java and I'm completely unaware of anything they innovated here.

Really, Java's claim to fame is hot JITing and GC'ing. Outside of those, I'm not aware of anything Java innovated.

Re:Java

[smelch]

Um... not to be too hard on you, but I think its really funny you corrected an "error" then went on to explain why the correction is useful, instead of accepting what I wrote as what I wanted to write. All of the text I wrote had to do with implicit and anonymous types, not first class functions. I'm talking about it being a pain in the ass to know what types you are working with when nobody declares them explicitly. I understand functions as objects and have no problem with them. Of course they're very useful. Anonymous types, implicit types. These are the things I think are bullshit, and these are the things that make C# work a little more like JavaScript. You see a lot of anonymous types in the results of web service calls for example because you can just write new { .name = "Fred", .underwear = false }; similar to JSON. However when you go to refactor that somewhere, or want to call that function from somewhere else instead of the webservice, you are dealing with an anonymous type as an object (like the generic object type). Now of course JavaScript didn't invent implicit typing or anonymous types, but I think that is why C# is going that way, as the GUI begins overtaking large portions of the server side's functionality in web development.

Re:Java

[smelch]

Nobody said anything about first class functions, buddy. See my () there? And JavaScript doesn't have to create it to be exerting its influence on C#. C# certainly isn't doing anything because of Lisp, but it is taking on syntax more familiar to javascript writers, because in the web domain jQuery is making it a lot easier to do in the UI what used to be done in the back end.

Re:Java

[tibbetts]

Well-played, sir.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Is because the BSD crowd puts all the energy into code that actually works rather than zealotry.
Famous and widely used does not equate to better, if it does, then by your logic windows is far superior.

Re:Java

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You know, if you're interested in the origins and influence of C# ... you might want to check out it's (main) inventor : Anders Hejlsberg.

Interview on the origin of C# (the short version : Turbo Pascal => Borland Pascal => Delphi (Object pascal). If you've used these different languages, this is beyond obvious : C# is a more concise version of Delphi's Object Pascal)

Frankly, more people should try C#, it's a much more ... complete ... language than java when it comes to language features. It's got all the things java misses, from function references, delegates (which are basically function pointers to class member functions, dear God I can't tell you how much java needs these), full generics (as opposed to type-erasure generics), properties (full getter/setter functionality without the pain), a full VM ... This means that any java program is trivially translated to C#, and can easily be improved from there. The reverse ... oh dear God you don't want to try converting a non-trivial C# program to java.

But as libraries go, C# is a disaster ... Microsoft really should start over from scratch and build a big coherent library (imnsho).

And of course, the things they both do very, very, very well : tool support. While java's (whether you're using eclipse or netbeans or even intellij) is a bit clunky, it's at least there : refactorings, code completion, ... C# has this too, even better than eclipse in my opinion, both on linux and on windows. But, even if C# edges out Java in this regard, both are very usable (as opposed to, say, scala's tool support. Want to learn functional programming ? F# is seriously more usable just because the tools are better)

What's wrong with type-erasure generics ? This would seem an obvious feature for a map class, if an instance doesn't exist yet, create it using the default constructor :

class Map<K, T> {
    public T get(K key) {
        if (contains(key)) return _get(key) else return new T();
    }
}

Can't do it in java ... at all ... never ... Ever wished it would just work like that ? I know I did on many occasions.

Of course one of the better features of java is it's simplicity. It's brain-dead simple, in a way that Visual Basic is, but cleaner. Idiots can easily learn java programming, and fully mastering the language doesn't take all that much more.

Personally I wish google would fork java. Build a JVM (or just a Java++ compiler), and add a lot of features. Decent generics. Function pointers (including, *please* delegates). Properties. Tuples. But keep it some sort of compromise. More extensive than java, not quite as ridiculously complex as scala. Please : no stomping functional bits through everyone's throat, just a real extension to java.

Re:Java

[causality]

I am curious. In what way does the GPL shove anything down anyone's throat? Who is forcing anyone to use it?

If I don't like the terms of, let's say, a car rental then I am free to decide not to rent a car from that company. If I don't like a TV show, I am free to stop watching it. Likewise, if I have a problem with the terms under which code is made available to me, I am free to decide not to use that code. Why isn't that good enough for you?

I would like a real answer to this because it really looks like you have an unreasonable entitlement mentality and are trying to be both a beggar and a chooser. Not only do you want someone else to write code that you can use with no need to pay that person for their efforts, you also want to complain if they don't give it to you in the exact way that you prefer. Do you have any idea how arrogant and selfish that is?

I am a longtime user of Linux and GPL software. I have no complaints. What I have is a strong sense of gratitude. The use of GPL software has greatly benefitted me for years and has enhanced my life in many ways. The people who provide all of that do so without demanding payment. They allow me to make as many copies of their software as I like and distribute it to anyone I want with no concept of "piracy". They let me have the source code and they tell me I can do anything I want with it so long as I don't prevent the next person from enjoying the same privilege, and even that last part would only apply if I choose to distribute my modifications.

Do you think I have any reason to complain? If I have a legitimate complaint, what would be my damages? How have I been harmed by this? The answer: I haven't been harmed by this in the slightest, there is no legitimate complaint, and it's truly amazing that so many people would deliberately allow me to benefit from the fruits of their labors. The only correct response to this is gratitude and respect.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not clear what his job responsibilities will be...

His work in destroying Sun is done. Now; on to Google where he'll probably champion Go!

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing about your complaints is the fact that the GPL crowd reaps code from BSD licensed works, yet, magically does not give back any BSD code.
Nice, insinuating my entitlement mentality when the GPL crowd regularly resorts to propaganda and tries to bully other people and/or companies into giving away their intellectual property for free.

It looks like YOU have an unreasonable entitlement mentality that does not permit other people to have an opinion.

Re:Java

[oliverthered]

Interfaces are generally a good way to go.... but not always...

It would possibly have been nicer if C# has split someone into to distinct modes of language to stop sloppy crap inefficient programming by doits.

Re:Java

[linux_geek_germany]

You seem to confuse open source software with free software (refer to FSF definitions). Despite that I completely agree with your post.

Re:Java

[abigor]

So you object to dynamic typing? Again, maybe you should look into a language called Lisp, "buddy". These highly useful concepts have a long lineage, and ascribing what's happening in C# to Javascript is silly.

Re:Java

[smelch]

Its not dynamic typing. Its implicit typing. Its syntax sugar. The compiler looks at your "var" and says based on context decides what it should be. It never changes after that. So it doesn't have the usefulness of dynamic typing that you find in Lisp (or JavaScript). Anonymous types (as opposed to anonymous functions) are the same way. The compiler creates a type, it just doesn't have a name. I feel like that makes all the difference between useful feature and obnoxious syntax that will be abused. The only thing I can tell that these things are useful for in a .Net world are to make the syntax more familiar to those who use JavaScript, as I see JavaScript to be a much more widely used "language" than Lisp right now. I'm not trying to blast functional programming or insist that javascript did anything groundbreaking. I'm just trying to say C# is trying to make its syntax more accessible to javascripters.

Re:Java

[MetalliQaZ]

Guess I learned my lesson... don't defend Microsoft on /.

Re:Java

[Kalriath]

Well let us know when it finally finishes loading workspaces so you can give us a detailed review.

Re:Java

[alexj33]

You just called their baby ugly. (them being Java fanbois)

Re:Java

[mbkennel]

"Its not dynamic typing. Its implicit typing. Its syntax sugar. The compiler looks at your "var" and says based on context decides what it should be."

Based on the static declared type of the right hand side. Which it had to check already.

I remember using a language with this a long time ago (Sather---beautilful and useful) and found it exceptionally useful, and essentially trivial for the compiler to implement.

It is most important when you want to declare something to to be "something that can hold a result of foo()", and that really is the most cognitively informative and useful type annotation. In fairly complicated generic libraries (C++ STL, e.g.) this is not a trivial win when types could be
T,weird_functor_frobozz>

After all, you can already do bar(foo()) without having to declare the type of the implicitly created temporary, like bar( return_type_of_foo foo() );

The real win comes when you change the return type of foo (which may happen because of some other generic changes). Using local type inference all those explicit dependencies were cut---the program will still compile instead of you having to tediously trace down all sorts of implementation details, because 'var x = Something()', is what you meant to say in the first place---the fact that Something() happened to be declared a footype then was not particularly meaningful.

Re:Java

[Kalriath]

Actually, I think the problem is the Anti-MS trolls and the MS trolls couldn't work out whose side you were on there, resulting in the creation of a paradox which inevitably collapses into a "-1; Flamebait".

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Another new language? I hope not. Although I can't imagine Gosling wanting to work on Go. More likely they want him to beef up the Android stuff (honestly I wish they would just ditch Java completely; it's so awful; they made a huge mistake in picking it for their mobile platform).

Re:Java

[crazycheetah]

Today, you're lucky if you can either defend or attack Microsoft on /.

There's a few posts from both viewpoints modded down as Troll or Flamebait. Mods need to get their heads out of their asses today.

Good bye karma...

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

I know! Why oh why can't Slashdot just become 100% a place where anti-capitalist malcontents rehearse their cliched fabrications with each other, instead of only 99%? It's just not fair!

Re:Java

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would have expected Bill Gates to have a much, much lower Slashdot number.

Please, you and I had Slashdot accounts when Bill Gates was still saying that the Internet was a fad.

Re:Java

[nschubach]

Gotcha... sorry I didn't catch that. From the example it looked as though you were referencing the (anonymous, though I named mine when I could have returned it directly) first class functions. My mistake.

As far as implicit typing, it can be a good thing in "each" loops, but I agree: It can be misunderstood very easily by a second developer with less knowledge on the requirements or scope of the code.

Re:Java

[t2t10]

Named parameters and type inference were widely considered good ideas long before C# adopted them and are part of most modern programming languages.

The fact that you dislike them suggests that Java's limitations have really warped your mind.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing about your complaints is the fact that the GPL crowd reaps code from BSD licensed works, yet, magically does not give back any BSD code.

Nothing magic about it at all- that's *exactly* how the BSD license works. It permits anyone to relicense derivative code under a proprietary- or simply non-BSD license.

But, of course, we all know this. At this point, the debating points and implications of BSD vs. GPL licensing are well established via endless identical discussions(even if it's equally clear that their merits will never be agreed on by their respective supporters).

My point is that one can't legitimately complain about BSD-licensed code being co-opted into GPL (or any non-BSD-licensed) code, because the freedom to do such things- or rather the lack of the restriction that stops you from doing it- is one of the fundamental touted differences between BSD and GPL licenses.

Of course, the GPL side would argue that such loss of control is why they have a more "restrictive" license. However, that's not the point I'm trying to make myself, I'm not saying that either is better, simply pointing out that attacking any party for exercising a freedom that is a fundamental part of the BSD license (and a fundamental differentiator against the GPL) seems by definition to be counter-productive. Sorry, but you can't have your cake and eat it.

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

Anonymous types and "var" in C# do absolutely zilch to "make syntax more accessible to javascripters", because they do not correspond to anything in JS. In fact, C# "var" is profoundly confusing to someone with JS background, because they expect it to be a variable with a dynamic type, which it is not.

The reason why "var" exists is primarily to handle anonymous types, but secondarily also to avoid unnecessarily repeating yourself, as in:

Dictionary<int,List<string>> d = new Dictionary<int,List<string>>();

This is much more concise with "var", and just as clear. Indeed, most C# coding style guides out there only allow to use "var" where the right-hand side is explicitly spelling out the type in a new-expression or an explicit case, or with anonymous types.

Now the anonymous types themselves. The reason why they're needed is to allow for easy projections in LINQ sequence comprehensions, as in:

var names = from person in people select new { person.FirstName, person.LastName };

The alternative is tuple, which did not exist in .NET 3.5 when anonymous types were added. One could argue that tuples should have been added then. Language designers, however, believed that anonymous types are more readable (as components are named), and represent a more similar concept to existing C# developers.

In any case, since an anonymous type cannot be written down, its use is effectively restricted to a single method body (you cannot return it from the method, because you can't write down the return type for such a method; you can return is as "Object", but then the caller cannot access it because he can't write the type for the downcast). If your code is well-written, with method bodies consisting of at most a few dozen lines, figuring out where the anonymous type comes from is never an issue.

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

There exists a thing called Open Specification Promise, which is basically a pledge by MS not to sue conformant implementations of some specific standards that it has published. Despite the "promise" name, it is in fact legally binding.

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

Ms-PL is a BSD-style license which has a "patent nuke clause" in it (if you sue over a patent, your rights are terminated). Many anti-patent people consider such clauses (which are not unique to Ms-PL; for example, OSL by OSI also included such a clause) to be a good thing. From that perspective, the fact that GPL is incompatible with such a license is a deficiency in GPL.

Re:Java

[spiffmastercow]

You know what I hate about about Java? Having to write code like this:
public class FooBar
{
private Object foo;
public void getFoo() { return foo; }
public void setFoo(Object _foo) { foo = _foo; }

private Object bar;
public void getBar() { return bar; }
public void setBar(Object _bar) { bar = _bar; }
FooBar() { }
}

for (int i = 0; i fooBars[i] = new FooBar();
fooBars[i].setFoo(results[i].getFoo());
fooBars[i].setBar)results[i].getBar());
}


when in C# I can do this:
var fooBars = results.Select(o => new { Foo = o.Foo, Bar = o.Bar });

Re:Java

[mswhippingboy]

But what does this have to do with Mono? .Net is not one of the covered specifications.

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

Re:Java

[mswhippingboy]

they made a huge mistake in picking it for their mobile platform).

I should make such a mistake. Android is blowing the doors off the mobile platform world at a time that no one thought anything could catch Apple. If you saying Google should have used a different base language for Android, you're ignoring the fact that Google bought Android, they didn't develop it. They chose it for it's potential and for the mass of java programmers that would be available to develop for it. Yea, really big mistake.

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

You are indeed correct, and I confused two similar but different things - my apologies. C# and CLR are covered by Microsoft Community Promise. The difference between OSP and CP is described as such on the latter's FAQ:

Q: How is the Community Promise (CP) different from the Open Specification Promise (OSP)?
A: The CP requires that implementations conform to all of required parts of the mandatory portions of the specification.

Re:Java

[williamhb]

Really the only people who would have a solid reason to dislike the GPL are those with a strong desire to use someone else's work without ever having to contribute anything in return.

Or anyone writing open source code that wants to use both a GPL library and a library with an incompatible open source licence. Eg, you cannot combine GPLv2 code with GPLv3 code, and there are many more incompatible open source licences.

Re:Java

[exomondo]

And MS-PL is not compatible with the GPL.

So? Open Source isn't defined by the GPL and the GPL means changing your values to suit the GPL's license restrictions, something less restrictive like BSD or MIT allow you to be open but don't force you into accepting the GPL values.

Re:Java

[WNight]

I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.

How's that unjust war in Iraq that you're funding working out? Building civilization with it? Hmmm?

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

I'm not an American citizen. That said, I do pay my taxes in US these days, so the question is still valid. The answer is that taxes pay for far more than that, and certainly a lot of what I directly enjoy. It is regrettable that so much is squandered, and it is duty of the citizens of a democratic state to minimize that - I wish I could help there, but alas there's little I can do with my present status.

Re:Java

[nschubach]

And if they don't comply to every single nit? Is that a breach and thus lawsuit worthy? Seems like all MS would have to require that the implementation be able to link to some Windows API (say DirectX) and return a certain value then they can consider it a breach of DirectX patent licenses or some other API. It sounds like a loophole to me.

Re:Java

[icebraining]

Funny thing about your complaints is the fact that the GPL crowd reaps code from BSD licensed works, yet, magically does not give back any BSD code.

If you wanted the GPL crowd to contribute back, why didn't you use a license that says that? I hear this guy "Stallman" has a good license to achieve it.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

The BSD license is better simply by virtue of the fact that it's simpler. It does its job without political baggage, without trying to create a "movement" (save that for the restroom, ok?) and doesn't want to bend the world to its will. Those who use it do so because they want to gift the world something without strings attached, only asking for others to remember who wrote it. This means the author has a pure motivation, untainted by fear.

Oh, BTW there are also plenty of big projects that have a different license than GPL (for example: Free/Net/OpenBSD, Apache, PostgreSQL, Perl, Xorg...)

Re:Java

[WNight]

The answer is that taxes pay for far more than that, and certainly a lot of what I directly enjoy.

So war and murder is okay as long as you get bridges and hospitals? Happiness for you and yours?

Under the law it doesn't matter how much you gain, or how secure that oil makes you feel, murder is still murder.

It is regrettable that so much is squandered, and it is duty of the citizens of a democratic state to minimize that

It's not squandered at all, it's spent very deliberately and efficiently to build a state of the art collection of killing machines and train the cultists to operate them.

I wish I could help there, but alas there's little I can do with my present status.

I pretty much guarantee we'd suffer less for not paying taxes than the USA's victims do from their bombs. Even if we don't directly buy the bombs we support governments that prop up the USA (and others, they're only the biggest) by refusing to call them on their abuses and sharing in the spoils.

I don't think we've as much bought civilization as we've exported the barbarism our way of life depends on to foreign countries.

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

So war and murder is okay as long as you get bridges and hospitals? Happiness for you and yours?

War can be necessary ("okay", if you wish) or harmful, it depends on what it is waged for.

In any case, not paying taxes is not the way to go about stopping unjust wars. You might as well suicide for the fear that you get conscripted to fight one eventually (given that US maintains the Selective Service registration, it's not unrealistic) - it's about as much logically connected.

It's not squandered at all, it's spent very deliberately and efficiently to build a state of the art collection of killing machines and train the cultists to operate them.

You give too much credit to US military-industrial complex. You seriously think it's an efficient machine devoted to world domination? Heh... US still has a deficient assault rifle, the most basic thing! - for 40 years now - with numerous attempts to replace it mysteriously failing. Or remember B-2 at $2B per item, without much to show for it. There are many similar examples in other areas. Nah, the "best of the best" is mostly propaganda, and in reality it's mostly a fertile grazing ground for enterprises involved in production of various military equipment.

Even if we don't directly buy the bombs we support governments that prop up the USA (and others, they're only the biggest) by refusing to call them on their abuses and sharing in the spoils.

I dunno, I don't exactly hide my views on US foreign policy. Aside from that, as I noted in my earlier post, my participation in political process is limited for reasons outside my control.

I don't think we've as much bought civilization as we've exported the barbarism our way of life depends on to foreign countries.

We did? Funny thing, considering that the standard of living in third world countries steadily grew throughout the last century or so. Not the least, I suspect, because of all the humanitarian aid and development investments that are directed there. Bombs are not the only article of export, by far.

Anyway, I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Are you advocating tax resistance to the point of serving time for it? Presumably not, unless you yourself are posting from prison. Then, what?

Re:Java

[WNight]

So war and murder is okay as long as you get bridges and hospitals?

War can be necessary ("okay", if you wish) or harmful, it depends on what it is waged for.

Iraq then, invaded over lies.

In any case, not paying taxes is not the way to go about stopping unjust wars.

Continually paying taxes regardless of what the government does isn't going to do anything either, not paying taxes at least slows it down. (If only, as you suggest, because of the total lack of your economic output plus the cost of jailing you - but therein is the civilization you so proudly buy.)

You might as well suicide for the fear that you get conscripted to fight one eventually (given that US maintains the Selective Service registration, it's not unrealistic) - it's about as much logically connected.

People have gone to prison to avoid being drafted and being forced to murder people even if only indirectly.

It's not squandered at all, it's spent very deliberately and efficiently [...]

You give too much credit to US military-industrial complex.

You mistake pork for inefficiency. That's the system working as designed. But that's missing the point.

Or remember B-2 at $2B per item, without much to show for it. There are many similar examples in other areas. Nah, the "best of the best" is mostly propaganda, and in reality it's mostly a fertile grazing ground for enterprises involved in production of various military equipment.

How many B2s do you have? Or, at that, the entire rest of the world. And AWACS and carrier groups, etc.

Their unbeatable attitude is bravado. They'd be saying the same thing regardless of their prowess, like the famous Iraqi propaganda minister. But they are right this time - they do have far better toys (in war-capable numbers) than anyone else.

But yes, even if all they had was pointy sticks:

to build a [REDACTED] collection of killing machines and train the cultists to operate them.

This is the critical part.

Even if we don't directly buy the bombs we support governments that prop up the USA (and others, they're only the biggest) by refusing to call them on their abuses and sharing in the spoils.

I dunno, I don't exactly hide my views on US foreign policy. Aside from that, as I noted in my earlier post, my participation in political process is limited for reasons outside my control.

You may not sit quietly but if you end up paying the protection money, knowing where it'll go, you're still involved.

I don't think we've as much bought civilization as we've exported the barbarism our way of life depends on to foreign countries.

We did? Funny thing, considering that the standard of living in third world countries steadily grew throughout the last century or so.

The war we have though, we manage not to have at home. Or, usually, anywhere a majority of "us" came from.

That makes it palatable, or forgettable perhaps, and thus we don't think of the consequences. Oil is cheap because the USA, generally speaking, takes over the countries that won't sell it cheaply and installs a dictator (or rather, helps one install himself) and the rest of the world sits back and, while they may decry it, will buy the oil.

It's not the USA specifically that's the problem, it's just the current biggest of a class of problems.

Not the least, I suspect, because of all the humanitarian aid and development investments that are directed there. Bombs are not the only article of export, by far.

By dollar, especially if you count the cost of the bombers/infrastructure, they sure are.

But anyways, yes. We do appease our guil

Re:Java

[shutdown -p now]

Right now, I'm just saying that you should amend your sig to something like "I like taxes, with them I buy civilization at the cost of many war dead ", or perhaps "I like taxes, with them and many, many deaths I buy civilization for me and mine ". It seems more like what we do.

Your original sig contains a valid message, and one I agree with, that paying your share isn't hateful but empowering, but that's only true as long as the government is just.

In my opinion, whether the government is just or not is not a binary thing, but rather a scale. Yes, there comes a point on that scale at which aiding such a government in any endeavor is morally wrong; and there is a point even further where the only moral choice is to stand up and fight. I do not think that either of those two has been passed in US. For one thing, it is still a democracy - yes, despite the flawed electoral system and massive propaganda, the votes still count. And thus the "bullies and killers" are also part of that system, and not above it. To that extent, it is still possible to turn it back, reversing bad decisions without dismantling the whole system. But that only works insofar as the system itself is perceived as legitimate - and that means maintaining rule of law, such as that law may be.

Consider also the deep-running anti-government sentiment so popular in US, but for reasons entirely different from yours. If you advance the argument that disobeying and hindering the unjust government is the way to go, you will find surprisingly many supporters of that idea - in fact, quite a few that do more than just talk about it - but I don't think that's the company you'd want to be in. This boils down to the fact that definition of "just" is subjective, and the one you have in mind is not particularly popular here.

Now in my opinion that anti-government sentiment itself - even disregarding the aforementioned fringe groups that latch onto it - is in fact far more damaging than any support to war effort and such that going along has. The problem is that too many Americans view taxes much like you described - as a "protection fee" for the government to leave them alone. The natural consequence of that view is that they care less about what the money is spent on, and more about just having to pay it. Thus you see much more grumbling about taxes being high than there is about them being used on wrong things. I hope that, if the attitude changes to be more of "paying one's share" towards the betterment of society for all of us, then those paying would also take a much more principled stand on how the share is actually used - and then, hopefully, we'll see less Iraq, and more social welfare.

On a side note, the problem with "just leave me alone" attitude is that it also leads people to disregard the efficiency and direction of government as a whole, not just when it comes to taxes. It turns the whole thing into an "us vs them", when it should be just "us". This creates a vicious circle - people constantly complain about government being inefficient, and use it as an argument to cripple it further (after all, it's the evil "them" they do it to, to protect "us"), thus making it more inefficient. When I moved here from Canada, I was quite surprised by the sheer amount of bureaucracy - not because there's more red tape, but because it is so much less efficient, with multiple unrelated departments pushing papers around to achieve a simple thing, where up north a single girl at the counter would be all you have to deal with, and the rest of the system working smoothly outside of your view. (Point of comparison: obtaining a SIN in BC - 2 hours at EI spent in the queue, about 10 minutes at the counter; obtaining an SSN in Washington - 2 hours in the queue at the local SS office to apply, then over a month (!!) to actually receive it).

Re:Java

[WNight]

In my opinion, whether the government is just or not is not a binary thing, but rather a scale.

Funny, under the rule of law you advocate it's a pretty binary thing - murder just one person and all of a sudden you're totally illegitimate.

Yes, there comes a point on that scale at which aiding such a government in any endeavor is morally wrong; and there is a point even further where the only moral choice is to stand up and fight.

What would an organization have to do to qualify? Condone torture - including the very same acts they recognize as war crimes when other groups commit them? Cover up evidence of their war-mongering lies? Bomb civilians and cover it up? I'd have thought that they'd all make fine lines to draw.

I do not think that either of those two has been passed in US. For one thing, it is still a democracy - yes, despite the flawed electoral system and massive propaganda, the votes still count.

Which votes counted for stopping the war, or not persecuting wikileaks? Certainly not Obama's, and certainly not the republican. The mythical third party that will eventually, by losing enough, become popular?

Invalid without an option for 'None of the above, nor their system'. Another of those rule of law things.

And thus the "bullies and killers" are also part of that system, and not above it.

Where are the charges for George Bush (and MANY others) then, for faking evidence of weapons and starting an unjust war? Well, maybe they're busy working on all the conspiracy charges on wall-street. No?

To that extent, it is still possible to turn it back, reversing bad decisions without dismantling the whole system. But that only works insofar as the system itself is perceived as legitimate - and that means maintaining rule of law, such as that law may be.

"I don't like the Don, he is capricious and cruel, has killed many, but if we kill him chaos will erupt and many innocents will die."

Might be true but it's not very compelling.

As for your rule of law, governments have killed hundreds of millions of people in the last hundred years - far more than all natural disasters combined. Almost all, completely legal.

Consider also the deep-running anti-government sentiment so popular in US, but for reasons entirely different from yours.

Dunno, I think there's no legitimate form of government above the individual, that's a bit like one of those.

If you advance the argument that disobeying and hindering the unjust government is the way to go, you will find surprisingly many supporters of that idea

I'd imagine most Iraqis would prefer that our bombs never got built because of anti-war strikes, including if necessary the destruction of factories and deaths of guards defending them, rather than be shipped overseas and dropped on them.

This boils down to the fact that definition of "just" is subjective, and the one you have in mind is not particularly popular here.

On the contrary, my type of black and white "murder just one person and you're a murderer" views are incredibly popular, especially in the "red" states. The trick is to not tell them it's about them until they agree.

Now in my opinion that anti-government sentiment itself - even disregarding the aforementioned fringe groups that latch onto it - is in fact far more damaging than any support to war effort and such that going along has.

Any organization damaged by the truth probably wasn't doing much good.

The problem is that too many Americans view taxes much like you described - as a "protection fee" for the government to leave them alone.

They're right though. The fact that they're taken from you regardless of your wishes makes it theft.

Our law doesn't allow such

Heh

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Some months after leaving Oracle in a huff, father of Java James Gosling has joined Google. It's not clear what his job responsibilities will be there..".

Maybe Google thought things were just moving too quickly.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

he's also going to ensure that for every app you need a specific version of andriod - you'll never be able to get two apps you want going on the same version.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

he's also going to ensure that for every app you need a specific version of andriod - you'll never be able to get two apps you want going on the same version.

siegler - get lost

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

so you'll have OSGi bundles for android then?

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! This is the problem Java has. Every time they have a "security patch" (which doesn't really exist: they have no idea what a patch is and just give you a new version each time) it breaks applications. These applications are not using the security flaws which were patched. They are normal line-of-business apps. But EVERY TIME it breaks several (usually different ones). We get to the point where we can't run a "secure" version of Java because apps won't work with it. Go from 1.6.0_22 to 1.6.0_24? Damn! More broken apps. If anyone involved in the disaster that is Sun/Oracle Java gets any kind of control over Android processes, we can look forward to this in Android as well.

Really?

[diskofish]

Gosling is pretty detached from reality and he says a lot of crazy stuff. I can see why he left Oracle (or was forced out). Remember what he said about C#? C# is a very sucessful language and in some areas, more sucessful than Java. Gosling on C#:

We were panicked about C# a while ago. And we've gotten somewhat more relaxed about it. It's certainly something to be concerned about, given the amount of resources Microsoft can bring to bear. But I've had conversations with developers. It has not been that big an issue with developers. It's actually been much more a public relations issue than a reality issue. Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082-817522.html#ixzz1HumJH5sb

Re:Really?

[Ironpoint]

>I can see why he left Oracle (or was forced out).

I think he made it clear that Oracle significantly cut his salary. Most employees would leave for greener pastures in that situation.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The date of that interview was January, 2002. At that time C# wasn't really anything, certainly not what it is today. It's a reasonable position to take in early 2002.

On the other hand, how much has MSFT spent on R&D since then to make C# what it is today? Time and money makes a difference, something which your excerpt accounts for.

Re:Really?

[Rary]

That article is dated in early 2002. Most developers I know were quite unsure of C# and .NET in general in 2002. The consulting company I work for planned to launch an internal C# project in late 2002. We use internal projects as a training opportunity, so technology is chosen based on what skills would be most beneficial for our consultants to have experience with. Just before the project started, management decided to switch to Java because it was perceived to be a more valuable skill. In the years that have passed since then, .NET has caught up, so today we do about as much .NET work as Java work. But back then, it was still the new kid on the block, and most weren't sure what to think of it.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he made it clear that Oracle significantly cut his salary. Most employees would leave for greener pastures in that situation.

James Gosling also said that his position was lower in the company (in spite of holding the same job title), that Oracle micromanages everyone and doesn't allow them to make any important decisions, and that they made him into little more than a cheerleader for Java. So by his account, things sucked all the way around.

Re:Really?

[poetmatt]

That's detached from reality? Using anything which Microsoft has a blessing or protection of is always a risk. That hasn't changed from 2002 or now, for that matter.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what he was talking about. He was talking about perceived security and stability issues, which were a direct result of supporting C and C++. So really, it was an indictment of all three. So, now that we're about a decade past worrying about that...

Re:Really?

[UnknowingFool]

Even today, I wouldn't say C# is more successful than Java in many areas--unless the company is a strong Windows shop. Most companies I've worked for won't use it for the simple reason that their production servers are Linux or Unix. That means no .NET. And yes they know about Mono. Since it isn't officially sanctioned by MS, it's not an option.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that C# back then was really a (cough: reimagined) port of Java 1.1 spec in MS's vision (wasn't there a lawsuit?)

Re:Really?

[SplashMyBandit]

Good points. In addition, an even worse aspect of C#/Mono than not "officially sanctioned by MS", is Mono simply doesn't have all the 'standard' libraries that you get with C#. At least with Java you get the same thing everywhere (which is why Java still rules the Enterprise space, according to the Tiobe Index etc).

Re:Really?

[jmac_the_man]

You're thinking of J#, which was a Microsoft produced, slightly incompatible version of Java. The court struck that down, so Microsoft made their own runtime based language, which became C#.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Panicked? Panicked??
Dude, I get panicked when I see a nuclear accident on tv, or when the economy falls down worldwide, or when a dictatorship rises in my neyborhood.
But feeling panic because someone came up with yet another crappy language is too much...

Re:Really?

[diskofish]

I take it you have not used Mono in some time. It's gotten much better in the past couple years. I've worked on many .NET projects over the years. I haven't really found any major "standard" libraries that are missing in Mono as you claim. Mono has got all of the System, IO, XML, Regex, and even Linq stuff. For web, I do all my work in Visual Studio on a Windows machine and run both in .NET and Mono. I do run into small issues or bugs when working with Mono from time to time but it's really better than the alternative for web right now.

Re:Really?

[rk]

Dude, I get panicked ... when a dictatorship rises in my neyborhood.

Oh, you have an HOA? I hate those too.

Re:Really?

[shutdown -p now]

In any case, C# really was much more similar to Java in 2002 than it is today. Back then, the type systems were essentially identical, and the few things that you've got from C# were syntactic sugar for properties & evens, attributes (what Java later called "annotations"), enums, unsigned types, and unsafe code (raw unchecked pointers with arithmetic) when you need it. Not that it's a short list, but I don't think that it was that big of a deal.

Since then things have changed a lot, largely because the pace of language evolution has been much faster for C# than it is for Java. To give a simple, example, C# has got closures in v2.0 in 2005, and since then had a major update to them in form of type inference of argument and return types (v3.0, 2008). Meanwhile, Java is only getting closures - roughly on par with C# as of 2008, feature-wise - in Java 8, which is the next major release after the upcoming Java 7.

Re:Really?

[SplashMyBandit]

Might be worth perusing the following page:
http://mono-project.com/Compatibility
Basically, there are colossal holes in portability of C# apps (whether implemented as Mono or C#.Net) due to the library limitations. If you are doing something non-trivial (eg. intending to use something like WPF) and want it portable (since your enterprise customers have chosen their hardware and the bigger they are the less likely their critical servers are Windows, at least in my humble experience). The reason you don't notice a problem is that you are only working on Windows, and possibly have never had to deploy to a really big heterogeneous environment. Personally, I work on a Mac and build a lot of enterprise, web, and client side stuff that I test there and then to deploy to customers that either use Linux or Windows Server. Mono and the .NET Framework have a long way to go to be useful for me and my customers (while Java is already there). This is why so many bigger businesses stick with Java despite the relatively old-fashioned lack of syntactic sugar (but it is not that bad, really).

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

> And we've gotten somewhat more relaxed about it.

Regardless of his achievements in computer science, I immediately lose respect for anyone who creates such an abhorrent contortion of he English language.

He wouldn't feed that to a compiler, so why inflict it on other humans?

How about "but we have become rather more relaxed" or "we've now relaxed somewhat".

Re:Really?

[kaffiene]

I don't see anything wrong with what he said at all.

The key to marketing

[commodore6502]

To be a good marketer, you have to believe with 100% conviction what you are saying, at the time you say it. Then the next day or week or month, you believe 100% what you are saying, even if that's the exact opposite of what you said before.

I'm sure this guy will happily say "Google Android sucks" on his last job, and then say, "Google Android rocks" in the present, without any problem whatsoever.

Gosling's child instances, thus--

[CrowdedBrainzzzsand9]

I imagine that in supervising his children at Google, Mr. Gossling will orient them thusly: class employee{ private int assigntask=0; private int punish=0; private int reward=0; private int delete=0; ...etc.... }

Nighthacks is down

[snookiex]

I guess working at Google was the only thing missing in Gosling's CV. It's a great "acquisition", I wish the best for him, another slap in the face for Oracle.

It will be nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Google hires every smart person in the world and does shit with them, preventing any form of advance in computing. True story.

Re:It will be nothing

[LordStormes]

They certainly don't have them out driving the Street View cars - I almost got flattened by one walking back from lunch today. Stay tuned for pics of my ass splattered across the asphalt geocoded to Largo, FL.

Re:It will be nothing

[Surt]

Well. They do make piles of money with them. Surely putting some of our best and brightest minds to work selling web advertising can't be a mistake, after all, this is what the free market decided to do with all that talent.

Re:It will be nothing

[s73v3r]

Well, from what I understand, Guido van Rossum is still very active in developing Python as part of his job at Google.

Re:It will be nothing

[Locutus]

that bit of "does shit with them" seems to be kicking Microsoft's ass in search and the smartphone market. What other company that size pays 20% of an employees salary to let them work on a personal project?

BTW, it was Microsoft who specifically stated that a way to attack competition was to hire the brightest in the industry and pen them up in their own R&D area so they would not be out on the market to create something which was not Windows based. IIRC, it was in the Halloween Document.

LoB

Re:It will be nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet! There's a distinct lack of blood on Street View... thanks for the contribution!

Re:It will be nothing

[icebraining]

And Rob Pike is developing Go, which seems very interesting as a systems language.

Re:It will be nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, it was Microsoft who specifically stated that a way to attack competition was to hire the brightest in the industry and pen them up in their own R&D area so they would not be out on the market to create something which was not Windows based.

Yes, when I read the OP's comment I thought "er, surely he's mistaking them for Microsoft".

Anyway, I didn't know that they'd actually explicitly (if not intentionally openly) said that, but I had already guessed as much after wondering for some time how MS seemingly managed to have so many talented people on staff yet never seem to rise above the level of mediocrity- then again, I've also heard a plausible explanation that the management culture within MS is to blame for that.

Anyway, did you know... Alan Turing isn't dead, he's just working in Microsoft Research! ;-)

Still in the News?

[sexconker]

Why is this guy still in the news?
I get it - he's a douche, and his wife Kate is an overbearing bitch, and all they both care about is making money (over $1,000,000 per episode) off of their litter.
Who cares if their kids get psychologically ruined? I mean, it's not like they had a chance to become productive, sane members of society with those two as parents anyway.
In a perfect world, they'd be in jail and the kids would be adopted.

But no, now this guy is being given a cushy job at Google, for what? Java?
Please, that's what Amazon Mechanical Turk is for.

Re:Still in the News?

[Pamplona Slowpoke]

Where are my mod points when I need them? Please, mod the parent up!

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if you are trying to make a joke or what. Either fail joke or fail thinking this guy has anything to do with that lame tv show. Either way . . fail.

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody understand what this guy is talking about?
dkr

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a voice of reason in this terrifically difficult to understand situation

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass seems to think that James Gosling is the same person as Jon Gosselin from Jon and Kate plus 8.

Re:Still in the News?

[geek]

He's talking about John Gosling, from John and Kate Plus 8

Re:Still in the News?

[LordStormes]

He thinks this is that "John & Kate + 8" guy. That's "Gosselin", not "Gosling". Idiot.

Re:Still in the News?

[jginspace]

Was thinking exactly the same thing. I just spent all mine (first I got since the 'makeover') on some kdawson-related comments. At least this deserves an 'interesting' right?

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, whoosh?

Re:Still in the News?

[LordLucless]

I think it must be a reference to a TV show that only screens in the US.

Re:Still in the News?

[syousef]

I think it must be a reference to a TV show that only screens in the US.

I wish it only screened in the US.

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Not Whoosh
WINNING!(though I would argue that WHINING is more like it).

Re:Still in the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Over $1,000,000 per episode? Who cares if their kids get psychologically ruined? What ARE you talking about?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google v. Oracle - Solved

[LordStormes]

Gosling will be able to easily ensure that Google's Android code base is free of anything Oracle's disputing. For the long term, it only makes sense that the creator of Java is now involved in the language's biggest current flagship technology. As a developer with experience in both C# and Java, C# is the spiritual sequel to J++. It was MS' answer to the then-war with Sun over Java on Windows, and a sad effort at that. A language tied directly to a single OS = BAD. As a Java coder, I can get a job developing on desktop PCs, Web applications, smartphones, Blu-Ray players and TVs, or Martian rovers. People get frustrated with Java because it's got some pretty obnoxiously verbose syntax, but it's well-respected for what it is. I find it comical when people flame Java's runtimes, and then love how they can run other languages' code in a JVM environment.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[VGPowerlord]

For the long term, it only makes sense that the creator of Java is now involved in the language's biggest current flagship technology.

I wasn't aware that Google was involved in JavaEE in any way.

Or did you mean "current popular technology?"

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[oracleguy01]

As a developer with experience in both C# and Java, C# is the spiritual sequel to J++. It was MS' answer to the then-war with Sun over Java on Windows, and a sad effort at that. A language tied directly to a single OS = BAD. As a Java coder, I can get a job developing on desktop PCs, Web applications, smartphones, Blu-Ray players and TVs, or Martian rovers.

C# is tied to one OS? Huh, I guess no one bothered to tell the guys that make Unity that, seeing how their product uses C# and is cross platform.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Java coder, I can get a job developing on etc etc etc or Martian rovers.

be sure to have the application begin loading at launch so it will be nearly ready by the time it gets to mars

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[ags1]

C# is very portable, IF you pick your libraries right, IF you don't use any standard features that are windows centric, IF you don't call any native libraries, IF you want to wait for the advanced feature to get ported to your platforms implementation... etc. You have to do a lot of work to keep from falling into lock in. The thing about Java is, its very hard to make an app not cross platform. You have to do a lot of work to lock yourself into a platform using Java.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

He was clearly referring to J++ there.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[StormReaver]

Gosling will be able to easily ensure that Google's Android code base is free of anything Oracle's disputing.

Which changes nothing. Odds are that Android was already carefully screened to be free of Oracle contamination, but Oracle sued anyway. That's just Oracle culture.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[UnknowingFool]

No but the .NET framework is. Without the framework, C# is hard to use as companies will have design many things from scratch. Mono isn't acceptable for some companies given uncertainty in patents and whether MS may intentionally break compatibility or embark upon legal action.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Doomdark]

I agree in that Gosling's checking of codebase is probably not all that valuable in itself (as he can't really be external objective third-party here), but I think it can have positive effect for credibility of Google's defense. It's not about trying to prevent Oracle from suing, but rather in improving chances of winning, or limiting damages. Gosling is obviously knowledgeable on Java and history, but also about various litigations related to Java.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

People get frustrated with Java because it's got some pretty obnoxiously verbose syntax,

Syntax is syntax. every language has quirks... even English.

Java is strongly typed with no polymorphism--there are some real rules and structure in this language.--that's why people get frustrated: they either don't know the rules (hence with poorly designed software) or want to bypass everything since there maybe a better [mathematically more efficient] solution.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

C# isn't tied to one operating system.

Look... we can debate the relative merits of one language over another if you like. But C# was designed as a genuine language... not an MS scripting tool.

It was a genuine improvement over Java - and gave the fairly staid and dormant Java a big kick in the arse and spurred its improvement.

The C# core is great - designed and written by some of the hardcore geeks at MS alongside a lot of people poached from Borland's Pascal division. It wasn't in anyway tied to Windows.

It was then handed over to the application monkeys - who layered Windows libraries on top (and made their customary fucking mess).

But the basics of C# is pure OS-agnostic "programmer with a job to do" stuff.

It's great.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[LordStormes]

Really? It takes 8-10 months to get to Mars, and less than a second to fire up an app I developed here with over 200K lines of code in it and about 19 dependent libraries.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[SplashMyBandit]

Great points. Wish I had mod points today.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[jcarr]

Fortunately for C#, Microsoft has never tried to lock people into an OS.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Cederic]

Wtf? No polymorphism on the basic types perhaps, but it's an OO language enough for polymorphism on the objects you instantiate.

Be more precise!

Oddly the strong typing with 'real rules and structure' is why I like it as a commercial development language. Most programmers lack software engineering skills so a language that constrains them a little saves a massive amount of bug hunting and regression testing down the line.

At home I use more interesting languages..

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[martin-boundary]

That's because your hardware is a lot beefier than the low power, tiny memory footprint, 10 year old hardware that the Mars mission uses.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

A language tied directly to a single OS = BAD

Well, good for people selling that OS, bad for everyone else.

A single language that was the whole OS would have great potential for good (consistency, no reinventing the wheel, no need to hang onto obsolete interfaces, little overhead to translate things) ...

of course there are layers and interfaces for reasons too and a language trying to please everyone would please nobody.

I was going to say the standard "Java isn't portable to multiple platforms, it is the platform" but you chose your words carefully, so nicely played.

I find it comical when people flame Java's runtimes, and then love how they can run other languages' code in a JVM environment.

This makes perfect sense; to them, Java is the OS that their language runs within. It is just happens to be an OS of sorts running on top of another OS. Now you know how the OS developers view Java types who flame system code and then love how they run their JVM on a legacy OS with a legacy codebase :)

Not only is it turtles all the way down, it is turtles all the way up too.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[shmlco]

Right. Swipe an entire JWM, rewrite a few chunks, and then pretend it's your own engine.

Yep, that's the Open Source way, all right.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[kaffiene]

No it isn't. It's because the coward's comment was relevant a decade ago. Java hasn't been slow to start up for about that long.

Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved

[Xest]

"The thing about Java is, its very hard to make an app not cross platform. You have to do a lot of work to lock yourself into a platform using Java."

Yes, if you use the standard libraries which are drastically more limited than the .NET framework.

This is really the problem, the tradeoff. If you limit your .NET usage to a similar to degree that the Java libraries support from the outset then C# is equally as portable. If you extend Java library usage to be equivalent to .NET then Java becomes less portable. Some obvious examples are audio support, and support for lower level networking stuff such as ping and other ICMP related tools- .NET just does these things better and in a more portable manner straight out the box. There's really little difference between them when you do a like for like comparison of the features those libraries you have to limit yourself to or expand out to provide.

So it really comes to simplicity, if you want an application that only has a simplistic featureset then they'll really be just as portable from the outset. If you have one that has a more advanced featureset then C# will become less portable, but so will Java as you have to seek libraries that need to make use of the JNI or similar to achieve the same things.

This is not to say that I believe C#/.NET is more portable in general though, obviously the JVM is on more platforms in more places than the CLR or equivalent, so that alone puts Java ahead in terms of portability.

My favorite Gosling quote

[thisisauniqueid]

My favorite Gosling quote: "The worst thing that can happen to a programming language you create is that people start to use it."

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[BeardedChimp]

I tried to find the source for this but googling just comes up with your post. Can you cite it anywhere?

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[H0p313ss]

That sounds more like something Stoustrup would say.

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[JonySuede]

It is more something that the software designers say in general .:
The worst thing that can happen to a < T extends Code > you create is that people start to use it

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[thisisauniqueid]

It was Guy Steele giving a talk at MIT on Fortress that gave this quote. But based on one of the other replies ("sounds like Stroustrup"), maybe I mis-remembered who the quote was attributed to. (I'm 99% sure that it was Gosling, not Stroustrup that Steele was quoting, but it was a couple of years ago now... I'll try to check my sources and post a reply...)

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[JanneM]

"The worst thing that can happen to a programming language you use is that Stroustrup started to create it."

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the exact opposite of something B.S. would say. He's been a strong advocate for the use of the C++ since the days when it was still a pre-processor that produced C code.

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[H0p313ss]

I've seen something recently about him saying that his biggest regret with C++ is how he let too many people use it too early, but I can no longer find the interview. He's said before that he regretted it having been in such wide use before there was a truly useful standard template library.

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[H0p313ss]

before there was a truly useful standard template library.

Which implies of course that he thinks that STL is useful...

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[kaffiene]

Nice.

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[Migala77]

Which implies of course that he thinks that STL is useful...

Or that people still shouldn't use it.

Re:My favorite Gosling quote

[H0p313ss]

STL considered harmful?

"it will be interesting to see what develops."

[MichaelKristopeit414]

don't you mean "it will be interesting to see what is interpreted by a virtual machine at higher latency and lower throughput"?

adult supervision isn't free.

The Oracle Confirms it: Java is Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Google getting sued by Oracle, the owner of Java for a re-implementation.

What Google's getting sued for is specifically legal and encouraged with C#.

However much people (sometimes rightly) hate Microsoft, it should be clear by now that Java is not free, and is becoming less free by the day.

C# is the open standards language of the future. Java is an obsolete language of a bygone era.

Re:The Oracle Confirms it: Java is Dead

[mbkennel]

"Isn't Google getting sued by Oracle, the owner of Java for a re-implementation.

What Google's getting sued for is specifically legal and encouraged with C#."

Is there an *irrevocable*, universal, comprehensive, royalty-free patent grant to all reimplementors of C# for past, present and all future versions?

If not, then anybody is just as sueable as with Java.

Gosling

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it suspicious that the old furry face wants to spend time around so many 15-year-olds.

obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Gosling going to Google is an obvious choice. However, I seriously doubt he has anything to contribute other than name recognition. Gosling did a piss poor job on the design and evolution of Java to begin with.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[DrEasy]

I think some of the decisions were forced by the marketing division, who were in a hurry to release the language. Marketing was probably right though, given the success of the language, warts be damned.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[Doomdark]

Gosling did a piss poor job on the design and evolution of Java to begin with.

How so? I thought it was generally consider a pretty decent job, and not just due to actual success of the platform and language. While Java has its quirks like any other programming language, it seems pretty well-rounded and practical. Your statement would suggest much more than that, so what exact things back up your statement?

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Java's design had a whole bunch of problems that a competent language designer in the 1990's should have been able to avoid (in the object system, number system, error handling, etc.), given that there was almost nothing new in Java. So, in that sense, Gosling did a piss poor job. Java itself still ended up being a significant improvement over C/C++ for most people, simply because C/C++ set the bar so low.

(Many of these problems with Java then got fixed by an army of language lawyers and specialists. Unfortunately, they introduced new problems into Java, as did decisions due to Sun's proprietary interests.)

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[Cederic]

At the time Java was up against C, C++, VB and Delphi as the key development languages off mainframe.

I'd say that by v1.1 and definitely by v1.2 it was more usable with better features than all of those as a server-side development language.

J2EE replaced CORBA and led to the dominance of Java app servers as the server-side platform of choice for many companies.

Even app vendors switched to it, unless they were specifically targeting the mainframe or Windows..

Other markets (device drivers, embedded systems, desktop apps, mainframes) had better choices available, and sure v1.0 had a shakey start, but it rapidly turned into a pretty spectacularly successful language in that market.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[cthulhu11]

Surely he'll increase the flamingo quotient at Google. When Gosling was at CMU, he was known for his affinity for flamingos. They showed up in the Andrew project, and on the roof of the UCC outside of his window. He also produced an EMACS to run on Unix and VMS, saving us from vi and EDT, and for that I thank him. Three degrees of separation: for a while I worked with someone who was friends with his wife.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a Rubyist, he does not need any arguments.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[kaffiene]

Yeah, if he hadn't done such a shit job with Java the language might have even caught on a little bit.

Moron.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Yeah, because we all know: what's popular is obviously well designed! Just look at Windows, or McDonalds for that matter.

No wonder you signed your post "Moron".

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

At the time Java was up against C, C++, VB and Delphi as the key development languages off mainframe.

Neither the popular alternatives at the time, nor the success of the language, say anything about Gosling's competency as a language designer. And those other languages were saddled by backwards compatibility; Gosling had the luxury of starting from scratch and he screwed up.

I'd say that by v1.1 and definitely by v1.2 it was more usable with better features

Yeah, after a lot of other people helped patch up some of the worst problems with the language design.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Yeah, Java is Gosling's Emacs all over again. It started with a poor imitation (Mocklisp) of a real programming language. He initially distributed it "free" under uncertain licensing terms, then he turned around and made the source code proprietary and caused trouble for free software.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[kaffiene]

So, all those Banks using Java, Google, IBM, US military, NASA, the Apache Foundation, Android, all those open source developers on Sourceforge - all morons huh?

You utter fucking moron.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

How does someone doing as he pleases with an extensive peice of his own work cause trouble for the concept of free software??

Mocklisp did what it needed to do, and far more. When running on a gawdawful pair of clustered VAXes, or a window system on a 3-M workstation I didn't give a shit about whether or not the EMACS implementation supported a self-indulgent full-blown boutique programming language, or whether or not a shower-phobic junkie liked the terms of use. It was there, it worked, was FAR superior to the alternatives, and even supported splitting to edit two buffers at once.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Two separate concepts:

(1) Gosling did a good job designing a new language from scratch.

(2) Sun, IBM, and a whole lot of other contributors managed to turn Java into a successful enterprise platform that was better than other commercially viable platforms at the time.

(1) is false, (2) is true.

Is that too cerebral or intellectual for you to understand?

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[kaffiene]

Is it too fucking hard for you to understand that if the language was poorly designed, it wouldn't have succeeded despite all those other entities' input.

All of Microsoft's considerable resources and corporate lock in failed to make Visual Basic a success outside of their own walled garden. Despite Sun's huge LACK of influence compared to M$, Java was a huge success.

And if Java was so poorly designed, why would M$ have copied it, almost verbatim, to create their first version of C#? They had a clean slate - they could have done anything for c#'s starting point but they chose to copy Java.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Is it too fucking hard for you to understand that if the language was poorly designed, it wouldn't have succeeded despite all those other entities' input.

If you think that real-world success implies good design, you're extremely naive and inexperienced.

All of Microsoft's considerable resources and corporate lock in failed to make Visual Basic a success outside of their own walled garden.

Visual Basic was a huge success in the 1990's; there was no alternative to it on any platform and people were scared that Microsoft would wipe out all other platforms. Sun initially positioned Java as an alternative to VB: easy, cross-platform application development and delivery over the Internet. That was a total failure because Java as designed by Gosling was totally unsuitable for developing GUI apps (even writing event handlers was a major headache), it took forever to start, and Java's security model had more holes than a Swiss cheese.

And if Java was so poorly designed, why would M$ have copied it, almost verbatim, to create their first version of C#?

I did not say that "Java was poorly designed", I said that Gosling did a piss poor job as a language designer. Many of Gosling's design mistakes had been fixed by other people by the time Microsoft based C# on it. Furthermore, those "differences" that Microsoft introduced represent more fixes.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[kaffiene]

If you think that real-world success implies good design, you're extremely naive and inexperienced.

I've been coding for three decades. I've used every major language in existence from low level hacking to high performance telephony servers to 3D graphics to web development. I've done assembler, functional, procedural, OO and prototypical coding. I may be maybe things, inexperienced isn't one of them. Nor naive.

And if Java was so poorly designed, why would M$ have copied it, almost verbatim, to create their first version of C#?

I did not say that "Java was poorly designed", I said that Gosling did a piss poor job as a language designer.

Riiiiiiiiight. So let me get this straight: In regard to Java, Gosling did a bad job as a language designer, but Java isn't badly designed?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Moron. And a n00b, I see.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[t2t10]

Riiiiiiiiight. So let me get this straight: In regard to Java, Gosling did a bad job as a language designer, but Java isn't badly designed? Yeah, that makes sense.

As I was saying: many of Gosling's design mistakes were fixed by other designers who came in after Gosling's initial design. Gosling's initial design was a disaster.

I've been coding for three decades.

You have also been reading English for at least that long and you are obviously no good at that either.

Re:obvious but probably not helpful

[kaffiene]

You are a retard.

I'm done wasting my time - bye!

lulz

[Toreo asesino]

I love this guy. I'm about as pro-MS as they come, but even he's making me squirmish a bit. It's like listening to twitters' evil clone (if anyone remembers him).

Re:lulz

[abigor]

Man, I miss twitter. That guy was awesome.

Re:lulz

[Toreo asesino]

Me too. I got on his hit-list and everything; it's the closest I've ever come to being stalked. The shite he used to come out with actually had me convinced he was a MS PR agent. Good times.

Google's arsenal of programming language people

[D H NG]

James Gosling - Java Guido van Rossum - Python Ken Thompson - C, Go Joshua Bloch - Java

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[gv250]

I swear, I read this as:

• James Gosling - Java Guido
• van Rossum - Python
• Ken Thompson - C,
• Go Joshua Bloch - Java

I don't even know what a Java Guido is!

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[Anonymous Coward]

Rob Pike also works on Go.

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[ravyne]

What? No mention of Rob Pike?

Turn in thy geek card good sir.

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even know what a Java Guido is!

It's what happens when Snooki or The Situation start coding.

Be afraid. Very afraid.

It's OK to laugh at that. I'm Italian myself.

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[Appolonius of Perge]

Brian Kernighan (K&R C, AWK) also spends summers working at Google NYC.

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[FoolishOwl]

Wow. I hadn't seen it tallied up like that.

*Banging on Google's door*
Let me in! Let me in! I want off this rock!

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[Anonymous Coward]

And who the hell is Go Joshua Bloch?!

Re:Google's arsenal of programming language people

[shutdown -p now]

The fact that they've got both Bloch and now Gosling is particularly interesting. I wonder if Google will have the balls (or be forced to, by the ongoing legal action) to fork Java into their own project. It has been stagnating for a while now with little development other than "enterprisey" server-side stuff, and it would be nice if some people who are good at it could pick it up and drive it in "release early, release often" fashion. That, and none of that Oracle patent bullshit.

Will he have to pass a programming test?

[kmdrtako]

In order to check in code?

Google now has Gosling (Java) and Guido (Python)

[monk]

I like Gosling, he's a good guy and he asks great questions.

I'm hoping this means more focus on AppEngine. It supports a Python or Java API. (I prefer Python) It's a very cool place to build things. I just built a small multi-vendor site for our local makers and crafters and had a blast doing it.

disclaimer: I used to work for Sun in the Java Center.

He also calls Android a Dogs Breakfast

[stimpleton]

Ii gets worse. He finshes a question with "it feels like it's(Android) going to be more of a dog's breakfast.”

He seems an interesting guy, obviously brilliant, but his broad view arrows miss their target by a long way.

For example, in the same interview, he questions the free cost of Android. Its easy to assume the reasons, and this was shored up with the "Castle and moat" scenario put forward a few days back. It should have been obvious to him.

Gosling also says he "hopes not to be pulled into the fray". Google needs to be careful with this back room boy.

Re:He also calls Android a Dogs Breakfast

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly, the last thing Google needs is people willing to question Google.

Re:He also calls Android a Dogs Breakfast

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

And this is a problem because?

Look, if he thinks Android sucks balls AND can make it better, why complain?
It's not like being an employee means you have to tow the company line.

Besides, the Castle and Moat scenario basically said to me that Google cares more about making money off me by selling my eyeballs than it does making a product that's well polished. It's the "we're done when it's good enough" condition that resulted in Windows being the primary computing OS.

Re:He also calls Android a Dogs Breakfast

[fwarren]

At the time Sun who $$$ paid $$$ him to give any possible objection he could to the android platform. I don't know if that was an honest opinion or not. Besides, now that he is in the camp and can offer "influence", he might like it far better.

Go James Go Lang :-)

[Coeurderoy]

I guess he will write an emacs clone in GoLang :-)

(ok it's a joke, and linked to the fact that although I'm regular emacs user planning to grow a sixt finger "RSN"... I'm not super fan of Java...

Re:Go James Go Lang :-)

[H0p313ss]

I guess he will write an emacs clone in GoLang :-)

I think it's called Eclipse.

Re:Go James Go Lang :-)

[Coeurderoy]

tsss no eclipse is an anti emacs, I see everyday java jockey typing away with eclipse and so happy of all the "help" but unable to remember where their code is, and taking hours to go from one file to an other.... And I would like to hit them on the head with their screen and yell "can't you esc-X shell and grep *.[ch] for XYZ's sake ??? please .... I'm loosing my patience ...

(nb: concidering the MB's used by eclipse and it's modular nature I would suspect that something like this is possible, but why can't the users figure it out ...)

No Emacs "rules" :-) (of course vim is acceptable too because now we do not need to fight amongs ourselves we can sneer at eclipse users :-))

Re:Go James Go Lang :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

tsss no eclipse is an anti emacs, I see everyday java jockey typing away with eclipse and so happy of all the "help" but unable to remember where their code is, and taking hours to go from one file to an other.... And I would like to hit them on the head with their screen and yell "can't you esc-X shell and grep *.[ch] for XYZ's sake ??? please .... I'm loosing my patience ...

(nb: concidering the MB's used by eclipse and it's modular nature I would suspect that something like this is possible, but why can't the users figure it out ...)

I've been a vim user for years and started using Eclipse for java development, and I learned one important thing: It's not the tool that's bad in itself (although Eclipse does have plenty of painful warts), it's that people that are clueless gravitate towards a nice IDE, and then are clueless about how to actually use it effectively. I find that people that use their tools well can be incredibly effective whether in Vim/Emacs or a heavy IDE.

Those same users you observe mucking slowly through Eclipse would be the ones choosing pico or notepad instead if Vim wasn't available.

Re:Go James Go Lang :-)

[Coeurderoy]

You are almost right, these people are actually choosing gedit or notepad although vim and emacs are avaiable ....

Basically in many countries studying computer science is avoiding one "small" issue, code is supposed to really work...
So many developpers know how to shovel out some more or less complex code, and it works just long enough to get the credit...
But then they completelly forget about it, so they like an IDE that "remembers" so they do not have too.
But they lack the practice, and the curiosity to learn what it can really do...
(they do not know about debugger either ...)

Re:Go James Go Lang :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell them to hit ctrl+shift+t

(and find better java developers to work with?)

Bullshit Moderation

[causality]

I don't know right now exactly what tech Microsoft has patented, but it's not in their best interest right now to destroy Mono.

Yeah, not right now. It's truly best for them to wait until their competitor is using it, then strike out with the patents. ;)

That's amusing that this is modded down to Flamebait. The truth isn't flamebait even if you are unable to handle it like a mature adult.

Judging from all of the shillish posts in this discussion and related previous discussions, it's reasonable to wonder if these mods which are idiotic, absurd, yet serve the purpose of shills are coming from various sockpuppet accounts. If so, the shills are not nearly as smooth and unnoticable as they'd like to think. In fact they're amazingly amatuerish and their actions reflect a certain desperation to please their masters.

Give it up, already. Few corporations have so soundly earned a bad reputation as Microsoft has done. Hiring a bunch of cowardly liars who treat us like we're stupid only makes them look worse.

Re:Bullshit Moderation

[nschubach]

Yeah, I pointed out some alternate accounts to the OP of this thread and I think it upset the machine so they need to bury me ASAP:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2057736&cid=35642308

It's not like it wasn't obvious.

Re:Check the date!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, people have short memories. Android didn't really reach the "worth using" stage until version 2.1 was released in early 2010. Android 1.6 was a joke.

Did they ask him..

[BigGerman]

.. to reverse a String during the interview? ;-) Seriously, Google needs to stop hiring ivory tower theoreticians and get some "normal" devs to clean up their act.

Re:Did they ask him..

[JamesP]

No, they probably asked him the difference between Final, Finally and Finalize in Java...

Re:Did they ask him..

[SplashMyBandit]

lol!

Re:Did they ask him..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they asked him to defend final, and then they had a jousting match. Clearly Gosling is excellent at jousting.

Re:Did they ask him..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure they don't make "superstars" jump through hoops, only those of us who have worked our ass off for 20 years.

Re:Did they ask him..

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I got interview questions like that. The common ones:

1. Linked LIst
2. Reverse String

They gave me this one:

If you dial on a dial pad several digits, write an algorithm to list the possible words for the number combination.

Re:Did they ask him..

[shutdown -p now]

The correct answer, of course, is that there isn't any - all are valid identifiers not used in any way either by the language nor by the standard class library. ~

(what with Java being case sensitive)

Re:Did they ask him..

[russotto]

.. to reverse a String during the interview?

Yes. He wrote out the byte code to do it.

Re:Did they ask him..

[68kmac]

Apparently not. Even Tim Bray had to solve logic puzzles (and failed one):

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/03/15/Joining-Google

WTF does this have to do with Javascript?

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Here is what I hate about C#, and I think it is JavaScript infection (they're doing the same to VB, which is pretty much now C# without braces): implicit and anonymous types. That shit is gross.

Ok, so I went and looked up implicit types in .NET, and it turns out that they're nothing like Javascript. Javascript is a dynamically typed language; .NET languages are statically typed, but the compiler can infer the correct type of the variables.

I also went and looked up anonymous types, and they clearly seem to help in writing database-oriented applications. Object-oriented code that's written to use an object-relation mapper very often suffers from the defect that it has to pull all of the columns of a table to construct the objects, even when the caller may only need a subset of those columns. By writing the clients so that their type specifies only the table attributes that they actually need, that allows for performance optimizations.

The .NET implementation doesn't look like it goes all the way in this regard, but hey, they're trying—something that can't be said for any other mainstream language with their crappy "SQL is just strings and prepared statements" nonmodel.

So again, WTF does any of this have to do with Javascript?

Re:WTF does this have to do with Javascript?

[smelch]

It has to do with JavaScript because it lets you write code that is very, very similar in terms of how it looks (var i = 1; or new { .member1 = "sfdkl", .member2 = "asfdsfdklasfd" };) and a little in the way it acts. No, its not dynamically typed so I can't use i from above and assign a string to it. But I'm talking about syntax here, baby. Now, I fail to see how anonymous types really help out in writing database-oriented applications. Presumably those types are going to be created through Emit, in which case you can give them a name (and even if you don't this isn't so much a problem, the problem is when people just shit out anonymous types on the fly in code), or you're writing them in the code and in that case you can jsut create a quick struct people can reference.

If you fail to see how the anonymous types and implicit typing is really close to JavaScript in syntax and in functionality then I don't know what to tell you.

Re:WTF does this have to do with Javascript?

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

It has to do with JavaScript because it lets you write code that is very, very similar in terms of how it looks (var i = 1; or new { .member1 = "sfdkl", .member2 = "asfdsfdklasfd" };) and a little in the way it acts. No, its not dynamically typed so I can't use i from above and assign a string to it. But I'm talking about syntax here, baby.

So you basically are bitching about things that don't matter, like whether you have to use the keyword "var" in an implicitly typed variable declaration, even when the actual type systems work nothing alike.

Now, I fail to see how anonymous types really help out in writing database-oriented applications. Presumably those types are going to be created through Emit, in which case you can give them a name (and even if you don't this isn't so much a problem, the problem is when people just shit out anonymous types on the fly in code), or you're writing them in the code and in that case you can jsut create a quick struct people can reference.

Anonymous types, from what it looks, simply ensure that you automatically have one-off types that are optimal for ad-hoc queries.

See it this way: if you have a table with n columns, there are n^2 possible subsets of those columns that could be used in a SQL query. Creating structs manually to fit the results of queries is only practicable if your application is only going to be using a few of those subsets, over and over. And it gets even worse when you consider that the SELECT clause of a statement can use scalar operations to expand on the number of columns; basically, SQL naturally generates an infinite set of types.

So when the range of column subsets that your application uses is larger, less predictable and often one-off, you're better off with the anonymous types. A typical example would be something like a ROLAP application, which routinely runs ad-hoc queries against arbitrary column subsets of large tables with lots of columns and rows. You could easily have hundreds of different queries that use different subsets of the columns of a star schema, so that no one combination occurred more than a handful of times.

I know that I can tell you that in Java, one thing people often do in this ad-hoc query situation is to represent database query result rows either as an array of the column values, a list of the column values, or a map from the column name or descriptor to the value. Anonymous types sure look a lot better for this.

If you fail to see how the anonymous types and implicit typing is really close to JavaScript in syntax and in functionality then I don't know what to tell you.

One of them is statically typed, the other is dynamically typed; how the heck is that "close in functionality"?

And again, who a damn about the syntax? The crucial thing is that the .NET version, thanks to static typing, will immediately reject incorrect programs that Javascript just cannot.

Re:WTF does this have to do with Javascript?

[shutdown -p now]

The irony is that C# actually has opt-in dynamic "duck" typing (as of 4.0), only with a different keyword, and some helper library types:

using System.Dynamic;
 
class Program {
  static dynamic Create() {
    dynamic d = new ExpandoObject();
    d.Foo = 123;
    d.Bar = (Action)() => Console.WriteLine(d.Foo);
    return d;
  }
 
  static void Main() {
    dynamic d = Create();
    d.Foo++;
    d.Bar();
  }
}

("static dynamic" is rather funny looking though)

Gosling's career at Sun was a big honking success

[Anonymous Coward]

... but he left Oracle in a fowl mood, being displeased with their treatment of Java there and also with what they were doing with his programming language.

Re:Check the date!

[AvitarX]

I thought 1.6 was quite usable.

Even 1.5, but the inclusion of an on-screen keyboard, and free navigation software certainly made a HUGE leap forward.

Good

[moco]

Something needs to be done to "balance out" things now that Oracle and IBM are in bed together.

Don't hire him, shoot him

[Anonymous Coward]

If he "invented" this mess, he deserves death penalty, for causing unnecessary pain and boredom to thousands of programmers worldwide.

Re:Gosling's career at Sun was a big honking succe

[wsxyz]

he left Oracle in a fowl mood...

Nah, he's just a big chicken.

In case someone files suit against Google....

[Snaller]

... over java, they can see - "Lets just ask the man who invented Java"

Evidently the .Net it runs on isn't as capable.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blogs.computerworld.com/london_stock_exchange_to_abandon_failed_windows_platform

Re:Lisp

[presidenteloco]

What?
LISP is dead simple.
Evaluate arguments, apply symbolized function to arguments.
Compose these function evaluations if you feel like it.

I got the impression people didn't like LISP because of the parentheses, to which I can only say
"if so, why are you programmer". If indented properly, LISP is the most elegant looking and easy
to understand programming language I've ever encountered. The flexibility in LISP comes from the
fact that it is trivially easy to create domain-specific libraries of many small functions (See SOLID principles),
and yes, you have to read the comments for each of these little functions to understand the whole, but then
you are rocking, adding two more functions on top and finishing your program.

Mea Culpa

[presidenteloco]

"if so, why are you programmer" should of course read "If so, why are you a programmer?" Why am I still a programmer? )))

Good on James!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good on James! he produce a great language and platform and deserves to be at Google.

How's Kate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the guy with 8 kids?

Gosling is Java God

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all living with help of JAVA . Gosling created we are living on it.

Where ever he goes .. he is JAVA GOD .. thats It.

Re:Google now has Gosling (Java) and Guido (Python

[kaffiene]

I like Gosling too. Posters hating on him because they like C# or hate Java is pretty fucking lame. Gosling has achieved way more than most geeks ever will. Even if you don't like the particular languages flavour (I mean - where would C# have been without Java?) have some bloody respect. I don't agree with everything Linus says, nor Stallman, but these people are worthy of our respect even if we might sometimes disagree.

Silly!

[adumonit]

> And we've gotten somewhat more relaxed about it.

Regardless of his achievements in computer science, I immediately lose respect for anyone who creates such an abhorrent contortion of he English language.

He wouldn't feed that to a compiler, so why inflict it on other humans?

How about "but we have become rather more relaxed" or "we've now relaxed somewhat".

we're human. intelligent. u can infer meaning. u know exactly what he means. so learn to get over being worked up by things like that, you compiler person you!

Re:Google now has Gosling (Java) and Guido (Python

[stephenlb]

Gosling made the Java Hell: http://www.pubnub.com/blog/internet-heroes-song-crockford-dahl-wall-torvalds-resig-souders

Gosling

[Compaqt]

Wait, but he already was just a cheerleader (actually, a mascot) for Java.

Granted he invented the language, but there's a whole raft of community members (including other companies) that have an interest in the direction of Java, so Oracle/Sun couldn't let him be a prima donna even if they wanted to.

His real role, if he had understood it, was to be like the Queen of England: a kind of father figure. Symbolic figurehead. His role isn't (or shouldn't be) to determine the future of Java all by himself.