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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."

21 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Heh by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  2. Re:Java by Glock27 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
    Score: -1 100% Flamebait
  3. Really? by diskofish · · Score: 3, Informative
    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

    1. Re:Really? by Rary · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --

      "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

    2. Re:Really? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  4. Still in the News? by sexconker · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Still in the News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  5. Re:Java by trcooper · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  6. Google v. Oracle - Solved by LordStormes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved by ags1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Google v. Oracle - Solved by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  7. Re:Java by uberjack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  8. My favorite Gosling quote by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

  9. Google's arsenal of programming language people by D+H+NG · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  10. Google now has Gosling (Java) and Guido (Python) by monk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    [-- Trust the Monkey --]
  11. Re:Java by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .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.

    --
    It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  12. Re:Java by causality · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  13. Re:obvious but probably not helpful by Doomdark · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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?

    --
    I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
  14. Did they ask him.. by BigGerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    .. 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.

    1. Re:Did they ask him.. by JamesP · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --
      how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
  15. WTF does this have to do with Javascript? by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?