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Oracle's Java Policies Are Destroying the Community
snydeq writes "Neil McAllister sees Oracle's buggy Java SE 7 release as only the latest misstep in a mounting litany of bad behavior. 'Who was the first to alert the Java community? The Apache Foundation. Oh, the irony. This is the same Apache Foundation that resigned from the Java Community Process executive committee in protest after Oracle repeatedly refused to give it access to the Java Technology Compatibility Kit,' McAllister writes. 'It seems as if Oracle would like nothing better than to stomp Apache and its open source Java efforts clean out of existence.'"
Really, who didn't see this coming?
We have the last Java 7 preview (GPL).
Fork the darn thing and see who lives.
It seems as if Oracle would like nothing better than to stomp Apache and its open source Java efforts clean out of existence.
Also in the news. It seems that water makes things wet.
They're Oracle, that's their business model, it's what they do. Convert the goodness of open source communities into money, like a software Gargamel.
What's the next article going to be? Facebook eroding society's expectations of privacy? BP moving fossil carbon into the biosphere?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No kidding .. look at what java has done to my dreams!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guGchg4mbLs
...but why is it Ironic that the Apache foundation were the first to warn the community? From reading the summary, it seems highly appropriate that Apache were the first ones to warn the community, not Ironic at all. Unless, of course, I'm missing something (which I suspect I am).
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Java is not dead. Maybe it's not the hip language anymore, but it definitely is not dead.
It seem strange that Oracle would push people away from Java, especially since Sun spent a great deal of time getting people to adopt it. Now Microsoft seems to have gone soft on .NET which was that technology to compete with Java. Did Oracle somehow make a backroom deal with Microsoft? As I recall the Sun/Microsoft suit prohibited Microsoft from having their own Java implementation, is Microsoft now going to license Java from Oracle as the .NET replacement? This is all speculation but Oracle hasn't done anything good for the things they received in the Sun acquisition, Solaris, Java and SPARC. I realize that Oracle is a big company that likes lots of revenues but it seems to me that Sun market share was on the decline and now Oracle is just shutting the door on what remaining customers they had.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Really, who didn't see this coming?
This isn't a news article. This is an article about two previous news articles. There's nothing to see coming. Submitted by the author of an article about the two previous stories. Slow news day, I hope; this is just a group-think trajectory thing.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
That entirely depends on how well the GPLv2 protects you from their patents.
Oh, and you can't use the name Java because Sun has it trademarked.
Oh, and no clue what'll happen related to trademarks if you continue to use the word "java" in the various namespaces in the language.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I'm not Oracle fan (actually, I'm a hater), but this seems more like a witch hunt. I mean, the title "Oracle's Java Polices Are Destroying the Community", sounds a little harsh considering you only said that Oracle released a buggy version of Java and they were not the first to report it. ...not that I'm against an Oracle witch hunt. ;)
Java is not dead. Maybe it's not the hip language anymore, but it definitely is not dead.
Just like COBOL is not dead. Sure, it's not the hip language, but so many legacy systems are built on it that it's basically guaranteed to live for quite a while longer. I suspect Java will have the same fate.
Slashdot loves to rake on java.. but I always liked it. I don't work with it much any more, but I have fond memories.
Specifically I liked developing with it. Using it is an entirely different matter.. swing based UIs are still generally terrible. From the code side it was nice.
And LibreOffice is working on reimplementing many of those features without Java.
Java Police, arrest this man
he talks in NET
He buzzes like C
He's like a detuned VM
This is what you get when you mess with us
how long until
Other parts of Oracle are donating Openoffice to Apache...
Except the post is wrong, the article isn't about Oracle damaging the OSS community, it's about them damaging Java.
Releasing a JVM with a serious bug doesn't damage the OSS community. In fact it's an excellent way to give it more influence. Issues like these provide plenty incentive to fork.
The worst case for Oracle would be it goes the way it happened with XFree86: every distribution ships the Apache version, and everybody stops caring about the original project's existence.
O ne
R ich
A sshole
C alled
L arry
E llison
OP didn't claim it was dead. It sounded to me like he *wanted* it dead. Add me to that list please.
Wait, this is America, and people spent money in College learning it. Perhaps the government should subsidy the language and offer incentives to companies that hire these people...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Most production work will remain at java 6 for a while, until everyone makes their versions of java 7 available, Apple and IBM in particular. RHEL doesn't ship with the openjdk-1.7.0 yet. It's just not available in enough places to be worth developing against yet. Oracle knows that Apache is one of the major reasons that java is a popular as it is. They did give the Apache foundation, all of OpenOffice you know. Some idiot made a bad call and told management, that the error was just a corner case, and management said were not going to miss our deadline for a corner case. Oracle knows that the enterprise market will buy Oracle and Oracle services. It's not worried about software that's not in its market space.
> but so many legacy systems are built on it [Java] that it's basically guaranteed to live for quite a while longer
I imagine that nobody is writing new applications in COBOL. New applications are written in Java every day.
Java may not be the hip new thing anymore, but it's being developed for heavily.
It took COBOL over 30 years to reach this point. Perhaps Java will reach the same point, but I'll bet it takes decades ... for now, it's alive and well. (Perhaps there's been a buggy new release, but all the applications using older releases are fine, with new applications made all the time.)
It's amazing they took something that was so championed by the open source community and are now driving it into the ground. Do they honestly think people are going to give a shit anymore if they keep trying to screw the community? They're either going to fork it or they're going to move on to something completely different and then Oracle can go fuck themselves. Either way, they really need to learn how to place nice. It's getting ridiculous now.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
I am a long-time Windows/.NET developer, but have reached a point where I want to become part of the much stronger, more vibrant open-source community that has developed around Linux, Java, Apache, MySQL, etc. Just as I started making this transition, Oracle's acquisition of two of the key pieces of this ecosystem (Java and MySQL) seems to be disrupting this (comparative) paradise. What's the consensus of the hive-mind on the future? Can the Linux vendors, the Apache Foundation, and their alies sustain the Java ecosystem without/in spite of Oracle? If not, where do we go from here? Dust off our old C++ skills? Adopt Google Go, Haskell, or some other next-generation language and re-build the ecosystem around it? Or are we collectively doomed to fragmentation again?
You forgot "two-thirds of the world's smartphones." Android and BlackBerry OS are both heavily dependent on Java.
Larry Ellison is becoming more of a software terrorist every day.
Wait, this is America, and people spent money in College learning it. Perhaps the government should subsidy the language and offer incentives to companies that hire these people...
Wow. Where the hell did that come from? Your guy on the radio got you all worked up again?
When you find out, let me know too. I think we're riding the same ship.
My company IS writing new COBOL apps, it makes me sad.
I've been looking for an alternative to Java for some time. Java was appealing because of it cross-platform compatibility, and relatively easy to use GUI classes. Anyone have any suggestions?
A couple of factors motivating users to seek open solutions are: The proprietary vendor screws a product up and then doesn't fix it[1]. The vendor starts withholding necessary documentation or other support from the software community[2]. When will my product become competition for the vendor and I too will get buggered?
I can't think of a faster way for developers to jump ship to an open version of Java. And perhaps begin to fear other Oracle products as well.
[1] Heck, enough screw-ups and I'll start looking for a competent alternative. Never mind timely patches.
[2] Its called 'cutting off their air supply' and was made famous by a little outfit in Redmond.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, that's the fate of all languages. But the fact that you know how to build a rocket engine does not make combustion engines immediately dead.
COBOL is dead, or maybe in coma - it's not used for development any more, except for maintenance of legacy systems.
Java is probably the most used language of today. There are other popular languages - some older than Java (e.g. C), some younger (Python, Ruby) - but none of them is used as often as Java. This is not going to change in the near future (say 10 years), because the companies have invested so much into the whole ecosystem and there's no reason to ditch Java. Moreover there's no other language with a comparably rich ecosystem.
But I admit that with enough stupid steps from Oracle, this can change pretty fast.
Die, Java, die!
It is German for The, Java, the. And as we all know, nobody who speaks German can be evil.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Just like COBOL is not dead. Sure, it's not the hip language, but so many legacy systems are built on it that it's basically guaranteed to live for quite a while longer. I suspect Java will have the same fate.
Java is not remotely in anywhere the same situation as Cobol. Java jobs are plentiful as is the development scene which covers everything from Android all the way up to big iron. There really isn't much to challenge the language at present though given Oracle's pathetic stewardship perhaps there should be.
3. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
How does that not fit in this case? Did you even read the next line in the summary?
OP didn't claim it was dead. It sounded to me like he *wanted* it dead. Add me to that list please.
Wait, this is America, and people spent money in College learning it. Perhaps the government should subsidy the language and offer incentives to companies that hire these people...
- Dan.
My sarcasm detector needs calibration, but, in the meantime, those who spent money in college learning a language and not the concepts behind the language got ripped off. Give fish vs teach fishing and all that jazz.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Biggest issue for the amount of boiler plate crap. Things like anonymous classes where proper closures would make the code a lot cleaner. Eclipse takes care of a lot of refactoring and cleanup but it's still dealing with a lot of bloat. Other issues would be the heavy reliance on XML for control & configuration of apps. Often times you'll spend more time worrying about configuration than code.
In summary I like Java but it's not improving fast enough.
Someone Mod this guy up...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
heh, you beat me to it!!
There are many, many, many web application written on Weblogic, Tomcat, and JBoss webservers. They're all Java webapps. Not to mention Eclipse is written in Java as well. I don't think you have a clue as to what all is out there.
no its just a bloated corpse ready to pop and make a big mess
I never really understood the appeal of java, yea ok I get its "benefits" but I also get that that usually means I am going to have to install some annoying shit VM that nags me to update every 3 days just so I can run some kiddy script with a bad UI and just qualifying as functional program that runs 9x slower than it really should.
I have yet to see a quality java program the entire time its been out
... was given to the Apache Community. Does that seem like action by Oracle to "stomp Apache and its open source Java efforts clean out of existence"? If anything it makes the Apache Community stronger. Java is definitely one of Oracle's most important acquisitions from Sun, which is why they are currently in court against Google. Programming mistakes happen all the time. Granted, some optimization flags were enabled that shouldn't have been, but that doesn't make Oracle intentionally malicious in this case.
Accidents happen, get over it.
I'm tired of these flamebait articles. What has happened to factual news reporting?
And yet nothing of value will be lost.
Any noun can be verbed.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Never had to interact with Oracle much, that they're not well regarded is obvious, but if is the one thing they end up doing, then I will thank them and love them for it, in a perverse way. This overheard at OOPSLA during lunch many years ago:
Some Random Guy: "So James, really, what do you think the odds of Java really working are?"
James Gosling: "Of course it'll work, there's not a damn new thing in it!"
Or put better by Jan Steinman: "Java. All the elegance of C++ with all the speed of Smalltalk."
Rant aside, sadly, from what I hear, there's enough Java love fest going on at Google to keep things going for quite a while.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
All hail the great Rasmus :-)
So sayeth the PhreakFakt0r
The worst case for Oracle would be it goes the way it happened with XFree86: every distribution ships the Apache version, and everybody stops caring about the original project's existence.
That's all good and well, if they can guarantee all existing Java applications will work with it. I'm not sure how it functionally compares with OpenJDK, but lots of existing Java applications simply won't work with it. If they can manage to do what OpenJDK can't, then they have a chance. Otherwise everyone is still suck using Oracle's version, especially Enterprise users (which I'd imagine accounts for most of Java's use).
And any cluster can be sentenced?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, also: "the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned; the literary device so used, orig. in Greek tragedy; also transf."
We (the audience) saw this coming, but Oracle don't seem to have. So that's irony in this, one of the earliest senses.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Other than knee jerk, why?
I imagine that nobody is writing new applications in COBOL.
You could be wrong, you know
Fujitsu announced late Friday that it is shipping four middleware products designed to work with Microsoft's Windows Azure public cloud development platform
"The new line of products delivers runtime environments for Java and Cobol, two application programming languages that are commonly employed in building mission-critical systems, in addition to providing functionality enabling central monitoring between on-premise systems and the Windows Azure Platform."
Fujitsu Teams with Microsoft on Azure Middleware
Even Java, a much lauded language when it arrived 20 years ago, is already deemed to be old and "legacy". Yet, according to analyst Gartner, more than 70% of the world's business is run by a technology that was christened over 50 years ago - COBOL, or Common Business-Oriented Language.
At JD Williams Ltd, UK's leading direct home shopping company, for example, COBOL is one of the strategic languages used due to its key strengths in its English-like syntax, and the fact that is it very quick to develop in and easy to debug.
Recent research revealed that an average person would interact with a COBOL application at least ten times a day. With Gartner estimates putting the number of lines of COBOL code in excess of 200 billion, the global investment in COBOL applications exceeds several trillion dollars.
The case for COBOL
Scala scheme python etc all run in the JVM
If you don't like Oracle's JVM, use the IBM one or the Apache one instead
Oracle is NOT going to destroy java, IBM and Apache will not allow it.
I have pretty positive experience with OpenJDK. I guess you won't get to run into any trouble unless you use video streaming features. (codec licensing problems) For J2EE fat client or webapps you're pretty safe.
As PyPy matures and begins to rival Java in performance, I strongly suspect Python will begin to offset Java in the enterprise. Most studies clearly indicate Java is not a desired language by most programmers. Rather, most programmers program in Java because the enterprise dictated it. With Java/Oracle beginning to lose face, IMOHO, it opens the door for languages programmers actually want to use. This means languages like Python, which have extremely rich libraries, easily integrate with other languages, and continues to grow in appeal.
Ruby, of course, is not in the running as its positioned itself as the anti-culture (anti-enterprise) hipster language.
"OP didn't claim it was dead. It sounded to me like he *wanted* it dead. Add me to that list please." Neither. The OP was merely speaking in German. Ger: Die, Java,die! Eng: The, Java, the!
Dalvik for the desktop?
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
For those who hear nothing but a strange whooshing sound...
Java Police, arrest this man ... When you mess with us!
he talks in NET
He buzzes like C
He's like a detuned VM
This is what you get...
This is what you get...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Gah! It ate the first line for some reason.
It's to the melody of Karma Police.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
He's got a pretty awesome sig too. This guy really tells it like it is. He's changing my whole outlook on the world!
Java kinda sucks as a language.
Google should designe a better high level language around the LLVM stack while improving the LLVM stack itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem
Let's be clear on this.
Oracle is killing everything remotely related to Sun.
They're killing SPARC.
They're killing PostGresql.
They're killing Solaris.
They're killing the Sun identity management suite (including directory server)
They're killing Java.
They're killing OpenOffice.
And they're killing every community that has formed around any one of those technologies.
Oracle is bound and determined to leave the Sun name and everything it created nothing more than a purple stain on the information highway.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Usual Oracle bashing?
How about.. buying BEA and fucking over the best app server on the market.
How about.. buying Sun and fucking over Java and OpenOffice
How about.. buying 18 different companies leaving themselves fragmented to hell with internally competing software products that don't interoperate making it impossible to choose what to actually buy from them, leaving you forced to give your money to IBM who aren't a whole lot better but at least have competent salespeople
Trust me, Oracle deserve a hell of a lot of bashing.
I agree, but what are the viable alternatives (not a snide comment, a serious question).
Your options are basically a lower level language like c++, or a really high level language like python or perl or.. ruby..
There doesn't appear to be many middle ground competitors.. probably because java was so damn good at that. It was just the right mixture of strong typing, rigid structure, and rapid development.
If you can name a single desktop app which triggers the HotSpot bugs which this tempest in a teapot is all about, I'll be surprised.
Furthermore, Oracle won't push Java 7 via the auto-update before these bugs are fixed or indeed any time soon at all. In fact, I don't know that JRE 5 users were ever auto-updated to 6, and if they were, it was after JRE 5 was EOL'd (roughly three years after Java 6 was released, and long after most people had moved on of their own accord). The auto-updater is primarily for security fix purposes, so as long as security patches for the old version are still coming, users needn't be auto-upgraded.
I dislike the way Oracle has treated Apache and Google as much as anybody else, but false technical complaints don't help anybody's case.
I know what I said.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I want to subscribe to his newsletter.
I drank what? -- Socrates
That entirely depends on how well the GPLv2 protects you from their patents.
i.e. not at all. GPLv2 (clause 7) means that you lose the right to distribute the code under the GPL if doing so would violate patents, however Oracle / Sun is the copyright owner and so not bound by the license (the GPL is the license that they grant you), so you gain no protection at all.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
believe me, if you have a fish that can play jazz, you'll be kept booked solid with gigs.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Have Java detractors ever visited sites that make the opposite case? Of course not - this is called natural human bias. Here is an unbiased source of information: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html Even giving +/- 5 % to account for errors, Java leaves all other languages but C in the dust... ...choke choke.
Heck give 10% points to others on the graph and subtract 10% from Java. That might help...
Yeah!
Jazz Fish ROCKS!
I drank what? -- Socrates
This is related to the fundamental fraud behind Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft back in the late 90's. The contract between the two defined the standard for compatibility as the Java Technology Compatibility Kit or whatever it was called at the time, and defined it as Sun's publicly available tests. Sun/Oracle has never had any publicly available tests. You've always had to sign a strict NDA to get access to them
Its already destroyed. Oracle just don't have the mojo Sun had. Try searching for things on java and you invariably end up with an Oracle landing page that doesn't remember all the knowledge Sun had shared. Check out their wiki now, its bloody pathetic. Check out the old Sun blog site and you would see useless junk. Oracle is the wrong steward for Java and that is never going to change. I bailed out and am now spending my free time working with Nodejs and Mongodb. Alas, its only a matter of time before some heartless and soul-less company like Oracle buys both of them and give them a kiss of death.
life is all about searching and sorting
If you are using a language with a centralised official body mandating correct usage, such as French or Esperanto, yes. English isn't one of those languages.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I thought that on x86 at least, most Java is JIT compiled to high performance native.
Just-in-time compilation
HotSpot
In all major platforms the JVM runs, not just on x86. Heck, there are high performance platforms out there (Azul comes to mind) that have the JVM, the JIT, the GC and a lot of other things running on the dye.
the writting was on the wall, bad behavior, from Oracle....who would have "thunk" it. I really like the java language but I feel oracle is really hurting it's future, and with Ruby (on rails), Python (django) and .net/mono all nippiing at your heels is it really the best strategic move on their part.
The worst thing that's in here, if nobody bothers to actually read page 2 of TFA, is that Oracle knew the JVM didn't do loops properly when it shipped it - they shipped it anyhow and hoped nobody'd notice until everyone upgraded.
Well it's not like loops are an important language construct at least. I knew all those years of doing everything with gotos would finally pay off.
Well Groovy fixes a lot of egregious problems in Java. I think if something appeared with Groovy like terseness but as a true superset of Java (i.e. a Java++) that it could do very well. Problem as I see it is Oracle is too petrified to do anything to the language for fear of breaking it and at this point the best hope is someone else takes over. That or Oracle splits it's language development out a la Fedora vs Redhat with a stable runtime for enterprises and more frequent unstable releases with new useful stuff.
I don't think that a language without static typing will have a good chance in the enterprise, if past experience is anything to go by. On the other hand, this could be slapped on top of the existing type system; but I'm not aware of any work being done in that area.
More likely, I'd expect a statically typed OO/FP hybrid, something like a simplified Scala (Kotlin?), for the next mainstream "enterprise" language.
Type qualification is slowly making its way into python. They are considered optional but exist to allow for better JIT optimizations.
Beyond that, decorators can be used to strictly type arguments and whatnot.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Kotlin. IMO, the alternative languages targeting JVM would steal Java's thunder a long time ago, if not for sucky tooling (especially IDE support incl. code completion and designers). But Kotlin is made by JetBrains, and you can be sure that there will be full support for it in IDEA once it's released. That may well be a game changer.
No mention of Apple, so those fail. How about 'Oracle's Java bug delays OpenJDK 7 port for iOS and prevents users from bitcoin mining on their iPads'.
Google supports Oracle's Java bug which delays OpenJDK 7 ports for iOS which prevents users from mining bitcoins on their iPad and notes that Honycomb won't have this problem (if it ever ships).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is appropriate for your comment. Read the entire comic, but I think it's important that you pay particular attention to the very last point along with the advice that trails it.
He who has no
Bingo!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I've never understood why a virtual machine is, in any way, better than an intermediate language that can be compiled to native code for a particular platform.
For the same reason that in many platforms (x86 for instance), your compiled code gets compiled to high level instructions and not directly into microcode. In the same way that the x86 instruction set insulates you from possible chip architectural changes (that could change the underlying microcode), so does software-level vm instruction sets. The later provides you with a higher level of abstraction to work on, tends to simplify things, and provides a good-enough degree (but a 100% one) on portability across machine architectures.
An interpreted language may make sense for dynamically created code.
Java is not an interpreted language. It compiles to JVM byte code with very small resemblance to the original source code. An interpreted language is one that is parsed and, if valid, executed at run time. The adjective 'interpreted' doesn't fit here.
Even so, why not just compile it first?
But you do. You compile it into JVM bytecode. Compilation does not mean absolutely translate into hardware-specific machine instructions.
You can run interpreted code in a sandbox
Or you could run compiled code in a sandbox (pls see previous comment about interpreted vs compiled.)
but any IM compiler could add the same features to native code.
Yes, but then you have to implement back-end native instruction generators for the platforms. OTH, if you provide a VM (not just necessarily a JVM), which itself is compiled to a selected number architectures, and which code and behavior is narrower than the general cases one has to consider otherwise, then you only focus on the issues pertaining to application-specific code compiling to into that VM.
Also, a VM provides higher-level abstractions that make development of apps (and compiler toolchains and introspection tools) easier.
One thing to remember is that a VM (and the JVM in particular) provides another layer of abstraction with services and constrains not necessarily available (nor desirable) at the OS level.
For better or worse, depending on how you want to look at it, the JVM provides a security model, a memory model, a concurrency model, etc. It provides class loading and reloading capabilities, integrity checking of classes before loading, easier mechanisms for bytecode manipulation and reflection (this extremely important for most app-level development), a robust JIT, configurable garbage collection algorithms that you can configure according to the type of hardware you have, and so on and so on.
So the JVM is not just a bytecode interpreter, but an entire operating environment with high-level services targeted for a specific class of problems (and the applications that solves them.) For that type of application development, a VM makes more sense than direct compilation to an architecture instruction set on an executable format that is typically OS-specific.
.. people spent money in College learning it.
The universities should just have stayed with teaching C, Pascal, Haskell and assembly. Picking up a language because it is popular does not guarantee that it will still exist after graduation. They should pick only languages which are open, free to implement, extend and distribute. Universities used that logic for the last 25 years to not teach anything Microsoft related, they should apply it to java as well (and Apple too, now that I'm at).
By the way, to counter my own trolling, you spend money in college as well to learn Haskell. Ever used that for a real-world client?
I admire the incompetence of Oracle. They've pretty much destroyed Java. They accomplished what Microsoft couldn't.
Want to see why Java SE is no longer standard on any phone, and Android moves away from Dalvik? *points to Oracle*
Nice job breaking it.
Sure, Java may still have some life in the enterprise (which is probably what Oracle had in mind to squeeze), but it's pretty much dead now as a future mobile and desktop development language. It's in the same basket as Silverlight, Flash (Which Adobe is doing a nice job killing, not Apple), and pretty much anything else that falls out of favor.
Steve Jobs must have a sixth sense for predicting the future. Notice how Apple convienently drops technology when they become performance issues?
You mean like Google did? And where are they now? In court. Something about patents or something.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
It's feeling better! Java feels happy, Java feels happy....thunk. Time to put Java on the cart me thinks.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yes, I'm aware of plans to use decorator for that purpose - IIRC there was even Guido's musings on that subject, which didn't quite make it to Py3k and were "indefinitely postponed".
However, what was missing from all of them - so far as I know - is static verification of type correctness. I.e. if you have a type annotation, the proposed spec would result in a runtime error at the point of the invalid call. I would prefer full verification in advance (not necessarily "compile-time" - for all I care it can still interpret all that stuff and box everything but ints - just a distinct phase before runtime), with type inference to cut down on verbose declarations.
I don't really consider Groovy to be a middle-ground language like Java and C# are. It's performance isn't any better than python, ruby, or the other high-level languages, so I just lump it along with them.
If you want to avoid these problems do not support "technologies" that lock you in even if the dealer gives you free samples and is friendly -- it is only to get you addicted, then you are at their mercy.
Oracle may make MS look nicer but moving from 1 megacorp who can screw you at a whim to another one isn't a step away from the problem... MS messed up a whole lot for the planet for a long time; worst. track. record. ever. Nothing says that MS doesn't cause a nightmare later on; they are already making a bunch of idiotic claims against linux and any obvious idea that runs on a cell phone they could skew a patent to cover. MS isn't interested in C# right now, just like SUN was ok with Java and many things for a long time... and look what happened. I'm not saying MS will merge with Oracle and become super evil (that is possible) but they merely can decide to use their power over you with a whim of the CEO (or in this case, a chair throwing fit.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Cobol is not as dead as you think( think bureaucracy ) , Java is not the most popular language (C/C++ is), and stupid vendors can quickly kill even the most impressive technologies. The problem at Oracle is that they're treating everyone in the Java business as a competitor - not realizing or caring that Java is an open standard
Moreover Oracle all at once would like to leverage the huge base of companies who "need" java support into an Oracle support contract. But to do that they need to send out the brown-shirts to beat down all the "knockoff" organizations so that the big fish contracts will have no choice but to go to Oracle for new platform support.
Apache thinks they're all smug and smart over there - but in reality Oracle can just grab their code and wrap it up in support contracts and bundle it with hardware and OS support. After a while Oracle will come after them for Patent, Trademark, or copyright infringement (the trifecta of doom) - and after Apache looses badly - Oracle will demand ownership of all "java related technologies" - thus DEFEATING the SCOURGE of freedom.
All my predictions come true. Oh, prepare for mass starvation too. kthx.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
Probably as long as it takes them to fix it in Safari.
no its just a bloated corpse ready to pop and make a big mess
I never really understood the appeal of java, yea ok I get its "benefits" but I also get that that usually means I am going to have to install some annoying shit VM that nags me to update every 3 days just so I can run some kiddy script with a bad UI and just qualifying as functional program that runs 9x slower than it really should.
I have yet to see a quality java program the entire time its been out
You're obviously ignorant of the full scope of Java and what it's all used for. You ran maybe what, 3 poorly written Java applications? If it's a really bad application, that usually means it was written poorly. It could be written in GOD language and still suck.
By far the majority of applications written in Java probably don't have a GUI interface at all, anyway.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Wow. Did you grammer that yourself?
-a.d.-
I'm Erwin Schrodinger and I approve of this message, and I do not approve of this message!
If only. I got it from The Jargon File.
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It you take a peek at some of the PyPy discussions, you'll find you're not alone. And some admit that a compilation phase during developing for the sole purpose of static verification, where possible, is on the minds of some.
The Java VM is a very poor abstraction for most underlying hardware. I think a general purpose IM would be a much better idea.
You know that the Java VM is not an abstraction for most underlying hardware, don't you. As I mentioned in my prev. post, it is an operating environment for a specific class of problems which provides a slew of app-specific services that are not necessarily general purpose. IM servers one type of purposes, VMs serve others.
Also, I know that you think like that. However, I *think* you need to qualify your stated opinion. Without it, it is as valuable as saying "I think oranges are better than apples."
I mean seriously, what do you mean by this?
The Java VM is a very poor abstraction for most underlying hardware.
Why? How? Under what conditions? More importantly, is that the JVM's objective? (hint: it isn't)
And and what to you mean by this?
I think a general purpose IM would be a much better idea.
Why? How? Under what circumstances? And if IM is a better alternative, how is it to implement the configurable gc logic, the class loading logic, the JMX and other management extension logic, the security manager logic, the reflection logic, the JNDI logic, the JDBC logic, all the specs that come with it (all of which are defined as universal standards for that application stack)?
Obviously it would have to be deployed in the OS as a shared library, and then you'll have to ask you why is that a better deployment/distribution model over the JVM, how and under what conditions.
Without that, all you are saying is that *you like* apples more than oranges. Not much helpful, isn't?
Thanks for the pointers. I should definitely dig deeper into this to see where the wind is blowing. I generally like Python - if it gets that feature, it will become a truly awesome language, and screw Java.
Now to get Google to make it a first-class supported language for Android development (meaning runtime preinstalled & full SDK support out of the box), and it could take a lot of ground in no time - if rapid uptake of Obj-C as a result of iOS popularity surge is any indication.
I am a huge fan of Java, even with some of it's shortcomings, and after the Oracle acquisition would have dumped it right then and there if there were an alternative.
I doubt I am the only one who thinks this way, but we need a 'drop-in' alternative and if possible one that will completely detach the next-best-Java from any oracle-poisonous tentacle.
Because we gotta be honest, a LOT of Java based systems exist in the professional markets and they will not just re-programm their entire systems because of Oracles antics (though many do see the writing on the wall and are worried).
I would see Google + Gosslin (SP?) as ideal candidates to create such a new Java. Their Dalvik-VM being a prime example of a possible future replacement.
Seems you're right about the popularity of languages - according to http://langpop.com/, C/C++ is the leader (which makes me happy, because I use it too). Although I'm quite suspicious about this kind of popularity charts - mostly because of the data source (search engines, not real projects). I've studied statistics (I have a degree in it), and I guess I could easily tweak it to get Visual Basic to the first place.
I've judged the popularity by my experience, and (probably limited) view of projects. I work in enterprise / banking, and most of the projects here are Java-based. And I don't think that's going to change - maybe they could develop new projects on something else, but they have to maintain the current systems so they need Java developers. And when you have in-house Java developers, it's cheaper to develop new projects in Java too (otherwise you'd need more developers or developers who know both, and that's more expensive). And the banks generally like to have the whole stack from Oracle (including database and application servers) from Oracle, so switching just the application layer won't help them much.
The Oracle approach is very different from Sun. Sun was an engineering company, Oracle is doing business. I may not like it, I see myself as an engineer, so I did naturally like how Sun did it, but in the end it was not very successful.
And I don't see any fault on Apache Foundation side. The fact that there is a pool of projects and various vendors can sell support, that's actually the very idea behind the open-source business model. Yes, Oracle can bundle that with their stack (and since they bought Sun they actually have everything they need), but the other vendors could do the same. The real culprit here is the JVM - with enough patents, Oracle can club to death any attempt to create an alternative JVM. But in that case, the open-source ecosystem will fall and something else will emerge.
I would envisage that any Java++ would be a hybrid which supported static compilation of Java code plus extensions but also had dynamic runtime functionality for things like domain specific languages. So your code for the most part would still be compiled byte code but if you wanted you could drop a bit of declarative UI, or Groovy, or Scala, or HQL or something straight in the middle of the Java class and the runtime would run it seamlessly.
Just to make sure I didn't over sell, please keep in mind, while I do know there is a lot of static analysis which currently does take place for the JIT, I have no idea how much of that is exposed as a compilation/diagnostic tool. And my comment above was specifically focused on discussion to empower developer level static analysis. As such, I have no idea if at this point its strictly theoretical.
I completely agree with your Google assessment. Honestly I was amazed Google went the Java route and not the Python. Bet they wished they had now. Though I'm not really surprised. Google suffers badly from Java dysmorphia, in that they wrongly believe its a language programmers really want to use. As such they see Java as a hammer and the world as a nail.
In typical Google fashion, they never really stopped to asked if Java is a language programmers want (its largely not) and if the enterprise factors which pushed Java into many companies need apply (it doesn't). Which, of course, leaves everyone scratching their head with a WTF?!? In fact, most Android developers are displeased with Google's Java+Android position, and were downright pissed when Google had the balls to tell people that only dopes code in C/C++ and worse, a full C++ feature set on Android is for idiots. And of course, that was another case of classic Google dysmorphia. Obviously they did eventually make a reversal, but largely the damage is done. After all, what most programmers want is C/C++, and if they want to support some type of VM+core language, most would prefer something like Python, Ruby, LUA, and so on.
I don't know if you followed Android during the early days, but there were basically two camps. Camp one was those who went to Android specifically because it was Java. Of course, during this time, Android+Java developers were a tiny group. And then there were those who were simply interested in an Apple competitor almost without fail, they all wondered what the hell was wrong with Google and their Java dysmorphia that most people didn't want anything to do with - which was further compounded in that it targeted a byte code VM.
Ok, so say Oracle does end up destroying the Java community and you get your wish that Java dies, what replaces it?
Java is huge in corporate development because Java provides a complete ecosystem. It is a supported platform, there are large numbers of trained developers, it has a huge pool of good quality external components available from the Apache projects for example. It works.
You can go from zero to a working webservice, complete with connections to a database in a couple of hours. With some decoration you can change that from being XML based to JSON based.
You can build 3D games, using OpenGL that perform remarkably well, so long as your target platform supports OpenGL (not a Java issue).
And you can do all of this in one language, with one development kit, some well known, well defined add-on libraries that you can deploy to multiple operating systems. Or you can use a number of other languages, if you prefer to code in a different style and don't like the wordiness of Java the language. Java the platform gives you this ability.
Call it the new Cobol if you like, be all smug. Doesn't matter to all the companies using it and developers making a living coding in it.
I would really like to know what could replace this? I have been concerned since the Oracle take over and have been trying, for example, to find an alternative to a simple webservice world.
Today I can download, unzip and fire up Tomcat and I'm ready to write code, or I can use Jetty and embed an HTTP server and servlet engine in my jar file and make it a single jar deployment. Yes I know, I have to install a JVM, which is a simple download and install. You do the same with Ruby, Python, Perl or PHP. With C/C++ you don't need a runtime, but you have to code for cross platform usability.
I've looked at Apache with modules and CGI, tried out Node.js and Seaside (Smalltalk). I've looked at RoR and some of what is available in the Python world. I'm even seeing what it takes to build a web server (using PocoLib) with a connected V8 Javascript engine for scripting (I'm aware of the V8CGI project that makes a module for Apache, but on Windows, I use the MinGW toolkit, not Microsoft tools, and I've not be able to successfully get that whole stack to build, Poco builds out of the box).
But none of these has the complete environment Java and Java frameworks offer.
So, for all of you wishing Java would go away, please, what is a complete replacement?
Otherwise everyone is still suck using Oracle's version, especially Enterprise users (which I'd imagine accounts for most of Java's use).
IBM's enterprise Java products all use IBM's Java runtime, not Oracle's, as far as I know.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
the verbed form of that noun is subsidize, not subsidy. lawyered.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
The trouble is, it's all about future languages. For the desktop at the moment my choices seem to be Python or Ruby for scripting -- both good, choice down to programmer preference and availability of pre-rolled code relevant to the project in hand -- and C# or Java for larger-scale stuff, both bogged down with corporate ownership issues. I'm almost tempted to revert to C++ unless somebody can point me to a real viable alternative rather than an experimental language. (There's some stuff I do in Ada, but that's a bit heavy for general purpose stuff).
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Yup, I agree with this... I just think that anything out there with a VM language is a patent minefield these days... this includes all the JVM and .NET languages. Thinking that Oracle is any nicer than Microsoft is innocent folly, fraught with the same dangers of "intellectual property" land mines.
Apache and the OSS community would be much better off developing it's own VM languages in the first place and publishing profusely.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I can't believe anyone is surprised by this behaviour. It is written (somewhere) the the Gods of Commerce get to do whatever the hell they want, and we all know that they sure as hell DON'T want to share...
...
However, we are very lucky. Rarely is the solution so clear.
1. If you willingly do biz with Oracle, especially in the Java arena, but really in any context, you lose your right to bitch about Oracle's bad behaviour.
2. Go back to the last FOSS version of Java and fork it. And this time don't sell it to any greed heads - yep, I am putting Sun in this category also.
Hang in there - we are all in this together
I bow in respect to the lower UID.
Yeah? Well bow in respect to mine. I wrote TFA in question, and I didn't write any of the ones you cite. Neither were they submitted by me or anyone I know. Does my editorial recap known facts? Sure, but that's how one explains things. If you know every point contained in my editorial -- assuming you made it to the end -- consider yourself clever. Perhaps you weren't the intended audience.
Breakfast served all day!
Yeah? Well bow in respect to mine. I wrote TFA in question, and I didn't write any of the ones you cite. Neither were they submitted by me or anyone I know. Does my editorial recap known facts? Sure, but that's how one explains things. If you know every point contained in my editorial -- assuming you made it to the end -- consider yourself clever. Perhaps you weren't the intended audience.
Yipes! *bows hurriedly*
Ok, I made the mistake of assuming the submitter was the same as the author, because the submitter's name links to Infoworld. I've seen author-submitted posts on Slashdot's front page so many times, it's almost expected. My apologies.
Having gone through and read the article line-by-line (I don't usually read IW articles, because, well, I prefer more-technical articles than I've seen them write.) The rest of my brief analysis was based on a very poorly-written /. submission; the submission speaks of Oracle's desires to act against open-source Java and the Apache foundation, whereas the article doesn't even address that prospect.
So, yes, my comment was wrong. I'm sorry. I'll buy you a beer if you're ever in my area. (And I know where the good microbrews are around here, too)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Well thanks.
FWIW, one thing that is annoying to me (that isn't really anybody on /.'s fault) is that my articles are often linked here totally out of context. This particular one wasn't any kind of front-page story or anything. It was an opinion column. Think page B-3 of the newspaper. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But when it gets linked on /., all of a sudden I'm part of some vast, corrupt disinformation campaign, usually based on the article's headline and the summary alone -- neither of which I even had anything to do with.
This is one reason why I don't usually get involved with discussions of my own articles when they're linked here. It's frustrating trying to answer to attacks against opinions I don't actually hold, by people who haven't actually read what I wrote. (The other reason is that after saying sometimes as much as 2,500 words of what I want to say on a topic, it's usually time to shut up and let other people talk.)
Breakfast served all day!