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Oracle Hasn't Killed Java -- But There's Still Time
snydeq (1272828) writes Java core has stagnated, Java EE is dead, and Spring is over, but the JVM marches on. C'mon Oracle, where are the big ideas? asks Andrew C. Oliver. 'I don't think Oracle knows how to create markets. It knows how to destroy them and create a product out of them, but it somehow failed to do that with Java. I think Java will have a long, long tail, but the days are numbered for it being anything more than a runtime and a language with a huge install base. I don't see Oracle stepping up to the plate to offer the kind of leadership that is needed. It just isn't who Oracle is. Instead, Oracle will sue some more people, do some more shortsighted and self-defeating things, then quietly fade into runtime maintainer before IBM, Red Hat, et al. pick up the slack independently. That's started to happen anyhow.'
Oracle can't figure out how to screw over java, and we are complaining?
Huge troll. They got Java 7 released after Sun let it stagnate for years, they released Java 8 with major improvements the community has wanted for years, they are currently working on Java 9 and the module system, etc. Java EE and Sprign certainly are not dead. I regularly attend a local JUG and I would say the majority of people are using Java EE features such as Servlets, JPA, JAX-RS, JAX-WS, many are moving into CDI, and yes there are even a bunch of JSF users. There are Spring users too. IMO the Java community is alive and well.
Then what have I been drinking every morning?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Seriously, how much language "innovation" do we need? The platform is huge and there's more than enough third-party libraries to satisfy any needs.
Yep, NodeJS has pretty much taken over as the go-to language in enterprise development now.
So, what you're saying is that Oracle's stagnant "sit on it" leadership is bad for people for whom the language and runtime are the end, the product, the point of it all.
As opposed to in the real world, in which the language and runtime are just tools to get shit done, and its users want stability.
You don't have to guess which community Oracle cares about. But if you're not sure, ask yourself which community can Oracle extort support contracts out of, or can be upsold on other products.
Follow the money. How much is the JCP paying Oracle to give a rat's ass about their concerns? Innovation is a cost center to someone protecting a market share, and competing against others who are protecting a market share.
If you want novelty, go find it someplace else. The other posters comparing Java to COBOL, even if jokingly, are very nearly right. Especially if you stipulate that, at the time of COBOL's dominance, the primary implementation of COBOL was associated with IBM big iron.
And that's your historical analogue of the day: COBOL was to IBM what Java is to Oracle.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
He probably wants "Innovation", you know, change for the sake of change? Taking something that works and making new partly incompatible versions of it so that it does not have the taint of old and uncool.
Besides, who would want to work on a stable platform where all the major library needs have been met and vetted when one can be on the bleeding edge of something new to show off?
Hah, no it hasn't. Jesus. I love node, but the ecosystem is still a messy collection of immature libraries. There are some very cool frameworks and experimental bits. The node community reminds me of early-days Rails - lots of true believers reinventing the wheel in their favourite language. Spring is a well-designed and mature framework that has been getting better every year, and it isn't limited to Web applications. Java is verbose and slow to change, and it doesn't attract gee-whiz handwavy types (yay). It's always refreshing to get called into a company that needs help with a Spring application - nice clean well-separated concerns and stable libraries as opposed to the mess that production apps in PHP, Rails, or node seem to become.
The JCP under Sun was completely broken. Java 7 was YEARS late. Under Oracle, we got Java 7 released, OpenJDK sorted out, and Java 8 released with Java 9 on its way. As a Scala developer, I don't feel like the Java world has stagnated, but then the Open Source "Community" has been proclaiming the death of Java since Java 1.5. The Open Source "Community" could learn a hell of a lot from the Java community, like how to actually have and maintain large open source libraries that work for years and years. How to build systems and platforms that mature and age and function for decades without needed to be rewritten. I'd bet there are far far more programmers developing on Java than there are for Linux as a desktop OS, and I shudder to think how a post submitted to Slashdot that declared Linux as a Desktop OS is dead would fare.
Everyone is living in a personal delusion, just some are more delusional than others.
Java browser applet will go surely.
How often do you see Java browser applets used anyway? Not that much, because they never really took off in the first place (despite being by far the most hyped aspect of Java when it first came out in the mid-90s).
Yeah, you do see them used sometimes for banking applications, custom internal-use corporate tools and the like, but for general use Java Applets were massively outnumbered by Flash apps.
In fact, I'd say that Flash on web pages ended up almost entirely fulfilling the general-purpose embedded code role that Java Applets were originally meant- but failed- to fill.
The problem was that Java was just too heavyweight and slow for computers of the time, whereas Flash was more lightweight- having started out as little more than an interactive animation creator- its increasing capabilities better matching slowly-improving computer power.
I wouldn't say that Flash stole that market from Java, because the latter had already had a run at it (during the mid-to-late 90s) and failed to take off by the time that Flash started growing up around the turn of the millennium.
Obviously it's in decline now, but Flash had at least ten- and probably closer to fifteen- years at the top, whereas Java Applets never took off in the first place.
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