James Gosling Resigns from Oracle

Well that doesnt bode very well for Java at Oracel in general... On the other hand the java appstore stuff James demoed at devoxx last year didnt exactly made me jump up from my seat either...

Java is mature and doesn't die because a single person leaves a company. Once a product is mature, it's good for people to move on and do new things. That's the best way to keep things fresh. My bias opinion. I'm sure others will disagree.

I agree Peter, though there is something sad about his departure.

Agreed, though these are part of the "shifting winds" in Javaland - for the better I believe. The JVM is now the future, and new, innovative technologies will continue mushrooming at it's roots, serving different programming paradigms and market segments.

There will be more fallout up ahead with Oracle's aggressive merging, integration and consolidation strategies. Mikos, Schwartz, Gossling... these are just the beginning.

...and best wishes for your future.

Its sad to hear about this. Gosling's departure is tough to handle not only in the Oracle but also in the java world, all of sudden java become orphan. I agree there are many guardians and angels around in Oracle. But java will not be the same as it should be. A/w best wishes for your future james...

I have not read anything significant from the guy in the last 10 years. If somebody can point us to any important, tangible Goslings's contribution to Java or whatever in the last few years I'd be happy to read it, but in my opinion he was just hanging around as a marketing icon.

Java will never be the same again, thank you James. What a waste!! I expect more from Oracle anyway!!

java is a pretty cool language and was definitely one of those most productive languages for a while. however, if gosling didn't make java would we be using smalltalk instead? would the world have been that marginally worse off? i think i'm just bitter because java decided to keep null around. just give me a static typed oo language without the null type being the superclass of almost everything and i'll be happy.

We have see a lots of Java now, its becoming stale and ugly (rails & buses) ! Lets start something new and fresh!

Although I would love to see a new VM that copies the best parts from the Java and .NET virtual machines (and whatever else is out there) and I would love to see a new platform for hosting different languages, close integration with cloud technology and other cool stuff, it only is going to succeeds with a big company behind it. Else it will remain just a footnote in language/platform history imho.

I know that the Java language is getting very stale, but the Java ecosystem is very very rich and is widely accepted by companies.

Peter Veentjer
Multiverse: Software Transactional Memory for Java
multiverse.codehaus.org

Java was suppose to be a "lightweight, embedded" language, but as most computer projects (linux, php, python, etc) it has grown, grown, and grown like a dude with insulin problems. When will we in the computer industry come to realize the application of Occam's Razor, that "simpler is better?" Even Ruby is now taking the same unfortunate route. Complexity grows without bounds.

IMHO,
Nanouk

When will we as technologists demand more of our hardware and software? When will we quit trying to speak the computer's language and force the computer to speak ours? When computers spend 98% of their (multi-cores) doing null-cycles, we need to move on to better uses of our time than learning the over now 65 MB of JDK data/information. We need computers that solve problems, not environments that force us to spend weeks/months/years learning now to deal with struts, FX, threads, monitors, etc. I have been in computer programming for over 32 years, I would like to see a real powerful computer programming environment that does not make slaves of the developers to learn a needlessly complex programming environment.

Oh well, maybe its time to take my money and retire to the islands. ;-))

Nanouk
ex-UCB BSD UNIX development team member from the 70's

The next version of the Java Language Spec book won't be coauthored by James Gosling anymore :(( And Gilad Bracha and Bill Joy have already left Sun too :((

Nicely said Maurizio. I also wonder what he's done in the last 10 years. Java appstore is not exactly an inspiration. Let's get some fresh blood and take Java to that next level, it's been stuck in 3rd gear for the last 5 years.

No, I think we would mostly be using C++. And the world would possibly be worse off for a lot of programmers. C++ is a great statically typed OO language in many ways, but, compared with Java proper, it's still a great deal more complex and programs in it are - for several reasons - significantly more difficult to get right for quite many of us. And, C++ and the Web don't really add up.

BTW, what do you mean by the null type? Or is it Object you have in mind?

Cheers.

Oh, but I guess we have. It's called .NET, I believe - and that's just one. Not that fresh any more, though.

We are at where no java's enthusiast has been before. A new beginning.