My opinion on the future of Java and Oracle...

[Yucca]

Sun is no longer and I am among those that will move off to another language than Java and leave Oracle to their greedy ways. My first experience with Oracle has not been a pleasant one. I wrote and passed the SCWCD exam yesterday which will probably be my last Java based exam. After 3 years of self education in Java and having earned my SCJP, SCJD, SCBCD and SCWCD I am a bit disgruntled when I realize that many of these certifications are now nullified('scuse the pun) which leaves me on the path heading in the opposite direction than the one in front of Oracle. The knowledge is mine however so I don't feel cheated in anyway except for the fact that these certificates mean less than they did originally (with the certification more for me than a potential employer in the first place.

Netbeans
This lovely little IDE has seen it's day as far as support for JEE is concerned. Oracle confirmed that WebLogic will become the supported IDE. I was however heading to my personal copy of IntelliJ anyway, so don't feel I lose much here.

Glassfish
oracle is keeping and using this as the reference implementation server of JEE.

VirtualBox i like this one... will be continued to be supported.

Open Office will no longer be supported but I feel is in good hands in the Linux community where it will grow at a slower pace than it has been up until now.

Java

Here is my worry. From an existing Java developers view point, I can say that Java is no longer appealing and has fallen behind since 2004. Java 7 might still be released but the language is stale and outdated by better alternatives who turn out to be Java clones(I wil mention in a sec what I mean).

Sun did a good job of switching 90%+ of Java SDK to OpenJDK but a the fact remains that any new version will not be Open and for those that love what Sun did in the past, will hate Oracle as they most certainly will not continue where Sun left off. New Java developers are better off heading over to Android which I feel is the real route that Java has headed down.

Those in the know will agree that Java is in better hands over at google, than Oracle as much of google's empire is Java based and even better they have one of the key architects behindJSE6, working for them in Joshua Bloch and already have a huge foot in the door by having moved Java in it's current SE form to mobile devices which is something that Sun failed to do. I am not talking about lame J2ME here but a full OS that runs on a 1ghz phone and is able to support JSE in it's fullest almost. Another huge benefit of Android is that it is Linux based and with that comes a factory of opportunities in a possible OS for net books and further in the future Desktops.

That's mu thoughts for now, but lets hear yours.

 

[semiautomatix]

With regards to Netbeans, I've been using eclipse for years so I have little vested interest in the IDE. Correct, Oracle is using Glassfish for that exact purpose (though I still prefer Tomcat, personally).

I agree with OpenOffice, it should be let into the Open Source realm and be given the freedom it needs.

Oracle have been supporting Java for over ten years now, it's embedded in their databases, used by their web servers, they have a Java IDE, their portal software is built on Java. I really do fail to see how you can make such a bold statement as to say that Google is more versed in the language.

Furthermore, the language continues to hold appeal for cross platform development with massive momentum. .net is hardly a worthwhile solution if your client base isn't all Windows. Despite all this, many of the world's Enterprise Web Servers a running Java. As Oracle grows, including it's acquisition of Sun, so will the demand for Java Developers. Oracle has a massive following, and since it's software is all based on Java there will be a huge need for scarce skills. Add to that the fact that SAP now uses Java as a language of choice, and you have many many options.

The language itself has seen new life since Java 5 and even if Oracle did close the source, which they won't, it will be easy enough to fork Java and created OpenJava™. Please explain how you feel the language is losing appeal, because I fail to see the link.

You don't offer much of a viable alternative as far as the actual language is concerned, and I have already stated that .net is not completely one of them and php is not an enterprise level language. What would your suggestion be?

Now I understand you comments about using Android, but in doing so you miss the point that Java is platform independent. In saying developers will have to use Android for Java is akin to saying you have to use Windows for .net, and entirely defeatist. No, your platform suggestion I think will hold little merit but Linux-Java as a standard is already becoming quite common place, and Android-Java is something I would support.

 

[Yucca]

With regards to Netbeans, I've been using eclipse for years so I have little vested interest in the IDE. Correct, Oracle is using Glassfish for that exact purpose (though I still prefer Tomcat, personally).

I agree with OpenOffice, it should be let into the Open Source realm and be given the freedom it needs.

Oracle have been supporting Java for over ten years now, it's embedded in their databases, used by their web servers, they have a Java IDE, their portal software is built on Java. I really do fail to see how you can make such a bold statement as to say that Google is more versed in the language.

Furthermore, the language continues to hold appeal for cross platform development with massive momentum. .net is hardly a worthwhile solution if your client base isn't all Windows. Despite all this, many of the world's Enterprise Web Servers a running Java. As Oracle grows, including it's acquisition of Sun, so will the demand for Java Developers. Oracle has a massive following, and since it's software is all based on Java there will be a huge need for scarce skills. Add to that the fact that SAP now uses Java as a language of choice, and you have many many options.

The language itself has seen new life since Java 5 and even if Oracle did close the source, which they won't, it will be easy enough to fork Java and created OpenJava™. Please explain how you feel the language is losing appeal, because I fail to see the link.

You don't offer much of a viable alternative as far as the actual language is concerned, and I have already stated that .net is not completely one of them and php is not an enterprise level language. What would your suggestion be?

Now I understand you comments about using Android, but in doing so you miss the point that Java is platform independent. In saying developers will have to use Android for Java is akin to saying you have to use Windows for .net, and entirely defeatist. No, your platform suggestion I think will hold little merit but Linux-Java as a standard is already becoming quite common place, and Android-Java is something I would support.

To answer you, I would say Ruby but would anyway consider moving to a functional language like Perl 6 which is new. JEE has a future but is vastly different from JSE which is too heavy to be moved to smaller devices. This is a huge factor because the world is moving technology on to smaller devices which currently have terrible resources, although these are improving. Android however is a year ahead as mentioned and is already becoming the prime OS on many manufacturers devices.

Not only is Android Linux based and Java based, but it is the single reason why J2ME should be scrapped.

It just makes sense to me to move to Android which is new, well supported, is 90% Java, runs on even more devices than (or has the ability too), has opened up a market that was closed to OO developers and is just damn sexy

JEE will be well supported by Oracle but my beef was more with JSE.In order to survive JSE will need to be lighter than Android, will need to be released soon and will need to be closely tied with Linux or face extinction because Android is simply too appealing.

 

[shogun]

wonder how many will make the switch to .Net with all the uncertainty at the moment.

 

[semiautomatix]

wonder how many will make the switch to .Net with all the uncertainty at the moment.

None. .NET is not available on Linux/Android or available for Oracle. Everyone knows Java will be around in some incantation, regardless, so you comment is baseless.

 

[guest2013-1]

None. .NET is not available on Linux/Android or available for Oracle. Everyone knows Java will be around in some incantation, regardless, so you comment is baseless.

.NET is available on Linux AFAIK

 

[semiautomatix]

.NET is available on Linux AFAIK

It's called Mono, and not it's not supported by Microsoft nor is it 100% compatible, especially if you're looking at using .NET 3 - oh it does eventually catch up, but it's not really the same thing.

It's great that an initiative has been taken and Open Source project of this kind created, just don't expect .NET and Microsoft to agree. Which leads to some horrible possible future conflicts.

Mono’s implementation of those components of the .NET stack not submitted to the ECMA for standardization has been the source of patent violation concerns for much of the life of the project. In particular, discussion has taken place about whether Microsoft could destroy the Mono project through patent suits.

The Free Software Foundation has stated it may be "dangerous" to use Mono because of the possible threat of Microsoft patents. For this reason, the FSF recommends that people avoid creating free software that depends on Mono or C#.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I am no Oracle fanboy, but with regards to the OP, I doubt that Oracle will ever kill of Java. Be it as it may, but in all my work I have done, I have yet to come across a company which does not run a high-volume (I am talking millions of transactions per hour) system on Java. Most financial institutions run Java and probably the biggest outfit is eBay which runs in excess of 15,000 JEE servers (WebSphere). Sun had a strange strategy (purchasing of VirtualBox and MySQL) but it is good to see that Oracle is consolidating it. I have now spent a few months with the Oracle/Sun consolidation and it's product roadmaps and would say that Oracle will pretty much kill off the commercial application server market - a good thing, as IBM has really lost the plot in the last few years.

BTW: All those Sun certifications mean really nothing if you are not a good developer/programmer or architect. I don't know how many people I had to let go (or never hired in the first place), purely based on the fact that they could not write sensible code or could not do a practical test during an interview. Hardly any big outlet has moved into 1.6 and hardly anyone is capable of using annotations or generics.

Nowadays you get too many "i-do-hibernate"-developers who have absolute no clue on how to put an index on a database table, to trouble-shoot a stack-trace or analyse a heapdump ;-)