The Coming War Over the Future of Java 583
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes about what could be the end of the Java Community Process as we know it. With the Apache Software Foundation declaring war on Oracle over Java, the next likely step would be a vote of no confidence in the JCP, which, if the ASF can convince enough members to follow suit, 'could effectively unravel the Java community as a whole,' McAllister writes, with educators, academics, and researchers having little incentive to remain loyal to an Oracle-controlled platform. 'Independent developers could face the toughest decisions of all. Even if the JCP dissolves, many developers will be left with few alternatives,' with .Net offering little advantage, and Perl, Python, and Ruby unable to match Java's performance. The dark horse? Google Go — a language Google might just fast-track in light of its patent suit with Oracle over Android."
Reader Revorm adds related news that Oracle and Apple have announced the OpenJDK project for OS X.
Re:Google Go... (Score:2, Funny)
They could have called it Goo. They just would have to be careful to never put "grey" in front of it.
Actually, thinking again, I guess they actually want it to behave like grey goo: Eat up market share from any other language until everyone writes his code in Goo.
Re:C# (Score:1, Funny)
sudo apt-get purge ...
Re:What about C++? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Alternatives? (Score:5, Funny)
wxWidgets - helping X-windows newbs like me since at least 1997.
Why do you want X-windows newbs to like you?
Re:Why Go? (Score:4, Funny)
--> Java (at least modern Java) is a compiled language, it's just that it's compiled in two stages; once when the java compiler converts the source code to byte code and then when the JVM converts the bytecode to native code during runtime (JIT).
Your description points out that it is not compiled by saying that it is compiled twice? So using your description, Java is a language that has to be compiled by the writer and again by the user. I say compiling scripts so the outcome can be compiled every time they are used is just annoying. I think the only reason for it was because some Java programmers wanted the contents of their code hidden. Everyone knows that if you don't want someone reading your code you write it in Erlang and Perl.
Re:Why not C#? (Score:4, Funny)
The reason you don't need a citation when someone says their favorite color is blue is because blue is clearly superior to every other color.
If you don't agree with me, well, you're wrong.
Re:Lisp? (Score:3, Funny)
It might be worthwhile to explore what it would take to make some variation of Lisp (*cough*sbcl*cough*) a workable choice for modern software developers.
Well, we did a little research* and spoke to some programmers, and our design committee looked at different directions Lisp could be taken to make it more workable for modern developers... We were thinking maybe we could cut down on some of those parentheses.
(* Not actually true)
Re:What about C++? (Score:3, Funny)