I'll grant that C# is free, but M$ gets a lot of money for what they build. Too bad Sun didn't get lots of money for all the stuff they built.
Yes, doing work on a feature is great for your CV. Most developers though I would guess are super busy staying on top of the work they already have. Spending lots of free time on these projects is then a personal choice. Many don't have the time though due to family commitments or other drains on their time. Some probably can't afford to give away their time. Sun hoped that people would jump into the JCP and help change Java for the better. Microsoft on the other hand dictates change and everyone has to go along for the ride. Sun's process is more democratic but slow. M$'s is dictatorial but fast. Does this mean Sun should never have opened up Java and instead, just kept making changes and worried less about backwards compatibility? On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Reinier Zwitserloot <reini...@gmail.com>wrote: > > Where this argument kind of falls down is the personal marketing > angle. Being responsible for some major java feature is a massive boon > on your CV. I'm also going to presume for a moment people are a bit > like me and money is not your only motivator; making your mark on the > world by making cool stuff people want to use motivates just fine. > > The one who has no motivation here perhaps is sun, though even there > I'd argue they are making a big mistake in waffling on spending > resources in this area: java is very rightly bound to your future. I > presume you renamed your stock ticker for a reason (this is a bit out > of date now that we have snoracle). > > > Your comparison with C# didn't make any sense whatsoever to me. They > are in _exactly_ the same boat. They are both free and open source, > they are both backed by a large corporate entity (microsoft v. > suncle), they are both the basis of a bunch of for-pay tools (windows > development boxed, solaris big iron servers), and they both have a > decently sized community that want changes from time to time (holds > true for any non-fossilized programming language). The biggest > difference I can see is that microsoft is spending way more resources > on the core language itself, whereas suncle is so far spending similar > resources, but in other places. > > > On Sep 24, 1:17 pm, Robert Lally <rob.la...@gmail.com> wrote: > > After all the discussions about Coin, Java 7, closures, participation, > and > > the JCP I'm left with the following understanding. > > 1. There's no shortage of ideas. > > 2. There is a shortage of analysis and implementations. > > 3. There are no companies that have a vested interest, or a potential > ROI, > > in implementing the massive pile of ideas that already exist. Companies > do > > what they can, but resources everywhere are limited and it is > irresponsible > > to spend shareholder money on projects with no clear return. > > 4. The open source ideal of a developer scratching his/her own itch > doesn't > > apply because "I think a closure here would save me four lines of code so > > I'm going to spend 20 hours a week for the next four years making it > happen" > > doesn't make sense. If an individual did make this commitment it would be > > out of altruism, not motivated self interest. > > 5. There are few individual developers who have the time, motivation and > > skills necessary to investigate, analyse and implement the massive pile > of > > ideas that already exist. The subset of them who also have nothing better > to > > do with their time is a vanishingly small number. > > > > So, no-one is to blame, no one has acted unreasonably or in bad faith or > > with malice. The people with the money don't have the motivation, the > people > > with the skills have other responsibilities or are already doing as much > as > > they possibly can. > > > > As I compare the evolution of Java with the evolution of C#/.NET I'm left > > with the feeling that the problem here is the open source/free nature of > the > > Java tools world. C# has changed and evolved, in recent years, faster > than > > Java. Microsoft has a vested interest in change and improvement - they > sell > > their tools, so they make money out of making and selling better tools. > > Improvement/change leads to sales which finances farther development. > This > > virtuous cycle (if you deem it to be so) seems to be what we're missing. > > > > Have we, by reducing the cost of the tools we love, also reduced the > value > > to be gained by improving them to zero? I'm not really sure, but I think > it > > is possible. > > > > Rob Lally. > > > > -- > > Blog :http://robertlally.com > > > -- Robert Casto www.robertcasto.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
