I think Robert is talking about the remaining 99.9% who can't scratch their own itch (i.e. unlike Andy & Brian of Fan), who can't/won't embrace Scala/Ruby/Python or who simply requires corporate backing for political reasons.
Java gained such massive adoption not because it was a particularly great language, but because it became a standard - managers love standards because it provides stability and security. So this is the same demography who would be attracted to .NET and that could explain the current backlash against the state of innovation (or lack thereof) in Java. It does feel a little bit like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially since JavaFX seems to serve mostly to scratch Sun's own itch but utterly uninteresting to most others. So I would not be surprised if we'll see a little bit of the same trend as with current Sun hardware customers fleeing to IBM. /Casper On 30 Sep., 10:31, Charles Oliver Nutter <head...@headius.com> wrote: > On Sep 24, 1:17 am, 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. > > Bullshit. I worked on JRuby for two years in my spare time > (occasionally taking vacation to work on JRuby), and granted I'm > probably among the oddities in the community, but if you want to do > something you just do it. Now I'm slowly cultivating a couple > additional Ruby-like languages in my spare time while JRuby is my full- > time gig. There's nothing stopping Java or Java++ or anything else > from happening other than people just getting off their collective > asses and doing it. It's not that hard, I promise you...I still don't > know what the hell I'm doing. > > And before you ask... yes, I'm married...yes, I have a kid. But I've > managed to make it all work by putting in hours when other people are > watching the latest TV episode of some crime show or playing the > latest XBox shooter. If you love something, you find a way to make it > happen. So...find a way. > > - Charlie --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
