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Friday 19 November 2010

Future of Java Discussion Panel

Original this last day at Deovxx was going to be a keynote by James Gosling. He had pull the gig a month before, because of surgery. So we had instead a future of Java discussion panel moderated by Java Posse members: Dick Wall and Joe Nuxoll. There were six Java stars, at least five were Java Champions, and they were Joshua Bloch (Google), Mark Reinhold (Oracle), Stephen Colebourne (Open Gamma/Apache/Independent Voice), Jürgen Hoeller (Spring Source/VMWare) and Bill Venners (Artima).

There were sections to this heated discussion, which were topically for the day:

• Google versus Oracle lawsuit
• The state of the Java Community Process
• Java SE JSRs
• What is the future of running Java ME on a mobile phone?
• Alternative JVM Languages

Lots of the discussion was sensitive and so there were topics that were out-of-bounds for certain individual. You might have seen Stephen Colebourne wearing a tin foil hat during the last day as a joke. The speakers could opt out of a lawsuit or sensitive discussion, if they put on a tin foil hat.

(Stephen Colebourne with the obligatory tin hat)

I am not sure that we actually any ideas that new from the panel except to say let us keep pushing forward. We need innovation still in Java.

Mobile Development Choices: Native Apps vs. Web Apps by Max Katz

Yours truly attending Max Katz session with Stephen Chin and Jo Voorendecker. We three souls were, if you like, the JavaFX Script lifeline. Max Katz promoted and developed on the Exadel JavaFX Plugin for Eclipse.

As for Mr Katz presentation, it was a quite overview of the choices for mobile developers. Really the choice is native versus web applications. There are in 2010 at least six different operating systems or platforms for mobile phones. Katz pointed out how similar this state of sorry affairs was to the era before the IBM PC, as when we had home computers like the Commodore Pet, BBC Micro, Vic 20, Dragon 32 and ZX Spectrum.

Time is money, it is a good VC funded start-up or software giant with deep pockets that invest in building native mobile applications for all six platforms. Likely developers, especially bedroom developers, will choose their poison, be it iOS, Android or RIM.

Of course, developers can build a working mobile phone application using the web: HTML5, CSS, AJAX and good dose of JavaScript libraries. However it is pointed that the off-line capabilities of web mobile platforms is in its infancy. Katz said that this may improve over the next few years with better browser and storage capabilities.

Mr Katz concluded build a native mobile application if your applications requires high performance, makes a call, needs the native platform API beyond location for example magnetometers, accelerometers and touch gestures. Overall it was good talk and Katz finished well ahead of time.

Project Lombok: Boilerplate Busters by Roel Spiker and Reinier Zwitserloot

I time to fly across the Metropolis to catch the last five minutes of Project Lombok. The two Austrian guys were suited and booted like the original Ghostbusters. I wonder where they sourced that idea / meme from [Clickety Hackety Hack Jack bros]. Anyway, the Lombok project is essentially impressive as that it is looking after Java developers, who feel they want to get away boiler plate Java, but yet cannot make that transition beyond Java. The annotations have improved since last year. Excellent stuff and the Project Lombok is definitely worth a look

Shout-Outs!

In no particular order:

• Stephen Colebourne
• Stephan Janssen
• Jo Voorendeckers
• Dick Wall
• Valerié Hillaware
• Stephen Chin
• Carl Quinn
• Joe Nuxoll
• William Pugh
• Aaron Houston
• James Ward
• Michael Chaize
• Martin Odersky
• Max Bonbhel, JCertif
• Chrisbel Malonga, JCertif
• Soren Berg Glasius
• Flippo Diotalevi
• Mattias Karlsson
• Martijn Verburg, LJC 
• Manuel Bernhardtht
• Joshua Bloch, Google 
• Bill Venners, Artima 
• Viktor Klang
• Kirk Pepperdine, Kodework 
• Antonio Goncalves, Paris JUG Leader
• Talip Ozturk 
• Oliver Gierke
• Kito D. Mann
• Jasper Potts
• Richard Bair
• Johan Vos
• Regina ten Bruggencate, JDuchess
• Dave Booth, ZeroTurn Around, JRebel
• Joe Darcy
• Andy Hicks, London Scala User Group
• Paris Apostopoulos
• Michael Huettermann
• Vita Estevao Silva Souza
• Enno Runne
• Chet Haase
• Heinz Kabutz
• Graeme Rocher
• Romain Guy
• Adam Bien
• Max Katz
• Brian Goetz
• Michael Coté, Redmonk

Hello World Error in MS Live Blog. Huh?

L-To-R: Aaron Houston, Stephen Chin, Myself and Jo Voorendeckers

L-to-R: Myself and Dominic from Cambridge (JAVAWUG member)

Filming the goings on at the European JUG Leader BOF on Thursday night. (Yes I know that I am no longer an official JUG Leader now, however remember the JAVAWUG ran until July 2010 )

First row of the table: L-To-R: Nicole Scott (Oracle), Mattias Karlsson (JFokus) and one of the JDuchess (the Java user group for ladies).

L-To-R: Jackie from Oracle and Antonio Goncalves

Middle: Enno Runne, Right: Bill Venners; Downstairs in the exhibition hall

The Cititec Recruitment folk from London: to the left, Azzez Lasmi and right, Peter Sham ;

This is Peter Pilgrim at Devoxx 2010. Thanks BEJUG for another great year. Out.