Java Everywhere - James Gosling Keynote
Sun Vice President and Fellow James Gosling kicked off the two-day technical session portion of Sun Tech Days Tokyo with a broad overview of the Java landscape. He first emphasized the ubiquity of Java, noting the 5 billion Java-enabled devices, 2.1 billion Java phone handsets, and 6 million Java developers. While the catch phrase for Java has been "write once, run anywhere," James's twist on that phrase is "learn once, work anywhere." Once you learn Java you can work on everything from devices to set-top boxes to application servers because Java is everywhere.
James believes that Web "N" [2.0] has become more of a marketing phrase than anything else, but he said one of the positive things that has come out of it is the development of systems built by the community for the community. He cited Facebook and Wikipedia as examples. He stressed the importance of "communal development" and said that it's not necessarily the Java technologies that are the most crucial but rather the communities around those technologies. He encouraged everyone to participate and make modifications to technologies, whether just for themselves or for the public at large, and mentioned the OpenJDK, OpenJFX, GlassFish, OpenSolaris, and NetBeans communities.
One community-driven project James has been involved in recently is the transformation of Javadocs on http://doc.java.sun.com into a web site with a language option drop-down menu in the upper right corner. The community is responsible for the translation of the content. If there are pieces of the content that aren't translated, then the community can collaboratively contribute translations. You can also add annotations such as sample programs in the language of your choice. It's even possible to vote on good or bad translations!
James continued by saying that "one person's critical feature is another person's bloat," so we need to refine APIs and keep simplifying technologies. He said to pay particular attention to the upcoming GlassFish v3, as it will be deconstructed so you only get the modules you want. The slimmed-down application server will have a servlet container that's less than 100K. (The audience must have been paying attention because the GlassFish booth was by far the most crowded of all the booths when I walked by following the keynote.)
What else is new? According to James, it's up to us to answer that question. We should be the ones to drive changes in technologies and in the community. He concluded by calling on attendees to "suggest, review, debate, join up, and participate."
Carolyn Wong
Sun Microsystems
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