James Gosling is keynoting today's innargural Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days.
He started out by talking about the fact that when "we" started Java all those many years ago, it was all about the mobile and embedded developer space.
(I always like to think of myself included whenever James says the word "we," though I'm not entirely sure that James likes to think of me when he says "we.")
:-)
He talked about the proliferation of the Java platform in the mobile and embedded space... the numbers are always staggering when you hear them -- 5 billion-ish Java enabled devices (w/2.5 billion of those in the Java handset space).
He talked communal development w/Java.net, Glassfish, OpenSolaris
"There are thousands of ways to get involved with the many aspects of the communities. And all of the comunities are interconnected. NetBeans being the perfect example.
Marching orders from James: "If you haven't tried NetBeans, just go to it."
And as somebody who self-admittedly was heavily involved 25 years ago, James gave some advice: "If you're still using Emacs, give it up. It was a good idea 30 ears ago. It's depressing that people are still using it.
The he talked about Extreme Java.
(Which always gets me to lean forward in my chair because you know how I love going fast :-)
He talked about some of the incredible demos we saw at JavaOne including the Java powered helicopter that flies over terrain and makes a 3D model of what it flew over within a half-inch margin of error, the submersable vehicle... real time int he embedded space that give you control in the 10-15 milisecond range...
(Details on all this stuff here.)
He talked about NetBeans 6.0 which shipped right before Christmas. He talked about Sentilla -- instrumentation on a chip the size of a penny.
(It made me smile to see that James -- Canada's officer of the Order of Canada, the second-highest honor for civilians -- a Canadian penny to make his point in the slide :-)
He talked about performance. He talked about Open Source. He talked about the new cell phone generation and what you can do with these new gadgets when you start plugging in the new APIs.
Then it was on to "the big thing for us in the Java organization over the past year."
It's all about making rich user experiences that span a lot of different modalities on the edge of the network.
He talked about how the distinction between the desktop, the server, the embedded space is slowly fading away.
"They're all following Moore's law."
Then it was on to Blue Ray and what happened at CES a few weeks ago.
James' take: "The competition to Blue Ray has collapsed. They just haven't admitted it yet."
Lots of attention on Java FX and the pieces that define it.
(There's going to be a break-out session on it this afternoon. You know I'm there.)
So it was a really, really great talk.
James had a bit of trouble w/his slides. And he couldn't find his favorite JavaCard in his wallet when he went to look for it. (It was the card to ride London's Underground he (and everybody else who wants to ride the Underground) uses
But overall, a really, really great talk.
It's such a charge to get to see James. It's inspiring and engaging every time he talks. So it was a great way to kick off the day.
:-)
Mary