6 ms·
One year almost to the day since he quit Sun/Oracle (see http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/time_to_move_on http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/time_to_m
by sriramk 16y ago
One year almost to the day since he quit Sun/Oracle (see http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/time_to_move_on http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/time_to_move_on).
That probably means he had a 1-year non-compete built into his employment agreement which he had to wait out (which makes me curious about what he could be working on at Google that could trigger that)
- adamc 16y agoMakes me wonder whether they will bring out a competitor to Java, maybe for Android.
- ori_b 16y agoIf anything, they'll try to continue with Java instead, I'd expect. They're a big user internally.
- jjm 16y agoEven if Java is thrown out there is still NDK, not to mention a host of other language inventors at Google ;-)
- ShabbyDoo 16y agoGosling would provide the credibility necessary if Google wanted to usurp Oracle as the provider of an "official" version of Java and/or the JVM. Big Corps are terrified of Oracle. I worked for a Fortune 100 which was all about using Weblogic vs. open source offerings like JBoss. Then, after the Oracle acquisition, the directive was to "explore competing options". Oracle's history of shakedowns is so well established that Google or someone similar might have a shot. I was surprise that IBM didn't make a better attempt to steal Sun's place. One thing to note is that I don't entirely understand the IP issues surrounding Java.
- pyre 16y agoIBM was a competitor to Sun. An IBM acquisition of Sun definitely would have triggered the government to get involved and explore the anti-trust/monopoly angle.
- ShabbyDoo 16y agoWhat surprised me was how IBM decided to get close to Oracle instead of fight for improved position in the F500 using Java as lever.
- billmcneale 16y agoI doubt that. Gosling hasn't worked on anything related to Java since JSR-1 (that was before 2000). He checked out from the Java world a while ago.
- rch 16y agoI'd counter that it's important to specify the time-frame you're talking about. For instance, would you say that they'll try to continue as a big Java user for the next 15 years? When you stretch out the time-frame, your assertion sounds substantially less credible. At least to me.
- robfig 16y agoGoogle has an immense amount of Java code, in addition to all the Java programmers it took to write them, a good number of whom are programmers that have written Java for their entire professional careers. If the bar for getting away from it is rewriting millions of lines of code and retraining 1/3 - 1/2 of their engineers, it seems credible to me.
- ori_b 16y agoI'd be very surprised if they replaced all their Java code within 15 years. But even if they do change over, it's still a very good investment for them to continue maintaining and updating Java for the short term.
- arethuza 16y agoOr something as cool as NeWS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS)
- josephcooney 16y agoThey're certainly stacking the decks with lots of ex-MSFT-ies with experience working on Microsoft's version of the JVM - the CLR. What will the name be? GLR? GVM?
- statictype 16y agoThey already have at least one world class language designer in Guido. They also have the Go language. Point being that if they wanted a competing language to Java, they probably already had the talent to get it done. (Or just, you know, use Mono/C#).
- calpaterson 16y agoArguably, they already did create a competing language (ie: Android)
- joshes 16y agoThis is a very solid point. Having an internally developed language like Go (which is, according to Rob Pike, being used "for real stuff" inside of Google), the creator of Python (one of the most widely used languages in recent years) and the creator of Java (one of the most widely used languages for at least a decade now) under one roof has to be an embarrassment of riches for any group intending to innovate in the programming language space.
- neilk 16y agoNah, that's too many cooks. They all want different things. Guido is interested primarily in usability, and Python is notoriously poor in performance. Rob Pike writes systems languages. With Java, Gosling has written a very enterprise-friendly language, that drags C++ halfway to Lisp.
- mhd 16y agoGoosmacs?
- larsberg 16y agoMany modern, enforceable (even in Cali) non-competes have a clause that provides you full salary/benefits in exchange for not working for any competing firm during that period. Pretty sweet deal for hacking projects you never got around to -- I've seen several folks in finance basically just go dark and hack on the beach for 6mo-1yr before returning to the field.
- brown9-2 16y agoEven if there was a one-year non-compete, it could just as easily be that Google isn't working on anything that would trigger it and Gosling just decided to play safe and wait it out for a year. A year off break from work while you decide what to do next in your career sure sounds like a nice option, and the perfect amount of time to "regroup" like this.
- sriramk 16y agoTrue for the first part. The second could be true too but it would be remarkable if he decided to take a break for almost exactly 365 days.
- iuytghyjuyh 16y agoThe problem is that 'trigger it' means a judge decides that oracle "a computer company" and google "a computer company" are in the same business. Or simply that it wasn't worth the risk. Gosling is being hired to give Google Java-cred it's not like they were waiting for him in order to ship a product
- Turing_Machine 16y agoSo he just didn't see any future at Oracle? :-)