7 ms·

Even if Oracle wins, they may lose. Imagine if: Google looses the right to use the Java API in Android. Google makes a conversion tool to convert the Android

Even if Oracle wins, they may lose. Imagine if: Google looses the right to use the Java API in Android. Google makes a conversion tool to convert the Android API to another API / VM format. (maybe based on Parrot???) "" releases an ANSI / ISO spec for an improved high level language (not just a C++ replacement like Go), and makes the spec open to encourage "safe" adoption. "" provides reference implementations for mobile (Android) and server (GAE) type uses. "" creates a subsidiary to sell and support the SDK to encourage corporate adoption. I'm not exactly sure how this last step supports their core business, other than making sure there is a talent pool available. But as long as I'm dreaming... THAT is a result I'd like to see. Send Java off to the old programming languages retirement home, where it can sit and trade war stories with Visual BASIC and dBASE.

OzzyB 15y ago
But you're forgetting one very important aspect in all this: The Developers It's not a question of whether one particular language is better, or more "hip", than another; or whether Google could simply run-off and create it's own new language or repurpose someother language instead of Java. It's the developers Google is after, since it's the developers that will create the value (apps) for their marketplace and give them the competitive advantage over other smartphones & platforms. There are a ton of Java (and its variants like AS3) developers out there, and Google wanted to launch and gain traction in its new platform with as little friction as possible. If Google had launched Android as a Golang SDK, do you really think the uptick in new developers coding for Android would have been that great? Edit: Yep, AS3 isn't Java.
- raverbashing 15y ago
  AS3 is not Java, but rather Javascript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript#ActionScript_3.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript#ActionScript_3.0
  - mas1n 15y ago
    Technically ActionScript is ECMAScript which JavaScript and AS3 are both dialects of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript
- Roboprog 15y ago
  The original pre-Google Android company may have needed to reuse an existing dev base, but as Google, that is somewhat diminished. Google, like Apple, can take a workable niche platform and then sell a group of devs on the advantages of that platform, particularly if it was something already somewhat familiar. Of course, it's easier for them not to have to, but I'm imagining a possible nice future, even if it's far from the most likely.
falling 15y ago
That will never happen because: 1. if Google eventually loses, they will just pay a chunk of money and that’s it; 2. Google wants Java, not a new language, if they wanted a different one they would have created one from the start, it’s not like they don’t have the ability or resources.
chwahoo 15y ago
This seems to be a big leap from the current events. But, indulging the leap :), why would you want it to be a new language? Phones are getting fast - why not python or ruby? (Or Scala, Dart, ...) However, I don't think Java is a bad language for many programs--and doubt it's headed to a retirement home anytime soon. (I'm frankly thrilled with Java for moving some many developers to a "safe" language/environment rather than C/C++ and its buffer overflows :)
- eitland 15y ago
  Never tought I'd say this but since getting my new job and since Java is not any safer than .Net for the moment I have been toying with C# and it just frankly feels like a better language, esp the Linq part. (Now, before anyone starts a big project in C# remember you are going to get punished all the way from start to finish. License for OS, for dev environment, no choice of dev environment, when you have bought VS you'll have to add resharper. Then you hopefully come to deployment where once again you have no real choice, Azure or self-hosting on, guess what, MS servers which again has to be licensed. )
  - inexplicable 15y ago
    Its not exactly as you state with the licenses. Most (perhaps _all_) organizations/corporates use Microsoft products and have existing licenses. Acquiring more would not be issue in these environemnts. If you are a start-up, the right way to do it would by joining the BizSpark [1] program. .Net does provide an excellent development and scaleable environment. This program grants you access to all of its products, including Office, SQL server, Visual Studio and a multitude of other applications/tools. There was a recent post on HN [2] that spoke more to this. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/ http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3848512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3848512
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- dizidoro 15y ago
  phones are getting fast but not soooo fast like that for python and ruby. scala maybe...
nextparadigms 15y ago
Oracle has already pushed the Harmony and OpenOffice communities away through their greed. So I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Java.
- taligent 15y ago
  People that actually use Java know that what Sun/Oracle do is to a large part irrelevant. Likewise for Harmony. OpenJDK is the default for Linux and soon to be OSX and most development projects are still targeting Java 6. The innovation happening on the Java platform is not going to come from Oracle.
  - bowyakka 15y ago
    .... the core openjdk team are sun^H^H^H oracle engineers like John Rose, Jon the collector, Printezis etc etc, Oracle still have a very strong hand in it
  - protolif 15y ago
    Java 6... from 2006? I'm sorry, but innovation and Java do not belong in the same sentence. All of the innovation has moved on to dynamically typed languages, because it grew tired of having its balls fondled by JVM/TSA. Public Static Void Main? No thanks.
taligent 15y ago
Sorry do you live in some dream land ? The majority of the world's enterprise web apps run on Java. There is ZERO chance that Java is going to be retired anytime soon if you look around at the languages available today. There just simply isn't anything available that can compete with the breadth of libraries or developer base. The fact is that if Android no longer runs Java it is going to be a big blow no matter which way you spin it.
- Roboprog 15y ago
  Dream land? No, I've woken up in the Java "gulag" for quite a few years now. :-) The scenario was meant to be a bit "over the rainbow". While it's unlikely, people do sometimes switch platforms given motivation. How many people really were itching to learn Objective C before Apple starting pushing it? (you few "NextStep" old timers in back, I'm not talking about you) Given a way to do user I/O and data persistance on a sane platform, people are pretty good at making do on just about any platform without the "gift" of a billion lines of other code.
  - taligent 15y ago
    The difference for Objective C was that (a) there were a large amount of existing Mac developers and they are hardly just NextStep users and (b) iOS makes money which justified the transition. Honestly the days of writing a billion lines of Java code were over a while ago. Platforms like Play, Grails etc which are quite light are becoming more common. Realistically there is that only one other platform exists that they could switch to: Javascript.
    - patrickaljord 15y ago
      Dart?
      - pooriaazimi 15y ago
        IMO It'd be the best thing Google could do, but (sadly - even though I don't like Google one bit) they don't have the courage.
NonEUCitizen 15y ago
another post today just mentioned this: http://www.dbasellc.com/ http://www.dbasellc.com/
- Roboprog 15y ago
  Wow, it's been years since I used XBase. It was mostly Clipper by the end of the 80s. While it was painful to move from a nice ISAM product to SQL syntax, it was good to get away from a product that provided all the data integrity features of circa 1999 MySQL (i.e. - "none"). Anyway, it's not dead, but it's definitely looking at a stay in the old programming language home. :-)

OzzyB 15y ago

But you're forgetting one very important aspect in all this: The Developers It's not a question of whether one particular language is better, or more "hip", than another; or whether Google could simply run-off and create it's own new language or repurpose someother language instead of Java. It's the developers Google is after, since it's the developers that will create the value (apps) for their marketplace and give them the competitive advantage over other smartphones & platforms. There are a ton of Java (and its variants like AS3) developers out there, and Google wanted to launch and gain traction in its new platform with as little friction as possible. If Google had launched Android as a Golang SDK, do you really think the uptick in new developers coding for Android would have been that great? Edit: Yep, AS3 isn't Java.

raverbashing 15y ago
AS3 is not Java, but rather Javascript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript#ActionScript_3.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript#ActionScript_3.0
- mas1n 15y ago
  Technically ActionScript is ECMAScript which JavaScript and AS3 are both dialects of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript
Roboprog 15y ago
The original pre-Google Android company may have needed to reuse an existing dev base, but as Google, that is somewhat diminished. Google, like Apple, can take a workable niche platform and then sell a group of devs on the advantages of that platform, particularly if it was something already somewhat familiar. Of course, it's easier for them not to have to, but I'm imagining a possible nice future, even if it's far from the most likely.

falling 15y ago

That will never happen because: 1. if Google eventually loses, they will just pay a chunk of money and that’s it; 2. Google wants Java, not a new language, if they wanted a different one they would have created one from the start, it’s not like they don’t have the ability or resources.

chwahoo 15y ago

This seems to be a big leap from the current events. But, indulging the leap :), why would you want it to be a new language? Phones are getting fast - why not python or ruby? (Or Scala, Dart, ...) However, I don't think Java is a bad language for many programs--and doubt it's headed to a retirement home anytime soon. (I'm frankly thrilled with Java for moving some many developers to a "safe" language/environment rather than C/C++ and its buffer overflows :)

eitland 15y ago
Never tought I'd say this but since getting my new job and since Java is not any safer than .Net for the moment I have been toying with C# and it just frankly feels like a better language, esp the Linq part. (Now, before anyone starts a big project in C# remember you are going to get punished all the way from start to finish. License for OS, for dev environment, no choice of dev environment, when you have bought VS you'll have to add resharper. Then you hopefully come to deployment where once again you have no real choice, Azure or self-hosting on, guess what, MS servers which again has to be licensed. )
- inexplicable 15y ago
  Its not exactly as you state with the licenses. Most (perhaps _all_) organizations/corporates use Microsoft products and have existing licenses. Acquiring more would not be issue in these environemnts. If you are a start-up, the right way to do it would by joining the BizSpark [1] program. .Net does provide an excellent development and scaleable environment. This program grants you access to all of its products, including Office, SQL server, Visual Studio and a multitude of other applications/tools. There was a recent post on HN [2] that spoke more to this. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/ http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3848512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3848512
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dizidoro 15y ago
phones are getting fast but not soooo fast like that for python and ruby. scala maybe...

nextparadigms 15y ago

Oracle has already pushed the Harmony and OpenOffice communities away through their greed. So I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Java.

taligent 15y ago
People that actually use Java know that what Sun/Oracle do is to a large part irrelevant. Likewise for Harmony. OpenJDK is the default for Linux and soon to be OSX and most development projects are still targeting Java 6. The innovation happening on the Java platform is not going to come from Oracle.
- bowyakka 15y ago
  .... the core openjdk team are sun^H^H^H oracle engineers like John Rose, Jon the collector, Printezis etc etc, Oracle still have a very strong hand in it
- protolif 15y ago
  Java 6... from 2006? I'm sorry, but innovation and Java do not belong in the same sentence. All of the innovation has moved on to dynamically typed languages, because it grew tired of having its balls fondled by JVM/TSA. Public Static Void Main? No thanks.

taligent 15y ago

Sorry do you live in some dream land ? The majority of the world's enterprise web apps run on Java. There is ZERO chance that Java is going to be retired anytime soon if you look around at the languages available today. There just simply isn't anything available that can compete with the breadth of libraries or developer base. The fact is that if Android no longer runs Java it is going to be a big blow no matter which way you spin it.

Roboprog 15y ago
Dream land? No, I've woken up in the Java "gulag" for quite a few years now. :-) The scenario was meant to be a bit "over the rainbow". While it's unlikely, people do sometimes switch platforms given motivation. How many people really were itching to learn Objective C before Apple starting pushing it? (you few "NextStep" old timers in back, I'm not talking about you) Given a way to do user I/O and data persistance on a sane platform, people are pretty good at making do on just about any platform without the "gift" of a billion lines of other code.
- taligent 15y ago
  The difference for Objective C was that (a) there were a large amount of existing Mac developers and they are hardly just NextStep users and (b) iOS makes money which justified the transition. Honestly the days of writing a billion lines of Java code were over a while ago. Platforms like Play, Grails etc which are quite light are becoming more common. Realistically there is that only one other platform exists that they could switch to: Javascript.
  - patrickaljord 15y ago
    Dart?
    - pooriaazimi 15y ago
      IMO It'd be the best thing Google could do, but (sadly - even though I don't like Google one bit) they don't have the courage.

NonEUCitizen 15y ago

another post today just mentioned this: http://www.dbasellc.com/ http://www.dbasellc.com/

Roboprog 15y ago
Wow, it's been years since I used XBase. It was mostly Clipper by the end of the 80s. While it was painful to move from a nice ISAM product to SQL syntax, it was good to get away from a product that provided all the data integrity features of circa 1999 MySQL (i.e. - "none"). Anyway, it's not dead, but it's definitely looking at a stay in the old programming language home. :-)