back to article Oracle caves, promises to crack open Java EE as v8 crawls ever closer

Oracle has revealed plans to shift Java Enterprise Edition to an open-source foundation as it promises delivery of version 8 is "approaching". Java EE is already open source, with support led by Oracle, but in recent years there have been concerns that the firm was funnelling engineers onto other projects. Although Oracle …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Go Java!

    When Java fans refer to the language as being 'strongly typed', they actually mean the immense number of key presses needed to actually code anything of use up. There's been a working group meeting for some years to agree what changes to the language are needed to compress the canonical 'hello world' program into under a day's typing by an average-speed typist, but after 7 years of intense discussion, the group is yet to agree on whether the text 'world' should be followed by a newline or not.

    You can tell a long-time Java developer by their over-sized hands and severe callouses on their finger tips, along with the inability to remember where, when and why they started their latest piece of Java development, and how many more factories, proxies, mementos, listeners, actors and shims the code will need before it does anything useful at all. The really old ones (in their 40s and above) will wistfully mention how good the original IBM PC keyboard was, because, under the incessant pounding and beating from Java developers, modern keyboards tend to melt, fall to pieces or explode before the first Bean has limped its way into its application server, only to fail to deploy with a 750 line stack trace, of which but a single line will refer to any code the developer has written.

    The most hardened and ancient Java developers (say aged 45 and older) will have forgotten their names, all their personal history and relationships, and very often how to even leave their offices, as the sheer number and volume of specifications needed to realise the most simple of concepts will have removed capacity for any other knowledge in the single-minded developer's brain. James Gosling, when he isn't apologising profusely for what he's done, tends to answer every question with the cryptic utterance, 'ask Maven why and then I'll cry'. And he's one of the lucky ones: to this day, no-one will officially speak of what actually happened between Marc Fleury and Cameron Purdy when they accidentally met in a hotel in Chicago, except that they allegedly broke each other's encapsulation so badly that parts of the hotel are still off limits to anyone but NASA specialists.

    So best of luck to Oracle, and I'll look forward to their latest Java goodness some time before the universe cools.

    1. Hans 1

      Re: Go Java!

      It might take You a day to code the Hello World program in Java, that does not mean we need that much time. I code Java in vim, and even I need about as much time to write said program in .net, c, and Java ... In c the code can be compiled to run almost anywhere, in Java the program runs almost anywhere ... .net, yeah, some platforms (4), if you install the runtime ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Go Java!

        "in Java the program runs almost anywhere"

        Unfortunately, the 'almost', actually where you want to run the program, is where it doesn't work.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Go Java!

          Thats strange, because all of the Java programs we have developed on OSX worked ok on Linux, the only issue was with JNI, to be expected. (The clue is in the JNI, look it up if you don't know)

          Most problems occur with CRAPOS, but as its regarded as a toy OS here we don't put anything useful on it.

          1. Steve Channell
            Pint

            ha ha ha ha ha hz ha ha ha ha ha

            Didn't you know JNI was due to be replaced "when time allows"...

            I coined a management rule "no new project should take longer to implement than a new human life": The Java version extends from birth, through to University graduation: 20 years later Java has still not implemented a proper Application Binary Interface.

            The Java retort to "rewrite everything in Java" is laughable in an age where the only use Java will make of GPGPU is speeding up Garbage collection

        2. Hans 1

          Re: Go Java!

          Unfortunately, the 'almost', actually where you want to run the program, is where it doesn't work.

          Wow ... let me think ...on macOS, AIX, HP-UX, Sorlaris, and z/OS, to name a few, the runtime (JRE/JDK) is usually already there ... on *BSD, Linux, & Windows, you can install it ...

          .Net : Windows, macOS, Linux (I wrote 4 without even thinking, actually, it is three)

          C: one can port the program to almost ANY system, all the above for sure. A Hello World program does not have to be ported, I think ... stdio.h is pretty much standard ...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Go Java!

        I code Java in vim...

        Tough talk, but I bet you've never finished anything...

        1. Hans 1
          Windows

          Re: Go Java!

          Tough talk, but I bet you've never finished anything...

          I authored a lucene-based index builder (jar) and search servlet, works pretty well, in production with thousands of customers ... I also write shell scripts etc (Bourne, XSLT, and awk for platform-independent stuff and Powershell for Windows only crap) and I use vim for that as well ... sometimes even work on my FreeBSD with vi, there, vi simply feels better, but I digress ...

          I think using vim forces you to ACTUALLY LEARN the language, all these fancy IDE's do so much for you that you end up relying on them too much ... back when I wanted to learn HTML & JavaScript, two decades ago, I would code web pages in a simple text editor ... that's how old farts learn this stuff ... Java is now quite easy for me, I understand the compiler error messages pretty well, have auto-indent that works pretty nicely and helps me spot typos .... and JavaDoc is really cool ... compare that to technet, much harder to get anything without google ... that and a lot of the documentation is plain INCORRECT, not sure if it is outdated or too new ...

          Shit, now you got me started on Powershell ... grrrrrhhhhh!!!!! that clusterfsck! say you want to do something with COM from powershell, you dick around with start-sleep because the call returns before it is actually done and throws cryptic error messages along the way, ONLY depending where it is run ... POC works, same code in the bigger app -> cryptic error ... so helpful ... MS' excuse, in one case, was that they never thought anybody would want to retrieve, for example, the author of a Word document from PowerShell or .Net ... yeah, exactly ...who would care who created that word document ... It took scripting guy two full days to write a Powershell 10 liner to retrieve the properties of a Word document, scripting guy, 10 days, hexactly!!!!!

          Yes, I know, am an old fart, somebody might come along and mention punch cards, coz ... with them, the effort needed to rectify a mistake is so much greater you pay even more attention to detail and hence learn even better ... I know, but my punch card reader died on a Xmas eve, decades ago ... so vim/vi it is ...

      3. James Anderson

        Re: Go Java!

        "Jave runs almost anywhere" may be true for pure Java code. But any non trivial JavaEE program can only be guaranteed to run on a particular version of a a particular framework (Websphere, JBOSS whatever).

    2. JLV

      Re: Go Java!

      You can also tell a Java dev from his reinforced bookshelves. Filled with thick tomes on the endless libraries and addons needed suggested to get things done. A good subset of those libraries, Spring coming to mind, deals with shoving configuration pell-mell into XML so it that escapes the scrutiny of the so-desirable typing system and allow a modicum of, hated and unnecessary, dynamic behavior.

      Much cleaner to put behavior, not data, in XML than code, innit? Especially considering how human-friendly searching through complex nested XML is ;-).

      Odd that few other languages have drunk from the XML-as-code coolaid cup so deeply. They're missing so much.

      1. SVV

        Re: Go Java!

        Nice rant,bemoaning how much XML you need to deveop in Java....... except you don't need any at all, it's the overrated Spring framework that does and guess what? You don't need to use it at all to develop complete working complex applications.

        Other highlights above include a moan at the number of keystrokes needed - obviously an IDE with autocomplete like Eclipse which renders this argument laughable would be too much of an efficient option for Mr Hardcore I only code in text editors there.

        The rest is the usual sort of stuff about how Java is dying, mixed in with old prejudices about things like performance that are no longer true (this knowledge they all claim to have can't be from personal experience in the past five years or so because it's such a non issue now if you do things sensibly)

        My bank account and the number of offers of work I get using Java suggest it is very much alive and that's good enough evidence for me and many many others. Downvote if you like, but see if your favourite little flavour of the month solution for serious web app coding is still going strong in 17 years time.

        As regards open sourcing, just hope it doesn't get crammed to death with features which aren't really needed but people got hyped up about...

        1. Hans 1
          Paris Hilton

          Re: Go Java!

          Nice rant,bemoaning how much XML you need to deveop in Java ...

          Hmmm, what is wrong with XML, for most stuff it is quite good, it has been superseded by JSON, although I personally think well formatted XML is more readable, for humans, imho, YMMV ...

          Paris, coz her medcine cabinet is full of flasks with XXXml on them ...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Go Java!

          "... it's the overrated Spring framework that does ..."

          Spring relegated XML-based configuration to a second class citizen a long, long time ago and is all the better for it.

          I've not used XML in Java land for years. Annotations for application configuration, thrift or protobuf for data serialisation, HOCON for externalised configuration and JSON for talking to the children in the javascript creche.

    3. James Anderson

      Re: Go Java!

      To be fair JavaEE is a bloated mis-conceived monster, written in a rather nice language.

      A pure java "guten tag welt" is only 4 lines, a properly multiligual one about 6 lines not including the translations.

      I only I type "a == b" and have it mean "does a have the same value as b" and not "does a have the same object reference as b".

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Translation

    > PR speak Things aren't going our way, so we're going to abandon this to our old mates the Apache Foundation. They'll surely look after it with aplomb and a deft hand mismanage it, let it die, then still claim its alive although the corpse is stinking up the place.

    Reference: OpenOffice.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Translation

      So, will Java get forked like OpenOffice and be called LibreJava?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Translation

        ...JavaLibrium...?

      2. Nick Kew

        Re: Translation

        ObPedant: the LibreOffice fork came about a year earlier than the OpenOffice donation. Had the donation come earlier, the reason for the fork wouldn't have existed.

        FWIW I was one of the significant minority of Apache members who wasn't in favour of accepting OpenOffice in the circumstances. With Java there's more history (see for example http://www.apache.org/jcp/sunopenletter.html ), but there isn't an existing fork like LibreOffice.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Translation

          > ObPedant: the LibreOffice fork came about a year earlier than the OpenOffice donation. Had the donation come earlier, the reason for the fork wouldn't have existed.

          Or perhaps (more accurately), the OOo donation came about because of the fork and Oracle not being willing to admit they'd lost.

          Oh, they chose a foundation to donate OOo to, who mandates a licence incompatible with LOO?

          I'm shocked... shocked I tell you!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Translation

        > So, will Java get forked like OpenOffice and be called LibreJava?

        Ironically, instead of forking the model needed was a complete (non-Oracle/Sun) rewrite. OpenJDK.

        Who wants to bet whether Oracles gift to the ASF or their own spun-up-pretend-foundation will somehow magically not be compatible with it?

  3. Notas Badoff
    WTF?

    Reading comprehension

    I've been snarky to others when they couldn't understand the plain text, so let me volunteer I'm stuck in that "huh?" state here.

    How is this different than just expanding the process "... the firm was funnelling engineers onto other projects." ?

  4. Aitor 1

    Half dead

    Java is half dead, and looks like it will be a zombie soon enough.

    It is sad, but it has been mismanaged for too long.

    1. Blue Pumpkin

      Re: Half dead

      Yes but as half-lives are exponential it will still be around for a while.

      A bit like all those other 'dead' languages we hear about ... FORTRAN, C, COBOL, BASIC, VB, Python 2, ADA, PL/1, smalltalk, et al.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > Java EE is already open source

    .... for some really strange definition of "open source", which means "if you don't use it the way we say you can, we'll sue your balls off"

    > Some in the community are likely to be wary of being overly dependent on Oracle

    Based on past behaviour, they are right to be afraid.

    > "They need to keep enough engineers working on it to keep corporates happy and hold up their heads and say it's a robust and secure environment"

    ... and to maintain Java's fantastic security track record

  6. chuckufarley Silver badge
    Pint

    Yeah, I'm going to need you to...

    ...NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!

    Did I type that out loud? Woops!

    I meant to type:

    ...Open source Java under a new and highly modified development cycle that locks in residual income for Oracle Inc. over the next 20 years because the license agreement will be "reinterpreted."

    After all, Open Source Development doesn't mean FLOSS. As in beer or William Wallace.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I suspect this may be the last throes of J2EE. I've not seen any new applications written in it for some substantial time now. Compared to Spring Boot and Play it's just so... old. The idea that you must run your application in a monolithic, expensive application server with black-box "services" (transaction management, messaging etc) mandated by the vendor is laughable in this day and age.

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