Way up above, I made a comment under the heading "Google
did not fragment
Java". My argument was "Google uses
Harmony. Harmony is not Java (thanks to Sun
not giving it
the TCK) so how can anybody say Google fragmented
Java?"
After writing that, I thought to myself - it is a pretty
weak
argument. Also, at the moment I wrote it, I was
confusing Harmony with the
language, but of course, it is
not the language, but rather, an API just like
Java's API.
However, though there was confusion in my mind, that did not
end
up disqualifying what I actually wrote.
What Google did was to create a
platform - Android, using
Harmony and Delvik, that anybody can use. That
platform
certainly isn't Java. However, anybody can download the Java
SE JDK
and make programs to run on that platform. Then if
somebody wants to say that
act causes fragmentation of Java,
it is the user of the Android platform who is
responsible -
not Google. They set the table, but it is the user who eats
diner. If one is going to say that the existence of Android
results in
fragmentation of Java, then one needs to state
more accurately "Android
developers are fragmenting Java".
If there were no Android developers, there
would be no
debate about fragmentation.
I think it is a long stretch
to accuse Google of
"fragmenting the Java platform" as if they had done
something bad. To say such a thing is only hyperbole to make
Google look bad.
It is very debatable if this harms Java in
any way at all. I don't think it
does. I think it is a
benefit to the continued existence of Java. It may only
be a
harm Oracle's ambitions. In fact, the code Android developer
write that
is pure Java SE and doesn't touch on Google'
libraries, is copy and paste
compatible with other Java SE
projects they might develop for other platforms.
Suppose you
developed a class to parse your new hyper-xml scripts, based
on
Java's xml parser, for your Android project. Then later,
you find a use for
your hyper-xml scripts on some other
platform. You can just plug in the class
you used for your
Android project. Then Android is a net gain for Java.
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