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Gha! | 238 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Gha!
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 12:25 PM EDT
The API *can't* be covered by copyright. That's like putting a copyright on the
colour red being used for warning about danger!

The API specification and other documents *about* the API can, and so can the
API *implementation*, but the API itself, in all it's conceptual nothingness?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Doubtful
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 12:39 PM EDT


There's a massive eco-system of app development already thriving on Android that
uses Java.

That's not going to go away any time soon, partly because it provides an
extremely low barrier to entry for people who want to play with their smartphone
let alone how useful it is for prototyping.

The Language is Free to use
The names are not protected
the Names are the SSO, tossed (for the code)
The SSO of the 37 is not the SSO of the whole, tossed (for the
specification/website)

Everything then goes back to the way it was, you an go ahead and make your own
java libraries using the java APIs

You cannot tell anyone that they your JVM is Java Compatible, or Java compliant
if you want to call it Java
But if you want to call it anything else, carry on.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

IMHO Neither
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 02:08 PM EDT

I'm a java developer, working solo. I use java, among other languages, because I understand when it helps me get the job done.

The issues raised in this trial are not of importance to my work, because I am not trying to clone java or build a java-compatible jvm. Oracle did not challenge Google for writing java programs, but building an environment that replicated many elements of Oracle's java platform.

Out in the programming world, here are more important forces impacting java's popularity to its diminishment:

  • Microsoft's .net product which addressed some rough edges java had while keeping the same feel.
  • Arcane locking mechanisms which make concurrent programming very difficult, and which have led to the wide interest in scala and clojure, languages that use the jvm, but have built-in support for concurrency.
  • Languages with dynamic typing which are more flexible, languages with stricter typing, so program correctness is easier to prove. (Yes, these are contradictory. Here's the point about languages, there's something awkward in all of them.)
  • Oracle's inheritance of Sun's reluctance to address community requests for modernization. It seems java gets cool things about five-seven years after other languages.
  • Smarter web frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, which provide for faster development than Enterprise javabeans or JSP (java server pages).
  • Java's innate verbosity.
  • The mobile space, where constrained hardware and processors favor runtimes for which the developer takes more responsibility for memory management, because the java garbage collector (removal of code objects that are out of scope in order to free up memory) comes at a cost of responsiveness to user touches and gestures. (I presume that this is one of the major engineering challenges of Android and actually one reason they made their own implementation of the language and Dalvik.)
  • On the desktop, users have to install java onto Windows and OS X. Their app stores will not provide it, though for the short-term Apple will provide it via software update. Java has security issues. Any application which requires user installation of supporting libraries and administrative-level configuration and monitoring is going to be problematic in its adoption. Cross-platform development used to be the mostly-real dream for gals and guys like me, but it really looks as though it makes more sense to write the user interfaces in the preferred native framework, because nothing else may be assumed and the platform providers will help with the deployment, making it simple for all users to add applications.
  • Delivery of frameworks in DSLs (Domain Specific Languages) where the apis are in the language of the users who solve specific problems, meaning they can write their own programs and scripts and they do not have to learn a full language, such as java, to be effective.

Now if COBOL (c. 1959) is any guide, there will be important code in java being maintained 50 years in the future. The language may not be popular, but it better not be forgotten. Sometime around 2025, folks will have to get serious because java (and all the *nixes and BSDs) face a Y2K problem in 2031. There will have been 10^64 milliseconds since January 1, 1970 and the next millisecond will be zero. Somebody then better know what they are doing with java or it's going to be a big mess.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

IMHO Neither
Authored by: calris74 on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 06:43 PM EDT
I also agree that this case will fundamentally damage Java (see here)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PHBs
Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 05:42 AM EDT
I've just had a thought. A geek with great credentials as a Java developer goes
to a PHB and proposes that some IT crucial to the company is written in Java.

PHBs don't ask lawyers: they make decisions loosely based on the Florid Mewling
press reports.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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