SWAINE'S CAFE

Black. No Sugar. Extra Caffeine.

April 2007

At JavaOne, closures will be discussed in sessions on JRuby, Scala, and Groovy, and Neal Gafter will talk about bringing closures to Java.

Gafter has talked about this before. Eric Bruno looked at the prospect of closures in Java here back in September, and there's a nice piece on the topic at IBM's DeveloperWorks.

More than one poll of developers has shown significant interest in adding closures to Java, but you often hear calls to consider the cost/benefit picture. Plus requests not to build another camel. There are two proposals on the table for ways of going about it, neither without its drawbacks. You can extend the type system of the language to allow function types, which Gafter promotes, the so-called BGGA proposal (Gafter is the first G; the second is Gosling), or you can fiddle with the creation of inner class instances. The former is the more radical retrofit.

It will be interesting, to put it mildly, to see if some consensus comes out of Gafter's sessions at JavaOne.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 12:29 PM  Permalink |

Or rather, Feisty gets Java. A complete Sun Java stack now comes with the latest 7.04 (formerly known as Feisty Fawn) release of the popular Ubuntu version of Linux from Canonical.

This development is hardly shocking. Canonical has been cosying up with Sun for months, last November announcing the distribution of Glassfish on Ubuntu, and earlier securing certification for Ubuntu on a growing list of Sun hardware.

For Java developers on Ubuntu it's a matter of convenience. "The current model for Linux installs is to just rummage around and find the components for the Java stack," said Jeet Kaul, Sun's VP of Developer Products and Programs. "What you are going to get now is a fully integrated, optimized for Ubuntu, Java stack in a single location."

Does the news thrill Michael Dell, president and CEO of Dell, who reportedly runs Feisty Fawn on his personal laptop computer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 04:14 PM  Permalink |

When it comes to open source software, anything not open is suspect. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has taken what had been a private tussle with Sun very public.

The fuss is all about IP restrictions in the Java SE Test Compatibility Kit (TCK, or JCK), and ASF's struggle to get its Harmony project certified JCP-compatible. So ASF says. Sun says they're trying really hard to grease every squeaky wheel, but there are a lot of 'em out there squeaking. At least that's their preliminary thought, which they are happy to share with the Java development community.

It's a sign of the times how everybody wants to be so very open about this. ASF publishes an open letter to Sun, as well as a FAQ. Here we learn that when you publish an open letter to a CEO, you must now also publish a public FAQ explaining the background to the letter. And Sun posted its reaction to ASF's open letter in a blog called On the Record, where they go on the record about being open about what they characterize as a private matter. Everyone is committed to being very, very open.

Nevertheless, open letters and public responses are often ways for parties to a dispute to talk past one another, and both ASF's open letter and Sun's blog posting contain phrasing that seems less than conciliatory.

The meaning of openness is clearly open to interpretation.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 02:23 PM  Permalink |

The new jcp.org website launched over the weekend.

April Fool!

Actually, the site retreated from its failed launch of March 6. March 7. March 9. March 19. I have a mailbox full of launch announcements regarding this site, but I am assured that the real launch will take place real soon now.

In other Sun/Java news, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz blogs that he doesn't believe in walled gardens. But he does believe in the magic of reorgs.

By the way, what do you think of our new automatic semantic link generation facility?

Posted by Mike Swaine at 05:00 PM  Permalink |