It is completely ludicrious to say java is 'atrophying' based on this closures debacle. The fault here is that Reinhold and crew most likely underestimated how difficult it is to properly add closures into Java 7, but not by much. Mark knew and had said on multiple occasions on Devoxx '09 that it was a tight schedule but they thought they could just barely make it. I for one would be happy if Oracle announced that adding closures to 7 would have been possible, but it would have been a closure system that isn't as good as it could be, because that's all that was possible given the limited time frame - so they didn't. Especially if they go on for an encore and mention that while Java 7 has no closures, Java 8 will simply be 7 + closures + crucial bug fixes, and it'll be out when it's ready, but it'll be the best closure proposal that the team and the community could think of.
As an example of why java isn't atrophying: Project Jigsaw is speeding along just fine. Project Coin recently added a new feature to its roster, and hasn't dropped anything. In fact, most of the items on the Project Coin list are done, committed, and live in jdk7 nightly builds. It might be worth looking at the project jigsaw and project lambda mailing list and form your own opinion. I'm only going to state three things definitively: #1: This has happened before, but Oracle / Reinhold / Buckley screwed up a little bit here by shutting down all communication in the face of uncertainty. #2: Judging that java is atrophying based only on looking at the closure situation is not a useful exercise. At least look at Jigsaw and Coin too, and preferably at the work of JSR 292 as well. #3: Trying to figure out the closure situation is complex enough that you really should contrast for example the PJ and PL mailing lists, and you should have a decent grasp of all the various issues raised on the PL mailing list before you can have a complete picture of the current state of Oracle's dedication or lack thereof to evolving java- the-language. On May 13, 2:06 am, RogerV <[email protected]> wrote: > Closures in Java 7: Not > Likelyhttp://www.davidflanagan.com/2010/05/closures-in-jav.html > > Anybody on this list have any insight to what's going on at Oracle > regarding Java? > > Is this article an over reaction or spot on? > > I have to admit am starting to get worried about Oracle's stewardship > of Java. They need to be making a public perception that they're on > top and on the ball with prior stated goals for the language. Yet it's > more like they've all gone on holiday and turned the lights out. > > The sad thing in my case is I was on the verge of getting a > development group that's been using C# .NET for a few years to switch > to Java and an app server to do the re-tooling of their app. (This is > not at all a web centric application and a JEE app server actually > would have a ton of advantages for their particular middle-ware. This > is very much of a case of the plethora of libraries and frameworks per > Java platform would be much greater advantage than the latest C# > language feature set.) > > Yet if Java is just slipping into the depths of language atrophy, as > alluded to by this linked posting, then that makes for a tougher sell. > If I could at least have said "see, you'll be getting closures in Java > 7 real soon now..." > > C# has closures and lambdas now and once you start using those > facilities you get spoiled to them. My very sold reasons for wanting > them to switch has to contend with these kinds of nits - despite these > things are not as crucial as the Java Concurrency library or the fork/ > join framework, or cluster singleton mbeans, etc., etc. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
