Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Java Programming Sun Microsystems

Gosling Returns To The Java Fold 43

Posted by timothy from the it's-a-sequel dept.
MemRaven writes "In an article on CNet News, James Gosling reveals that he's returning to the Java Tools group at Sun. The article touches briefly on the Eclipse situation as well as some vague statements about what he's doing in the future. Since he's been gone from the Java fold for a while, this might spell some definite changes in how Sun treats its stepchild."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Gosling Returns To The Java Fold More

Gosling Returns To The Java Fold

Comments Filter:
  • Whats good for the gosling is good for the gander.

  • Why is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:03AM (#8179540)
    Let's see what Gosling has done:

    He created a commercial Emacs clone, which didn't particularly ingratiate him to the open source community.

    He created a commercial window system called NeWS and tried to kill X11 with it, but that was a commercial failure, never really worked anyway, and was largely based on other people's technology.

    Then he built a simplistic language for programming consumer devices, but that project failed miserably as well. Only when they put it out on the Internet for free, claimed that they were going to make it "open", and promised to create a browser based application delivery platform did it take off--not because there was anything technical novel about it, but because people wanted to believe in browser-based programming (sadly, Sun has pretty much failed to deliver on all of that). Most of the hard work to make Java a success was done by the JIT developers and IBM.

    These days [sun.com], he seems to be porting over code highlighting and some other features from Emacs to NetBeans.

    Sorry, but if this is a "personality story", maybe someone can explain to me why I should be excited about it. At Sun, Guy Steele would be my vote for one of the most competent people they have. But Gosling? Why?
    • It's not how you handle your victories that make you a success. It's how you handle your failures.
    • He is a part of the marketing machine, not of real technologies. Well, this world is driven by over-abused marketing.

    • Re:Why is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by arethuza ( 737069 )
      Well, I have to say, NeWS was a thing of beauty - especially with the HyperNeWS stuff that Arthur Van Hoff did. And Java, like it or not, and I do, was a great tool. If the current explosion of APIs is a bit confusing I really don't think it has much to do with his original vision or, indeed, code. He did good stuff, the man deserves respect.

      • Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ajagci ( 737734 )
        Well, I have to say, NeWS was a thing of beauty - especially with the HyperNeWS stuff that Arthur Van Hoff did.

        I have to disagree. There were several window systems that put code display-side. NeWS perhaps got the most exposure at the time, but it was, in my experience, the flakiest and hardest to program. No doubt, a lot of that was due to the exceptionally poor choice of PostScript as the displaly-side programming language. Even Apple finally exorcised that demon.

        And Java, like it or not, and I do
        • Well, I have to admit it wasn't particularly practical. But I did find that once you got the hang of it that interactive graphical programming in PostScript was immense fun. As for the 'originality' aspect - its not something that I care about too much as it was never an academic excercise (and I say that as a ex-academic!). Success in the marketplace is IMHO about having 'good enough' technology at the right time with the right spin. Its not fair, but whoever said it was. You are right - I still think Co
    • Gosling? Why?

      I think it is because of acclamation from sun!wnj.

      Larry

  • eclipse has passed critical mass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:14AM (#8179605)
    there's nothing Sun can do about it. Gosling's comments about a developer perspective says it all. This is why eclipse has gained such a great following. I know from first hand, a large percentage of jakarta developers are strickly using eclipse now. If you ask around, the Tomcat developers for the most part use eclipse. Many other jakarta projects use eclipse exclusively.

  • 64-bit Array Indices? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mosel-saar-ruwer ( 732341 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:22AM (#8179670)

    Will someone PLEASE tell this genius to add 64-bit array indices to the language?
    for(long i = 0; i < whatever; i++)
    {
    a[i] = foo.bar(i);
    }
    What in the world good is this stupid language on a 64-bit platform?

    And yes, WE DO NEED 64 BITS. LIKE YESTERDAY.

    Our lab is taking 24-bit Doppler readings [8 byte doubles, 16 byte long doubles] on simultaneous channels at staggering sampling frequencies, and we can generate a 4GB file in the blink of an eye.

    Not to mention MPEGs of e.g. The Ten Commandments or Gone with the Wind.

    • How is this interesting?
      If you run into this limit you obviously need to subdevide the workload.

      Make multiple array's to fill the data with.

      • If you run into this limit you obviously need to subdevide the workload. Make multiple array's to fill the data with.

        Go grab a random DVD from Blockbuster. There's a real good chance you'll immediately encounter files of size greater than 4GB.

        As I mentioned above, in the medical imaging field, we generate files greater than 4GB in the blink of an eye.

        In this day and age, there is simply no excuse whatsoever for any aspect of an "Enterprise" system to lack true 64-bit support. Yes, 32-bit support is n

        • Address limits depend on the Operating System, the Hardware, and the Compiler all working together. I'm suprised you can't find some combination of the three that does what you need.

          But, Medical Imaging and DVD playback are NOT enterprise applications.
    • What combination of compiler, language, platform, and operating system currently allow 64-bit array indices for long doubles?

      I mean, when you're doing your computations in Fortran 90, or FORTRAN 77, or C (or whatever), what platforms are you currently using to compile and run your programs?

      • I mean, when you're doing your computations in Fortran 90, or FORTRAN 77, or C (or whatever), what platforms are you currently using to compile and run your programs?

        That's the whole point. It's simply INSANE that we have all this modern hardware but no modern languages to access it.

        Writing hacks like doubly indexed 32-bit arrays to access memory above 4GB is just EMBARRASSING in this day and age.

        And people have the gall to chide Intel & IBM about A20 address barriers...

      • I haven't tried "long doubles" specifically, but GNU C/C++ on Opteron and Linux supports full 64 bit addressing for all other datatypes. If the "long doubles" type is implemented (and I don't see why not), it should work with that, too.

        Is there some specific reason why you think there might be a problem?

    • The Java VM can run in full 64-bit mode on SPARCv9 CPUs. Perhaps this would useful to you? Granted, the array index is a limitation for one-dimensional arrays, but perhaps this is an area that could use byte-addressed data streams in a creative way? How about a native call to C-language routines? How about implementing an array-like data structure that overcomes the int limitation? You sound as if you are condemning a good platform for one percieved flaw. Try that strategy on a spouse or significant
    • No idea if Sun has changed the language specification to allow 64-bit array indices, but they seem to have added 64-bit optimizations to some versions of the Java VM, according to these release notes for JDK 1.5 [sun.com]. I will refrain from assuming that 64-bit array indices are allowed if you turn 64-bitness on. I noticed, though, that there seems to be a compile time switch that needs to be used for this, not just a run-time switch. This implies byte-code optimizations, at the very least.

  • J2SE1.5 is now in Beta (Score:3, Informative)

    by MythMoth ( 73648 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:16PM (#8185648) Homepage
    Subject says it all really, but 1.5 contains some substantial additions to the language, some much needed library additions, and in general is full of goodies:

    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/index.jsp [sun.com]
  • Offtopic, sorry, but: what is the font that's used in the bigger, red text "When you look at computer systems, they have this sort of yin-and-yang aspect."??

    I can't find it in the stylesheets of the page.

Slashdot Top Deals

Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel

Close