The J in Java

The J in Java is James- James Gosling…

I stumbled across a presentation by James Gosling on Java spec.

And of course I had to hear it. This is the first time I have heard him speak. He talked a bit about himself- his experiences before he started on Java and how the design of Java was constrained.

One thing that struck me the most was - he had both his feet firmly on the ground.

JAVA  is one of the most amazing things to have happened to Software and Internet. It came in when MicroSoft had a neck-breaking grip hold on the Software industry. It has had one of the most successfull acceptance rate among all langauges . And it has stood the most vital test- test of time.  13 years and still going strong.

Though I haven’t worked on the newer technologies- RoR ,Grails and so on- but I doubt if any of these will get the same acceptance rate as Java did.

However, I do feel bad that Sun - even though having made such a successful product is facing hard times. But then to make a wonderful product is  very different thing from being able to form the perfect marketing strategy around it. An example of that is of course Google !!!