March 13, 2007
The Departed
Back in July 2004, I was shocked to hear that Josh Bloch and Neal Gafter had left Sun. A few months ago, in October 2006, another shock came - Gilad Bracha has left Sun as well.
Not many big names are left at the home of Java. Bill Joy already went away in September 2003. How long will James Gosling and Guy Steele stick around? Makes me wonder what the future will bring for Sun and Java. Especially considering Bracha’s ominous farewell Good luck to you all - you’ll need it. Am I just being paranoid, or do these words and these events forecast a gloomy future for Sun, Java, and everyone involved, that is, me and you, my fellow programmers?
(In case you don’t know, Gilad, Josh, and Neal are Java Gods. Josh wrote the Java Collections Framework and Effective Java, one of the best books about Java. Neal Gafter was in charge of Sun’s Java compiler. Together they wrote Java Puzzlers, another great book. Gilad Bracha was heavily involved in the specification of Java itself, the JVM, Generics… you name it.)
Filed by chrisahn at 11:52 pm under java
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Wow, I see that I didn’t pay much attention to what’s going on in Java country lately. Somewhere - I guess it was in Chad Fowler’s My Job went to India - I read about a hypothetical scenario where Sun’s going down and as a last, desperate measure tries to make some money by commercializing the Java licensing model. Gloomy future, indeed.