JavaOne 2010 Summary

While javaone 10 continues, my part is done.  This is my 3rd time here, and as expected it has been a very different experience from years past.  Most notably was the physical space.  The scattering of hotels that hosted various sessions created a humbler, more human experience.  Additionally logistics were more of a pain. But in fact I preferred it to the old days.

In terms of technologies and projects, there are some big winners.  Oracle is commited to OpenJDK and uses it internally for development.  JavaME is going to expand in scope and finally modernize.  For reasons probably obvious to most, Oracle plans to make JavaME stop being all about cell phones focus on the (much more interesting) world of embedded devices.  The Amazon Kindle device seems to be the showcase of what’s possible with Java on devices.  Oracle seems to see the IoT future and doesn’t want to be left behind.

I had a great time at the OSGi and OpenJDK BOFs I attended, and come to realize those after-hours events are probably worth more in the end than the day sessions.  Especially when you are looking for some specific anwsers rather than being dazzled by the latest new ideas and power point animations.  I was also able to catch up with some friends and FOSS champions.

My session we well attended and I got a few laughs, which makes me feel that it wasn’t a total flop.  I think the idea of a “universal OpenJDK” from embedded to server is a powerful one.  But I didn’t get a sense that the idea is shared from my experience at JavaOne this year.  Oracle may post my slides publically, but I am also putting them up on my home server in case anyone would like to have a look.  Additionally I am posting the binary packages for each JRE, the raw output from my benchmarks, any some source code I wrote to call the benchmarks here.

To sum it all up I’d say that Oracle has injected the Java world with some fresh energy and it will be interesting to see how they are able to deliver on many of the promises they made.