Roundtable Transcript, Part 2 (Continued)

What's Missing From Java?
[29:45] Phipps: So, to move on now from that discussion, what's missing at the moment? What's the next thing that you're going to be putting your company's credit card down to go to the JCP and fix or to fall and break away open source script to fix? Anyone want to volunteer what the most important missing feature from Java is at the moment?

[30:10] Renaud: To prevent more features. [Chuckles]

[30:15] Farrell: I think moving forward, as we see more frameworks and more talk from the analysts about metadata and metadata management, those APIs are going to become more important. They're going to be harder to do because they don't necessarily tie directly in with Java. It's more of an entity on its side. But how we actually share metadata across and with each other across different companies is going to be really key in making all this work. Metadata is a really powerful way to ease development and really ease management and deployment of applications, and making sure those things get in there are going to be needed. I'd pay for that.

[30:58] Elloy: Borland is going to be continuing to put a lot of work behind keeping up with and helping drive standards for Java as well as .NET, for that matter. What we're also putting a lot of work behind is the context around the development, not just the content that that person creates and the ease and speed at which he creates that content. So making sure, again, to the point that I made an hour and a half ago about the entire software supply chain, making sure that dots connect from a process perspective and from an artifact perspective because we're trying to solve the problem of failed projects. That's the fundamental problem we're trying to solve, whether it's Java or not.

[31:35] Phipps: Everyone else is completely satisfied with the current content of the Java plan?

[31:39] Milinkovich: I can think of a specific technology area that is currently residing in two open source breakaway groups. One is currently listed in Eclipse and one in JBoss, which is the [area] of aspect programming. I'm not sure whether or not that's going to end up back in as a language feature of Java, but I think for people that are building applications, I don't see aspect programming as a panacea, but I see it as a something that in the toolbox of responsible programmers can help them do their job.

[32:16] Phipps: As it turns out I'm moderating a panel on aspect-oriented programming on Wednesday, where Gregor and Cedric are going to a have a discussion with James Gosling and Graham Hamilton on the subject. The main observation to make there is, I've spoken to both Graham and James about it, and they're not sure whether there are Java language changes that it would be safe to make to support aspect programming.

[32:51] Milinkovich: Yeah, I can see that, and like I said, I don't see aspect programming as a panacea. I think it's one of those things where some people have gotten attached to it and are probably slightly over-blowing the potential because I think there is actually the potential to confuse the heck out of people too.

[33:08] Phipps: I have to say I keep on reading Gregor's presentation, and I still have no idea what he's talking about. So I'm hoping that during the first 15 minutes of the presentation the penny's going to drop for me.

[33:18] Milinkovich: I think I understand the basic ideas, but it's like many other things. If you use it with moderation, it's good for you. If you go too crazy with it, you can hurt yourself. It's like anything else.

[33:32] Renaud: So to answer your question, what are we going to put our money behind? We're going to put our money behind three things. One is continued drive of the center position of integration and SOA. So invest in BPEL, invest in bringing BPEL and the Java standards together more, that whole area, integration, adapters, things like that. Number one. Number two, continue to drive the ease-of-use effort, so we will continue to invest in ease-of-use JSRs, we're going to continue to invest in Beehive, we're going to continue to invest in the JTC, making sure that we can drive tools so that we can reach out to that broad community of developers. I think these are going to be the two big areas and to bring all that together really to the convergence of development and integration as being sort of the driving force behind all that.

[34:29] Phipps: Anyone else want to express anything less than satisfaction?