Yes, James has left the building. So what?

So James Gosling has left Oracle. Go Figure.

I am not sure that this move has actually got any real meaning for Java. For over a year now the language just seems to have been drifting.

The move to rich HTML clients tells me that the underlying premise of write once, run anywhere, is still sound, but that Java, the language, and even the JVM platform, has been stagnating. Sort of neglected by both politics and poverty.

Yes, that's me on the left. Eyes wide shut, at dinner with James and other Australian Java developers about two years ago. It was a good evening. :-)

It struck me then, in the conversation, that he seemed pretty detached from the world of Java. More a very intelligent bystander pottering around periphery, playing with the bits that he found interesting. There was no sense of a driving force, trying to move the language and the platform forward. Rather, he seemed to be a retired researcher, coming in to the office to dabble. Of course this was just my impression, made at a rather festive meal.

The other people from Sun at the table were more interested in JavaFX than simple Java. Something I still don't quite understand.

So me, I don't think that the departure will have any effect on the future of Java. It only means that Oracle doesn't offer the collegial environment that Sun did. That might actually be a good thing for the future of Java.