jsync | Java Staffing Specialist

"Reasons to be Thankful in 2009"

11/13/2009

by Dave Fecak

It’s been a couple years since I wrote a ‘Reasons to be Thankful’ column for Java professionals. In my November columns I recycled this thankful theme from 2005-07, taking last year off to talk about the JCP election. And with the year we had in 2009, I think it’s time to bring it back to give everyone some hope for the future and to remember the positives about being involved with Java technologies. Not to mention, recycling is good for the environment. Without further ado…

The Sun/Oracle deal – Assuming that the deal is approved and the EU can get past the MySQL part of the acquisition, Java being in Oracle’s hands could be a great thing in the best case scenario, and at worst a ‘lesser evil’ to some of the other options out there. Sun needed a lift and got one, and the combination of Oracle and Sun engineers should help lead to more innovation in the Java world. As a company, Oracle has relied on Java as much as anyone, so let’s be optimistic that they will be a worthy steward.

Open source software – Imagine if you had the know-how to build a race car, and decided to build them for a living. As you’d be facing a steep climb to actually get from the knowledge to the finished product, imagine if someone simply gave you all the tools you needed to build the car free of charge, not to mention a place to race it and store it. The analogy isn’t perfect, but it’s close. Not only are the open source development tools and frameworks easy to acquire, but in the Java world many of these freebies have become the industry standard based on quality rather than a necessary sacrifice based on budget.

JVM – On billions of devices, and friendly to other languages that are steadily gaining popularity among Java developers. Doesn’t limit your ability to play with new langs when appropriate.

Java User Groups – From anecdotal evidence, JUGs are often much more vibrant than user groups for other technologies, and they are allowed to self-govern and exist solely for the good of the group. No directives or interference from Sun, which gives leaders unlimited latitude on what can be presented to the group. JUG provides a place to learn, to teach others and get your name out there by presenting, and to stay in touch with the community and network with peers.

Google – Not only has Google helped you find answers to some technical questions you were facing, they are now becoming more prominent in providing software/platforms/frameworks/etc for developers to use. Keep up with Google’s continued innovations to see what some of our greatest engineers will be adding to the software world.

jsync – What could be better than having a company that is dependent upon helping local Java talent find employment??

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