the corner office

There's an Is Java Dead type post at TSS, based on the comments of Bruce Tate, a respected turncoat^Wauthor who made the leap from Java to Something Else. I haven't bothered to read all the (at current count) 109 comments on the thread, because I don't think it will be a productive use of my time. (As if blogging is... *snork*)

This 'Is X Dead' stuff can be tiring. Having worked with Lotus Notes for many years, the Is Notes Dead thing was a constant topic. There was a time when it seemed like it was but these days that's not true and it's apparently doing quite well again.

The most important lesson I learned from all the back-and-forth though is that usually when the 'Is X dead' question is asked, it isn't. It's just shorthand for 'we found other cool stuff for you to play with', often whether you like it or not. Thus, the message could come from business execs (in the case of Notes, where IBM execs thought that WebSphere was the One True Ring) or from thought leaders, as is the case with the current rumours of Java's demise. If you believe what you read, you'd have to conclude that languages and platforms are always in state of semi-death (except for COBOL, which died sometime in the 70s but still made people rich right up to 1 January 2000, which, I'd just like to point out, was one year before the start of the New Millennium, no matter what the masses think).

Anyway. C++ dead? That meant 'hey, check out this Java thing'. Java dead? That means 'hey, check out this Ruby thing'. Bruce Tate has fuelled the current furore with his recent book 'Beyond Java', which, as I uninformedly understand it, explains why Ruby rocks in comparison to Java. The reactions have varied since then, from 'hey, he has a point, y'know,' to 'dude can't code his way out of a paper bag and blames Java for it.' I have no opinion myself, but on a meta level do believe that Bruce Eckel probably hit the nail on the head last year with his essay 'The departure of the hyper-enthusiasts'. In a nutshell, it boils down to some hyperbole, a dash of geek machismo and not a little bit of seeing who can pee the furthest. All of which is unnecessary, imho. C++ is wonderful. Java is wonderful. Ruby is a wonderful addition to the wonderfulness that is the circa 2006 IT landscape. Why can't they all jus' get along?

Incidentally, my ex-neighbour and all-round smart dude Leslie discovered Ruby last year, fell in love with it, and encouraged me to try it out. I haven't yet, because if I do and find that Java really does suck in comparison, that's going to make my day job pretty damned depressing, because there isn't a whole lot of work going for Ruby developers. Yet.