Keep the crap out of JavaSE 7

Okay I said that JavaSE 6 wasn't for the enterprise, but hoped that JavaSE 7 would be. Well guess what, it turns out that Sun's JavaSE team want to create an even worse version of Java with the Dolphin release. Yet more multilanguage support, hey why not use Basic... BECAUSE ITS A RUBBISH LANGUAGE, yet more bells yet more whistles and nothing at all for the enterprise customers. The basic idea seems to be that if you lob enough stuff into the basket that it some how becomes better. This basic idea has a fatal flaw, namely that it is bollocks. Its aiming for the "cool" and Joe Average, to tick the boxes and generally create a steaming pile for professional developers and architects.

What do I mean by professionals? People..

1. who have learnt how to search for libraries that do what they need
2. who like to control what the platform their application sits on does
3. who like to make absolute choices in what should be done
4. whose applications are rarely 100% purely the core Java platform
5. who build things for lots of other people to use
   
6. who plan for applications to be supported, not just developed

What I mean are people who use Spring, J2EE, Jini, Rich Client Platform, Swing and are able to make the right choice about the technologies on their project. I'm not interested in more bells and whistles, I'm interested in the following

1. Turning off the stuff I don't need, this means not having to install it in the first place
1. No Midi, Java2D etc in the core. If we need it we'll install it
   
2. No JAX-WS, if we want Web Services we will select how we want to do them
   
3. No scripting - if we need it we'll tell you
   
2. A standard way of describing both the Java standard and 3rd parties libraries I want, and where to get thefromalalala Ivy and Maven)
3. A core platform that is just that the
   
4. few standard profiles that provide a standard base for different uses of Java
   
1. Core Java
   
2. Basic Desktop - no comms
   
3. Full Desktop - comms, video, everything desktop
   
4. Kitchen Sink Java with the whole shebang for those who admire only size and where the JavaSE team can dump the new crap they seem to be so keen on.
   

Right now I'd settle just for having 1 and 4, although I think 2 also has merit. The problem is that big companies, of whatever sort, don't tend to complain about things like this. There is a reason for that, they consider (quite rightly) the technology to be something to use and assume that given they are paying billions for it that people would be trying to deliver what they want.

Unfortunately with JavaSE 6 and it looks JavaSE 7 Sun have decided to go after people with no money, or talent, but lots of noise, and make the world worse for professional developers. So the rally cry starts here, I've already posted to the JavaSE 6 list at my wish and desire for 7 to have a clear split between enterprise and the bells and whistles. There are some supporters but of course nothing as yet from the JavaSE 6 team.

Java is pretty much baked for the enterprise, a few extra things like reflection of parameter names would be nice, but mainly its about the choosing right libraries and frameworks rather than adding more crap into the language and base platform.

So the campaign for Straightforward Java starts now. What we need is LESS in the core not more, but a standard way of getting in those pieces that we need. This is why enterprise people use Maven and Ivy, not Basic.

Technorati Tags: J2EE, Java, JavaSE 6, JavaSE 7, JavaSE