I have to say
...this, among other things, has meant we're stepping back from Java. A shame as much was promised........
Oracle wants to slip one of the world's largest Java user groups into the JCP seat abandoned by Apache. The database giant has nominated Brazil's SouJava to fill Apache's old seat on the Java Community Processes' Standard Edition/Enterprise Edition Executive Committee (EC), and group founder and recent president Bruno Souza – …
On the next episodes :
- Will google leave the JCP too?
- Will Oracle win his case about Android and force the recall of millions of phones?
BTW, can anyone tell me what are the advantages of Java compared to other languages? The only one I can figure is the quite obvious ease of cross-platform implementation...
..the hell Android went down the whole Java/Dalvik route in the first place is beyond me. If app developers are willing to write for the iPhone using the train crash that is Objective C, they are clearly willing to write in anything. In that case maybe Android should move towards properly supporting Google's own Go programming language, especially given that mobile phone processors are becoming increasingly multi-cored. Put those processor cycles and amp hours to proper use instead of wasting them on crappy VM shenanigans!
Because they forsee that Android will be ported to all sorts of architectures, and using native code will not be feasible on the developers.
For example, Android X86. Full access to the Android Marketplace. Only possible because Dalvik code is bytecode and all the porting party has to do is port the bytecode interpreter. If Google had made the developers use native code (say, ARM, which also comes in several different flavors), the marketplace would have to be segregated, and the developers will have to cross-compile their apps multiple times to ensure that it appears on all marketplaces to avoid being called out for favoring a particular architecture. Or to avoid having their compilers churn out only base ARM code and ignore the enhancements offered by the respective ARM architectures, resulting in a performance hit to the apps (and again, denying the app from being posted to the Android X86 marketplace).
Perhaps they should look into instating a bytecode version of their own Go language as the successor of Dalvik.