back to article Oracle laying off its Java evangelists? Er, no comment, says Oracle

Oracle appears to be making redundancies in the ranks of its Java evangelists team. One of the evangelists, Simon Ritter, has taken to Facebook to say: “I've heard it said that you should try something new every day. Yesterday I thought I'd see what it was like to be made redundant.” It's not hard to see why Oracle might …

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Windows

    The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

    Internet of Things, a market that looks tailor-made for the technology

    Erlang, COUGH, COUGH.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

      I might be showing my age here, but back when I were a lad an erlang was a single telephony circuit occupied for 1 hour.

      Ah the good ol' days of working for the Post Office in a Strowger exchange.

      My hearing has never recovered,

      Sad in the short term for the people kicked out, but in the long run they're probably better off away from Oracle, as we all would be.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

        Erlang was also a town in Germanysome weird-ass country in a prolonged post-war-crispy-bacon scenario, but then again Java was some Island that could be found in the Pacific, Oracle was a professional occupation held by crazy, drugged-up females from ancient Greece while Sun was a big yellow ball in the sky. Later, we also had Plan 9 (a movie) and Limbo (something an Italian once wrote a book on). Penguins were found in Antarctica only etc.

        1. Bitbeisser
          FAIL

          Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

          "Erlang was also a town in Germany"

          Well, no, sorry, there never "was" a town called Erlang in Germany, but there still is a city called "Erlangen" in Germany... (well, it's actually in Bavaria, that's almost Germany <LOL>)

    2. SJG

      Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

      Today's jobs on http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/ :

      Erlang : 11

      Java : 1,152

      SQL : 2,075

      1. GeezaGaz

        Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

        Errr quite.

        What is it with all these fucking lame;

        what about erlang?

        what about haskell?

        what about rust?

        Because no-one can earn a living with them! I know.... I can say I know some esoteric language...before going to sign on for JSA/dole or whatever it's called these days.

      2. TheVogon

        Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

        Today's jobs on http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/ :

        .Net : 1352

        C# : 1381

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The world is not Java, nor even the JVM.

      Bye Java, Hello Javascript, Nodejs, 0MQ, RabbitMQ, NGINX, HTML5, Mongodb, RethinkDB, Reactjs, Angularjs, GraphQL, Postgresql.... Please stop using Oracle.

  2. x 7

    Evangellists? They must have run out of tambourines

    1. cd

      Good thing they weren't ombudsmen, think of what they'd run out of if they were. Right before a holiday weekend.

    2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

      Evangelists who will get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.

  3. jonnycando

    About Time

    Java is so over and done with, and Oracle are giving tacet acknowledgement.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: About Time

      That was my first impression, too.

    2. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: About Time

      What's replacement? PHP, Ruby, and Python have lightning fast development for small projects but their weak typing makes large projects a nightmare. Golang too often feels like an ancient language with a fresh coat of paint. C++11 and Java handle big apps well, but differently enough that I wouldn't want to be stuck with just one of them.

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: About Time

        "C++11 and Java handle big apps well"

        No, actually they give you the _illusion_ of handling big apps well, and that's where the problem starts. You end up writing huge applications with tens of thousands of lines, even though the core of your problem could be solved in a couple of hundred of lines. Even then you end up using huge libraries and frameworks which may have bugs or you might misunderstand.

        The only way to deal with complexity is to avoid it, and that's something neither the C++ nor the Java crowds have managed. So far the only way to do this I've found is to train in Assembler. That way you learn that every control structure hurts, therefore you avoid it and tend to write better code in any language.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Childcatcher

          Re: About Time

          So far the only way to do this I've found is to train in Assembler.

          Absolutely. But you have to do it in winter, using only vi and going uphills both ways. And no ordering books at amazon, you have to PERSONALLY drive to a shop 120 miles away and demand that their ordering process take three months and that they lose the package in transit. Did I mention bank switching?

          How else can you make the children learn?

        2. K

          Re: About Time

          Christian Berger, 100% agree.

          I was a Java developer in 2000-05 and saw this start happening, the simplest applications, about 500kb compiled were using 200Mb worth of external jars, it was crazy. So I moved onto PHP, and in recent years, I've seen the same thing happening here.

          Lazy ass developers using the Zend Framework for 2-3 pages websites, or inappropriately using Doctrine to run a query which borks a server with 6GB RAM, but if done in raw SQL code would work on a machine with 256MB.

          What those developers don't seem to understand is, there is a time and place for a Framework, but choose the right tool for the job!

          1. Steve Crook

            Re: About Time

            A common mistake. The SIZE of the framework is irrelevant for many applications because there's plenty of CPU, ram, disk and network capacity. What's important is time to market, feature set, responsiveness to change requests, resilience, and the degree to which you want to piss off your users with bugs.

            If you create a three page site outside a framework and then get change requests, a page here, a page there, never so much it's ever worth rewriting in a framework, eventually you end up with a mess.

            Of course if you want to spend your time writing code that others have already written, debugged and actively support, you can. I always thought life was too short...

            1. K

              Re: About Time

              @Steve Crook - That is hyperbole. Framework size is everything, especially when it makes up 90%+ of the execution stack and response time. Memory and CPU may be in excess supply, but they still cost money, also the extra resources the OTT framework is utilising could be put to other use.

              Also, who said not to use a Framework? Just choose the right one for the job at hand. Often developers resort to a position of comfort such as using Zend and Doctrine for that 3 pages website, rather than practicality and using something like Slim.

              As a side note, developers who do choose right tool for the job, find they'll get the implementation done quicker, with less bugs and the project is more easily expanded.

            2. Gerhard Mack

              Re: About Time

              @Steve Crook, That logic is why I get panicked calls from small companies wondering why their webserver can't even come close to meeting their needs. Lets assume your application takes 50 mb ram per user (I've actually seen this amount on a server) Now you have 100 hits per second in the evening and that's nearly 5 GB ram already and you aren't even making much money on the app yet.

              "we don't care how much ram this takes" is Desktop centric thinking and even then customers are getting sick of it.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Agree, we have some sites, very, very basic pages, 1 image, form to fill in for amount and a shopping cart to put it in, done with dot net nuke, each site takes 500mb of ram when it starts up. Its been decided from now on developers will get VMs with little ram and CPU and they have to get it running well on them before it goes onto production machines. If it runs slow on their vm, they have to improve its efficiency.

          3. CaptainBanjax

            Re: About Time

            @K

            Spot on there, I agree with your thoughts on frameworks.

            However your sentiment towards PHP heading down a similar road to Java im not so sure about.

            I am excited about PHP7 and the vast performance improvements it brings and ive recently discovered HHVM for bringing down RAM and CPU usage. Its suprisingly awesome. Though I suspect it will be overtaken by PHP7 in the performance stakes...not so sure on the resource usage stakes though.

            The thing that sucks about PHP is it is seen as a modern day "Visual Basic" level language to some devs (Java and Ruby devs usually)...ive no idea why though.

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. Bob Vistakin
          Holmes

          Re: About Time

          @Christian Berger Assembler is for pussies.

          Real men get t'beach w't bucket, dig up't sand t'ferry t'fabrication plant t'extract silicon ready for every gate to be hand built on t'chip wi t'tweezers and t'microscope.

          1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

            Re: About Time

            "Assembler is for pussies"

            Careful there, next step would be a Story of Mel.

            1. DWRandolph

              Re: Story Of Mel

              Mel is one of my heroes

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: About Time

        "... but their weak typing makes large projects a nightmare."

        Welcome to Java - where every project is a large project; all types are manifest; and the need to support dynamism breaks those same types you spent so long helping the compiler digest.

      3. TheVogon

        Re: About Time

        "What's replacement? PHP, Ruby, and Python have lightning fast development for small projects but their weak typing makes large projects a nightmare."

        .Net and C# generally - especially in performance sensitive applications.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: About Time

        >> What's replacement?

        .Net mostly.

        For a good example of why, just compare the performance of Minecraft in Java to Minecraft in .Net....

    3. DrXym

      Re: About Time

      If Oracle dumped their evangelists I suspect it's because people pretty much know instantly if they need it or not. Java isn't over and done with, not by a long shot although it's unlikely to outgrow its existing roles.

      Let's not forget either that if you had a reason to use another language it doesn't necessarily preclude Java since Java is both a language and a runtime. The JVM does support Python, Ruby, Javascript, Groovy, Scala and a raft of other languages.

    4. swm
      Stop

      Re: About Time

      There are many languages to choose from and I have programmed in many (assembler, LISP/SCHEME, C, C++, TRAC(!), BASIC, ML etc.). I find that Java is good as a cross-platform language with graphics on all platforms. The current Java language is not developing in the right direction (or any sane direction) though. If I don't need the graphics I would use another language.

      For raw computation I prefer C++ - the standard template library is great.

      For more AI-type programming and fun I prefer LISP.

      For enterprise computing I would retire.

      1. Stephen 1

        Re: About Time

        @swm

        Might I suggest you take a look at Qt.

        Cross-platform C++ with an excellent 2D graphics library and full support for OpenGl should you want it.

        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: About Time

          "Might I suggest you take a look at Qt."

          I looked at it a year or so back. (Version 4 if I recall.) I saw a homebrew string class, homebrew collections classes, homebrew dynamic casts and a simple slots and signals framework. It reminded me of nothing more than MFC -- a child of the 1990s before C++ actually standardised all these things and forever-after encumbered with their now-non-standard solutions to the problems.

          The cross-platform would have been nice, but if it forces me to divide my code into bits that can use C++14 features and bits that have to stick with C++98 (or even ARM), then I'd rather code a native UI for each platform.

        2. John Styles

          Re: About Time

          I looked up some Qt stuff recently, and it look looked to me like the adults were no longer in charge (e.g. we are deprecating Qtscript so now you need to use Qml SJsEngine). It looked a bit CADT to me https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

    5. SJG

      Re: About Time

      I always thought that Java was crap, then I played Minecraft and realised that it must be the programmers who are crap, not the language.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oracle licencing hassles

    Most of the would-be "interwebs of things" Java devs I've talked to say one of two things:

    "Don't you have to use some mobile edition version for embedded stuff? And they sue you if you don't? I don't understand. Let's steer clear of that."

    "Oracle's suing Google for using Java. Let's steer clear of that."

    1. deive

      Re: Oracle licencing hassles

      Yeah, quite a turnaround from where Sun started with Java - internet connected set top boxes and ideas about what would become the IoT. Thanks Oracle.

  5. David Glasgow

    head first Java

    acquires a whole new meaning.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evangelists?

    Sorry, I never trust someone who asks me to believe blindly, especially in business.

    Far better to pay people to actually deliver great product and technology, than people paid to make you believe they are, in spite of evidence.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Clearly a very different world from mine

    Clearly the commentards here live in a very different world from mine. I have been programming in Java for over a decade but none of it has ever appeared on or anywhere near a webpage. (You can find a JVM anywhere from a UICC to a mainframe.)

  8. Tom 7

    Bad workmen always blame their tools.

    Mind you Java is made of burnt fruit that is improved when eaten by an ocelot.

    1. x 7

      Re: Bad workmen always blame their tools.

      |Not an Ocelot

      it comes from the Luwak - the Asian Palm Civet, Paraxorus hermaphroditus

  9. Daniel B.
    Boffin

    Java is pretty much alive and well

    A lot of server-side web stuff is running it. Its just that the client-side isn't that hot anymore. Oracle's gobbling up of Sun and the subsequent asshat lawsuits may have a lot to do with that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Java is pretty much alive and well

      The feel when you realize it's been 20 years and a few wars back that it has been "put onto the market".

      It was nothing new back then but it was just time to have it ... no-one wanted to properly use Lisp or Smalltalk and people were dicking around with C and derivatives.

    2. David Roberts

      Re: Java is pretty much alive and well

      I have memories from long ago when Java was young and people found her attractive.

      AFAICR it took a while to discover that there were three major variants covered by the same name.

      Server side Java

      Client side Java

      Javascript

      Further confusion when I was told that they didn't have as much in common as you might expect.

      It might be helpful if articles made it more clear which variants were being discussed.

  10. Tubz Silver badge

    I'll stick to COBOL, I like pages of neat code all terminated with a full stop.

    1. Roo
      Windows

      The full stops are a nice touch, but the aesthetic is offset by the SHOUTY CAPITALS GIVING HEADACHE.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    If your job title includes the word 'Evangelist'

    Then unless you really are completely self-unaware you must surely realise that it's not a case of if you'll be made redundant but when.

    I think less evangelical types in the IT world can only be a good thing.

  12. herman

    Evangelists? If they were Oracles then they may have foreseen the layoffs...

  13. SJG

    Java is the worst progrmming language for building enterprise apps - except for all the others.

  14. John Geek
    Facepalm

    Um, US Labor Day is the first Monday in SEPTEMBER.

    This last monday was Martin Luther King Day, which is a federal holiday but very few businesses, other than banks, pay much attention to.

  15. CPU

    Although lay-offs are never nice for those involved, "Evangelists" are not essential, they mostly turn up to meetings\ give presentations on "how good" the technology is. It was a cushy job while it lasted.

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