Java as we know it may soon be considered a legacy language.
On Tuesday 13th of September 2011, between 5:00PM and
7:30PM, Nigerian time, at the local Microsoft office in Lagos Nigeria, I
watched a live streaming of the official unveiling of Windows 8. Stephen
Sinofsky lead a team of presenters who showed the world what the future of
Windows (and invariably, PC) would be. Part of what was demo'ed is the new platform
for windows development. Developers would now write their apps in erstwhile
web-only development languages: JavaScript, HTML and CSS as native Windows App.
There was an overhaul of the Windows development platform the Windows sack now has: Windows Runtime (WinRT) --> JavaScript
--> HTML & CSS OR WinRT --> C#/VB/C/C++ --> XAML. The
same app would run unmodified on desktop, game consoles and mobile devices. I'm
still WOW'ed.
Now my arguement is this: The main promise of Java which is
Write-Once-Run-Anywhere is (almost) finally broken by a sexier language. Before
I continue, let me point out that I am a passionate Java programmer. I've been
writing Java since 2005 and it's currently my favorite language (I'll choose it
over any language -- Human or Computer). People who know me know that I'm very
passionate about the language. And when I see posts which asks when Java would disappear,
I just laugh at them. But with windows adopting JS as a native language, all I
need to do now is write JS and it would be executable on all platform.
Considering that Node.JS has already made it possible to write JS apps for UNIX-based systems, even though it's
not native, it still (kinda) works. I strongly believe that many OS vendors
would love to replicate the ubiquity that JS brought to browsers; noting that
JS is also backed by a set of standards.
Anyway, I'm still gon code Java passionately while it's
still relevant, though I doubt Oracle would fold their arms and watch Java die.
BTW, if you want to try the new release of Windows before it
is finally released, then visit dev.windows.com and download it. I'm not a fan
of pre-release versions so I'll just wait till it's finally released.
Image is courtesy of http://cybergyaan.blogspot.com.
Image is courtesy of http://cybergyaan.blogspot.com.
P.S. Why is every top personality in Computing named
Stephen? Stephen Jobs (Apple), Stephen Balmer (MS) and Stephen Sinosfsky (MS).
Ok, I'm changing my first name to Stephen too :)