A Word About the Election |
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No, not the Obama/McCain smackdown on Nov 4. As you may have read in SD Times, SpringSource has been elected to the JCP Executive Committee for Java SE/EE, along with SAP, Ericsson, Nokia, Philips, and IBM. I will be the SpringSource representative.
Not that the JCP matches the scale of the presidential race. But this is an important moment for SpringSource, and one that reflects the years of hard work and leadership the entire team at SpringSource has provided in enterprise Java. More importantly, I believe that our election will help us to make Java stronger.
From the first book through the founding of SpringSource, we’ve done a lot to benefit Java through our innovative open source software and advocacy of pragmatic, effective architectures. Producing software that benefits users will always be our primary aim—but now we will also have a voice in the workings of the JCP, which we’ll use to lobby for positive change.
Political rhetoric in the current election aside, I think it’s fair to say that yes, I am a change candidate. I’ve always been very vocal about what needs to happen with the JCP.
Besides SpringSource, every company on the Executive Committee has a market cap of many billions of dollars. We’re honored to be included in such company, but we think it’s important to have strong voices from outside the community of large, traditional vendors—many of whom created the complexity problems of enterprise Java in the first place. In the words of the great computer scientist Tony Hoare, “the pursuit of the utmost simplicity…is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.�
This elected official wants to hear from you, readers and fellow developers. What’s wrong? What would you like to see? Please post your comments and let your voice be heard. I am listening, and I will try to ensure that the JCP is, too.
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Ryan de Laplante says:
Added on October 27th, 2008 at 11:13 pmCongratulations to both Rod and SpringSource! I am very happy to see SpringSource in a highly influential position within the JCP.
I think that most, if not all vendors in the Java EE comities share a common goal of creating standardized APIs that developers want to use in hope that their customers will buy middleware products or support contracts. They want to make decision making easy: whatever your need, there is a standardized API for it and you are not locked into any one vendor provided the standards are thorough, leave little room for interpretation, and have a strong TCK.
What's wrong? In the past standards were developed that solved only part of a problem, had poor APIs, etc. After a while many alternatives popped up. Many years later these alternatives have been refined and are being integrated back into Java EE standards. I would like to see the JCP take steps to ensure that any new JSR is fully usable before going final. For example, allowing JPA 1.0 to be released without a criteria API, one to many unidirectional mapping, cache hints, etc. should not have been allowed. Allowing EJB 3.0 to be released without singleton beans and proper scheduling features in the timer service should not have been allowed. Allowing JSF to have been released without HTTP GET, stateless support, a radio button component that isn't in a table, etc. should not have been allowed. Allowing any of the specs to be released without addressing unit testability should not have been allowed. If the JCP is going to create standardized APIs then they need to make sure that developers will want to use them, otherwise it is pointless.
I think Java EE 6 is doing a great job of integrating the best ideas from the last few years into all areas and that it will be more successful than any previous version of Java EE. As a serious influencer in the JCP, embrace EJB 3.1 and WebBeans and ensure that they address all serious problems you see. Does WebBeans give EJB 3.1 proper IoC? Will EJB 3.1 provide more sophisticated pointcuts to interceptors?
Also, I wish the JCP was a lot more open. Blog more often, have detailed public issue trackers, forums where interested community members can give feedback and see feedback from other community members, make sure the expert group responds to every feedback, etc. Give access to "nightly builds" of the specs and reference implementations if possible… assuming the RIs are open source.
Grzegorz Borkowski says:
Added on October 28th, 2008 at 4:26 amGood to hear such news. I absolutely agree with all of your points from your earlier post "Our approach to the JCP": openess, responsiveness, maturity, awareness of bug picture, … This is what should be focus of JCP.
From my point of view, this is the current picture of JCP and JSRs:
1. It is definitely not Java Community Process. It is something like "Java Biggest-Vendors Process". What it has to do with community? No idea.
2. Each JSR seams to be lead by "black magic masters" (expert groups). The rest of world are simply mortals, and the mortals are not allowed to be informed about progress of the JSR. The JSR progress is a black magic, accessible only to masters. This would be ok for me, if they really are unerring masters, and all they do is perfect. But after java.util.logging and entity beans distaters I don't believe in unerring masters anymore.
3. Let's look at any JSR page. It all looks the same: some formal information about the origins of the JSR; results of the review ballot; eventually, download of spec. There is also a link to Expert Group Private Page (only for black magic masters) and link to JSR Community Update Page (whatever it is – anyway, still only for masters!). What's the value of such page for me, Java developer? No value at all. In most cases, I would really like to get information about the progress of the JSR. What should I expect from it? What's the current status? Is this JSR active or dead? (there are many JSR like this: "final version is expected around 2005" – I look at the page: "current status: In Progress" last activity on the page: "early draft review, 2006" – so what is REAL status? "dead"?). What are problems to be solved? How can i help with it? etc.
All of us have seen the real community portals (aka "Web 2.0") on arbitrary topics. This is what I would like to see in JCP: I go to the JCP page, select JSR I'm interested in, and I'm presented the page with some valuable, live information: I see what is discussed in expert group, i see activity reports (is this JSR live or dead?), I can ask question, I can put proposals, discuss the problematic points etc. Then I would start to believe it is really COMMUNITY process. (Obviously, some balance and time frame is still needed, otherwise each JSR process could be stuck on neverending discussions – this is the role of expert group to take control on it).
Ryan de Laplante says:
Added on October 28th, 2008 at 11:22 am@Grzegorz: I've noticed that there are a number of individuals participating in expert groups such as Reza Rahman, Adam Bein, Doug Lea, etc. I imagine the C in JCP is because anyone can join expert groups and there are public drafts every x months. I agree that the work done within the expert groups should be a lot more open.
Rod Johnson (blog author) says:
Added on October 28th, 2008 at 2:23 pmGrzegorz
I completely agree about openness and I like your specific suggestions. As Ryan says, it *is* possible for individuals to join expert groups, and I think it would be better for the JCP and Java if more individuals did. How much they can contribute depends on how well the process runs at a JSR level. Pre-Spring/SpringSource I was a member of two EGs as an individual. One was run in an inclusive manner and participation felt worthwhile. In the other it was clear that input was going to be ignored, whether it came from inside or outside the EG, and the independents (and some of the corporate reps) rapidly lost interest. I'll be trying to work at JCP level to try to promote an inclusive, open approach to JSRs.
Rgds
Rod
OtengiM says:
Added on November 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 amFinally, The man that will lead Java to the success, after all this years. Also Rod I hope you could suggest improvements to the SE and Client side Java too, So it gets in better position. The server side is moving as Spring framework direction but now with Rod help it will be awesome.
Java will be fun and easy to use thanks to Rod and SpringSource on the JCP, Congratulations.
Note:Rails or PHP are in the dust after this.