O'Reilly's OSCON Java in summary so far: Good crowd, high quality sessions, and an unbeatable rock star to attendee ratio. The new, all-Java track of O'Reilly's annual Open Source Convention may be off to a slower start this year, in attendance, but that opens the way for richer conversation and less conference overload -- a definite plus for this professional wallflower.

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Software AG's acquisition of Terracotta could be good news for Java developers, particularly those looking at open PaaS alternatives to the more restrictive offerings of Azure and GAE.

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Last year around this time, RedMonk analyst James Governor called Google I/O "the new JavaOne" -- meaning the must-go conference for developers interested in the future of enterprise technology. According to Governor, the baton had passed, not just from Sun/Oracle to Google (per se), but from one enterprise model to another.

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Martijn Verburg and Ben Evans are both seasoned Java developers who have nonetheless caught the wave of excitement about Java 7 and the changes it brings to the Java ecosystem. In addition to regularly blogging (both on JW and abroad), co-organizing the London Java User Group, and speaking at numerous technical conferences, Martijn and Ben have written a contemporary guide to Java programming in The Well-Grounded Java Developer, currently available in early access edition from Manning Publications.

It's a pleasure to host the Java 7 Developer Blog on JavaWorld, and even more so to pick the brains of its authors, whose joint perspective on Java extends back 20 years but is refreshingly forward thinking.

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A teachable moment in education theory is the point when internal and external events converge to prime a student for learning that could not have previously occurred. A teachable moment might be related to personal development or to outside events, but the main point is to seize the day, recognizing that the opportunity for learning is both provisional and finite.

Judging from the recent Java state of the union OTN tech cast, Oracle's current strong message is that it's spent the past year learning the value and importance of community to the Java ecosystem, and of ecosystem to the stability and success of Java. Interestingly, the corporation is also putting new emphasis on the enterprise consumer, or technology end user, as an essential layer of the Java ecosystem.

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Greetings, and welcome to Observer/Observable, my new editorial blog on JavaWorld. As an editor in the high technology space, I've been engaged by the evolving technology and culture of Java programming for more than 10 years. In that time I've edited and published hundreds of articles related to Java technology; created and launched a couple of online communities for software developers (one long forgotten, the other right here on JavaWorld); written articles, conducted roundtables, and so on.

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Not long ago, JW blogger Josh Fruhlinger began asking the question: What happens to Java without Sun? The general sentiment among commenters has been -- perhaps a bit defensively -- "Nothing happens to Java without Sun! Don't you realize it's open source?"

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Sun Microsystems made headlines last week with the announcement that it would cut up to 18% of its workforce. While much has been said about the layoffs and related departures (such as Rich Green's), there is another story here: Sun is in the midst of a massive, if possibly undirected, redefinition.

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A recently released Evans Data developer survey ranks application servers based on 21 factors, including performance, security, database connectivity, scalability, and cost benefit. Esther Schindler in CIO.com reports that Apache Geronimo, JBoss AS, and WebLogic get high marks from developers surveyed. Glassfish also did well in the Java EE server niche category.

According to Schindler's report, developers are less fervent in support for WebLogic today than in 2006, a decline Evans Data associates with uncertainty about the product's future (in wake of the Oracle acquisition of BEA).

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In a recent article published by IBM developerWorks Ted Neward casts some perspective on the rumors of Java's demise. After a quick survey of the variety of arguments circulating -- some cite numbers that show Java has fallen (marginally) from its top-tier spot, while others decry the lack of features found in alternative environments du jour -- he declares the Java platform "Dead like COBOL."

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Hello, and welcome to the first iteration of the JavaWorld blogs! Launching blogs was one of my priorities when I started editing JavaWorld a little less than a year ago, so I'm thrilled to be up and running with them today.

The goal of JW Blogs is to provide a daily mix of valuable reading from around the Java world. Some of the blogs you'll find here are syndicated and others are exclusive to JavaWorld. Notably, most of them are written by JavaWorld contributors, past or present. We also welcome blogs from JavaWorld community members -- just send us a proposal. One thing I can promise is that all of the blogs you find in the JW blogsphere will have been selected for relevance of content and the technical expertise of the author. No fluff here! (Or, perhaps, only really good fluff need apply.)

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