James Governor over at RedMonk has a nice wrap-up of new and interesting and important projects being backed by Java these days, so as to refute the "Java is dying" meme. I consider this meme to be something of a joke and tend to only deploy it ironically myself, but it is an important part of the Java discourse. The question that ought to arise is: what would a dying platform look like?

To say that "a platform is dying when the cool kids stop using it" is silly, because the cool kids don't necessarily determine who uses a platform day to day (or, as Governor says, "if its in production, it's 'dead'"). Nevertheless, there are aspects of Java that aren't doing so well, and it's interesting to look at Governor's list and see what's been left out. None of the projects he mentions involve JavaFX, for instance, or Java ME. If I had to pick two realms of Java that are moribund (or, in the case of JavaFX, stillborn), those would be the two. But perhaps I am mistaken? Can you compile a list of interesting new projects based on those technologies? Feel free to pitch in in the comments.