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When high-tech history is inscribed for the ages, 2008 may be remembered as the year Java tipped from a language-centric to a platform-centric technology. Andrew Glover kicks off JavaWorld's Year in Review series with a look back over the last 12 months in Java development, when alternate languages for the JVM took center stage, new directions emerged in the enterprise space, and Sun Microsystems staked its claim on the client side -- with or without Swing.
As any student of history will tell you, understanding the past yields a better grasp of what's to come. Many significant events punctuated the year 2008 in Javadom, from the release of Java EE 6 to the JVM Languages Summit to Sun's recent announcement that it will no longer actively contribute to Swing. Most of these events are interrelated. In hindsight they stand out as bellwethers in a year where Java's evolution was defined by alternate languages and rich Internet applications.
Alternate languages running on the JVM aren't new (in fact the JVM today supports an estimated 240 languages), but they continue to grow in popularity. In 2008 they appeared to be energizing Java-based developers in especially interesting ways.
By far, one of the most exciting developments of 2008 was the snowballing growth and adoption of JRuby and Groovy, fueled by collective excitement about Ruby on Rails and Grails. These two Web frameworks have steadily freed software developers from the fetters of old, having embraced the speedier application building enabled by convention over configuration, and a lot of behind-the-scenes magic. It doesn't hurt that both frameworks and their respective languages run on the JVM and can leverage the wealth of libraries available within the Java platform.
The year also saw the emergence of two relatively new languages -- Scala and Clojure -- as well as the reemergence of the more yesteryear language Jython. Toward the end of the year Sun launched JavaFX 1.0, which includes the first Java-based language intended for rich UI development: JavaFX Script.
One of the more intriguing events of 2008 was the inaugural JVM Language Summit, which brought together some of the brightest minds focused on language design, compilers, and JVM tools. JRuby, Groovy, Scala, and Clojure were all amply represented, and so were Fortress, PHP, Python, Jython, and Jatha (a Lisp variant). Also on the agenda were the Parrot VM, along with HotSpot, the DaVinci Machine, JavaFX, and Kawa. The subject of closures in Java also came up.
All in all, the summit was a meeting of venerable giants who collaborated and ultimately learned from one another. The keynote of the summit was attendees' commitment to the design of JVMs that will support a multitude of languages. Although it might seem odd that a bunch of brainiacs got together to discuss the esoteric details of what many of us take for granted, it highlights the realization that the future of Java programming isn't tied to the language so much as to the platform itself. In fact, this summit might have been the first time in Java's long history that a series of non-Sun engineers collaborated on what's arguably the bread and butter of Java: the runtime engine.