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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Languages for the Java Platform

Seems I missed a bar debate last week in Las Vegas. Sean agrees with James Strachan that "Sun should loosen up on the 'one language' thing and embrace other languages". But I think this is just a shot at an easy target and misses the real mystery - Sean and James are getting sucked in by Microsoft's smoke-screen.

While I certainly endorse the view that there should be multiple languages seen as targetting the JVM, I feel the opprobrium needs to be spread around a bit. The free advice is certainly welcome and Sun certainly has a track record for only doing the Java language on the Java platform, but what about all the other people in the Java community? Why not criticise them too?

Just as any one of IBM, Oracle, BEA, Borland and more could, if they chose to, create an open source JVM but don't, any of them could also get serious about other languages to target the JVM. The Java platform is certainly open enough for them all to do these things. So why, if the multi-languages angle is correct, do they not do so? IBM has one (NetREXX), BEA has flirted with the idea, Borland still does Pascal - why does no-one promote language alternatives? Surely this is a bigger deal than just the usual "we hate Sun" stuff?

posted at 3:10 AM (UK) | |