Cynical Monkey

Last month I attended a No Fluff Just Stuff Conference in my home state of Wisconsin. I wanted to say a small piece about it. After all, they did work hard at planting the “Blog about the Conference” Meme in my head.

The conference was great. I can’t say enough how much of a value it is to come and see these speakers in person. The speakers at this conference are top notch. I always walk away with a wow factor.
I have to say my personal favorite speaker is Stuart Halloway. Stuart always has the sessions that look a little deeper into the platform and bring the more enigmatic and powerful features of the Java Platform to the surface. That and he’s just a very charismatic guy.

So now my gripes.

• One of the conference’s main tenants is that doesn’t try to sell anything, I totally agree with that ideal, and so I say they should try selling conference a little less. I don’t think Jay Zimmerman(organizer) ever stopped praising up the conference to the attendees.
• Last year they branched out and did some lessons learned from other OO languages (Objective-C, Ruby). I was hoping for that breadth again this year. Ohh yeah, and what about mobile Java, Java for Games?
• They did cover Test Driven development. Out of 50 sessions nine were TDD related. It was so bad that some of the buzzword zombies started asking TDD questions during a Java Reflection session.
• Finally, I know some consulting groups in the area wanted to help sponsor the event, but were turned down because, “they don’t accept sponsors.” Except that our conference packets contained blatant advertisements for one consulting firm along with skill matrixes. I thought that was very hypocritical.

All in all besides my gripes it was an excellent conference that I would recommend to anyone. I am a little biased because it’s the only professional conference that I have ever attended. I am planning on going to OOPLSA this year and would be very interested in feedback from people who have attended this conference in the past.

Java is a language that doesn’t have any cutting edge syntax, it’s basically C++. Java didn’t really invent or improve upon any existing paradigms or semantic structures, its OO is less Object Oriented than Smalltalk, and it doesn’t even match C++ in utility (although it kicks C++ in the pants for simplicity). So what does Java have that makes it so formidable? It has a very dynamic platform.

• Automatic memory management - Garbage Collection
• Dynamic runtime - Byte Code is interpreted, JIT.
• Dynamic loadtime - Classloaders, and load time linking

Java developers should focus on the strengths of the platform, and avoid getting caught up defending Java the Language. As a language Java is going to keep morphing and becoming new things to new people. As a platform Java is sound it makes an excellent for new languages including JSR 241: Groovy. The future of Java is in the platform and not in the platform’s namesake language.

That said Java is a pretty decent language, with simple but verbose syntax. Java is my language of choice, but not because I have any special attachment. I love Java because I love the platform, Java the language is going to keep evolving along with its platform no matter what your stance on Generics, or Static imports (I hate them). As long as the platform grows and improves I’m happy at the end of the day.

I really feel that a basic understanding of the Java byte code is a staple that has been missing from most Java developer’s Java diet for too long. One of Java’s biggest assets is it’s dynamic nature, and much of that comes from having the byte code as an intermediate language. Byte code is the language of the Java platform. Until you understand the fundamentals of the byte code and the JVM, JSR 241: Groovy, sounds like a juicy hack retrofitted to the JVM. Once you understand the byte code you will realize that Java is just a juicy hack too.

I guarantee that once you understand the byte code and the basics of the JVM spec you will never look at or write your code the same again. Check out this JDC Tech Tips to get started. Then get it right from the horse’s mouth, JVM spec.