What is the future of Java?

[w3stfa11]

Any thoughts, predictions?

 

[kamper]

If sun refuses to break backwards compatibility as far as the language syntax, it will start slowly declining within the next 5-10 years. Code running on current platforms will live on pretty much forever, leaving a niche market for java programmers while the enterprise industry moves on to the next new technology. The virtual machine concepts underlying today's jvms though, will be the foundation for a huge amount of new platform work for the forseeable future.

 

[boran]

their gui concepts (swing) kickass tho compared to any other gui framework I have ever seen, so I predict that if the above happens at least some swing stuff will trickle thru to other languages. But this might be idle hope.

 

[kamper]

Funny, I've never heard anybody say that about java. In my limited experience, Borland are the ones who know how to do a gui framework.

 

[Trevelyan]

I feel like its taught in university, but you never use it outside of there.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's going to stay server-side except for minor use in niche desktop and thin-client products.

MS has a much easier to learn client development environment for Windows apps in Visual Studio, and Windows has over 95% of the desktops in businesses so the cross-platformness of Java doesn't offer much value.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
It's going to stay server-side except for minor use in niche desktop and thin-client products.

Pretty much. The only client application it's really good for is embedding into web pages - you can do much more with embedded java than flash.