In this audio interview, Onno Kluyt, chair of the JCP, discusses what the JCP has learned from open source, what open source could learn from the JCP, the JCP's attitude on overlaps between JSRs, and the JCP's "choir of angels."

http://www.artima.com/lejava/audio/onno_kluyt_jcp.html

What do you think of Onno's comments?

I think this interview (and all audio interviews) should be transcribed. I don't have the time to listen to audio.

A please would be nice, don't you think?

Audio is new content on Artima. These will complement the printed and edited interviews on the site. Most readers (listeners, really) will probably download these to their iPods, and listen to them that way.

> I think this interview (and all audio interviews) should
> be transcribed. I don't have the time to listen to audio.

This is the first audio interview we've published. I would like eventually to have transcripts of audio interviews, but let me first explain why most people probably wouldn't want to read it.

When people talk in conversation, they make all kinds of false starts, changes in direction, grammatical errors that our brain just smoothes over, but only when the input is the ear. When you hear such speech, it sounds normal. But if you read it, it can sound almost incomprehensible at times. Here's an example of a question Bruce Eckel asked Anders Heijlsberg when we interviewed him together:

Bruce Eckel: Have you thought, I mean you mentioned enforcing the semantic contract, because it seems like a lot of the stuff we talk about is, "Well, here's syntax, here's syntax, here's syntax." But how do we...I'm sure you've given thought to...what...are there ways, you know, that's why unit testing, design by contract are important, are there ways to enforce the semantic contract, and have you come up with any interesting thoughts about that?

That's verbatim what Bruce said. When I published that interview, I edited his question into something much more suitable for reading:

Bruce Eckel: Have you come up with any interesting thoughts about ways to enforce semantic contracts?

The interviews I have been publishing here are not transcripts. They are highly edited, highly produced articles based on recorded conversations. To a greater or lesser extent, not only I but also the interviewee does a lot of editing. Bjarne Stroustrap and Erich Gamma, for example, devoted a lot of time to helping me perfect each installment of their interview. It is normal for people's speech to meander in ways that sound pretty bad when transcribed, and which make for a painful read if not edited.

Nevertheless I would eventually like to publish a transcript (unedited) of each audio interview, primarily so the text can be indexed by search engines, including Artima's. It won't be an edited, polished article. It will actually be a transcript. I won't be designed to be read, just searched. But if you really wanted to read it, you could.

Although you don't have time to listen to audio interviews, many people don't have time to read text interviews. With audio, they can listen while commuting to work. I like to listen to audio when doing the dishes. I'd be surprised if you didn't have such moments in your day where you could listen to audio interviews, but perhaps you just don't like to do that.

We plan to continue to publish interview articles, but from now on we'll also be publishing some interviews in audio format. So there will be something for everyone.

> A please would be nice, don't you think?

Yes, I apologize if I was rude.

> This is the first audio interview we've published. I would
> like eventually to have transcripts of audio interviews,
> but let me first explain why most people probably wouldn't
> want to read it.
<snip>

Thank you for the explanation. I look forward to seeing unedited transcripts, as I still strongly prefer those to audio.