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Scott Mark leaves a fun comment on Steve's post about mashupcamp:

Sounds like Java "got served" at this conference - what do you make of the fact that Java doesn't feature in mashups? Is it too stodgy of a platform for this culture? Does it just not lend itself well enough to cool and efficient feed parsing from the presentation tier?

Or maybe large enterprises where Java has it's hold just wouldn't cough up to send their devs to mashup camp? :-)

To cater to those of you, dear readers, who long for shorter posts, I'll bullet my thoughts. Given that, some context and fat will be missing:

• The Java community is still in the process of figuring this whole dynamic language thing out. Bruce Tate was on to something, but then he and others took their toys and went elsewhere (I probably would have too). Eckel, as ever, is a still a strong voice.
• Java simply isn't available in most affordable hosting plans. If you want to piggyback your early development, production servers on top of your hosting plan, you're SOL with Java. What this means is that you can't use the "well, it was just a way for me to track things, and next thing you know, I sold it to Yahoo!" software development methodology.
• How to put this one lightly? ...Java programmers are typically professionals. They use Java to get a job done, and usually get burnt out doing it during 9-5. The language itself is partly to blame (see Bruce Tate's work before he went dynamic), but more so the fact that Java is the enterprise language du jour. When you've been digging holes at work all day, the last thing you want to do is come home and dig more holes "for fun." This comes from personal experience and conversations with my circle of geek friends: milage may vary.
• Aside from JavaOne and JUG groups, I've never felt that Java people were too interested in getting together at conferences. Sure, once they get to conferences, they enjoy them, but this idea of seeking out conferences is on the back burner. That's partly funding, as Scott points out, but also some of the above factors.
• And then there's the whole JavaScript, HTML, and CSS requirements to be Web 2.0 compliant. While I know several Java People who have those skills, I haven't found that the "messy languages" and the resulting code bases are core to or liked by Java Culture, as they are to Web 2.0 Culture.

Stuck in the Country Club

All that said, my feel is that the bright Java people out there want more, they're just stuck in a Java rut, largely due to the getting paid point above. Java is a huge success, and it's not going away or "dying." I love Java and could code in it all day (I'd get pissed when I couldn't deploy my apps on my web servers, though). But, once you're not hungry anymore, you slow down the search for new ways of doing things.

Multi-lingual Programming

As I've said before, I'm very interested in the idea of using the VM as a platform for a multi-lingual environment. The development style would be similar to the fine art of Unix programming, except with the VM and dynamic languages instead of unix and command line programs. My long-time podcasting buddy and good friend Charles has been doing interesting work along those lines, and hopefully once he ships, we'll have something else to point to along those lines.

Disclaimer: of the companies and people mentioned, only Sun is a client.