Sun begins to fund JVM scripting languages

[darren.davison]

On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 07:14:56AM +0100, Russel Winder wrote:
> Jython has missed the boat and unless someone picks it up and gives it a
> good injection of development I think it is probably now just a point on
> the graph of the history of programming languages.  Unless I have missed
> something of course.

It looks like jython is missing a friend.  Latest "news" item on their
website is 18 months old.  Their roadmap from last year said 2.4 implemented
by Nov. '05, but they're still at an alpha of 2.2 AFAICT.

Odd then, that it has been chosen as the scripting language of choice by
grinder <http://grinder.sf.net> for v3.x, turning an already very good tool
into an extremely capable one.  I know just enough jython/python - learnt
specifically for using grinder - to be quite productive with it, and I do
quite like it as a language, but I could see groovy being a better bet here.

In fact, now that I check, I see it's on their to-do list :)

--
Darren Davison
Public Key: 0xE855B3EA

[Barzilai Spinak-2]

Wow, I've been reading all the emails in this thread! My eyes hurt!
Just a couple of things that have already been mentioned:

 * I agree with the IBM approach (after Sun, IBM is probably the biggest
company actively supporting and developing stuff in the Java world, and
Linux for that matter). Someone with the right inffluence and/or
approach to them could get them really interested. I don't know much
about internal IBM politics though...

* In parallel, there should be some activity towards "publicity". Talk
to your favourite bloggers, columnits, etc. How about some real meat to  
write a Slashdot article about?  I think I've only seen *one* Groovy
reference in OSNews and it was over a year ago. How many articles per
day does Ruby get?   For each full time developer, we should have at
least two full time publicists/evangelists :-)

* There's no point in keeping talking about this on this list. The only
people who read the lists are already Groovy users!


Michael Baehr wrote:

> Maybe they should send one to IBM as well ...
>
> On 9/8/06, Marc Palmer <marc@...> wrote:
>>
>> On 8 Sep 2006, at 07:00, Russel Winder wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > That may be true as an explicit conscious action by Tim and by Sun
>> > that
>> > is not the point.  The point in that the action will be interpreted by
>> > others and positions taken independent of Sun.  Just look at this
>> > thread.
>> >
>> > So for example
>> > http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/09/07/JRuby-guys mentions
>> > JRuby, PHP and Python, also RoR (and Perl but we ignore that :-)
>> > So the
>> > interpretation is that BeanShell, Groovy, etc. are not in the mind set
>> > of the people in sun who move and shake and have budget.  It is this
>> > rather than any explicit action that is important as it says BeanShell
>> > and Groovy are not in any plans for any budget holders at Sun.
>>
>> OK so has the team of primary Groovy devs sent a joint mail to Tim /
>> Sun asking for a meeting to discuss Groovy and Java and their future
>> together? Sounds like a good idea to me... they might even pay for
>> the trip, or come to a mutually agreed European place

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[glaforge]

Hello Barzilai,

On 9/8/06, Barzilai <barcho@...> wrote:
> Wow, I've been reading all the emails in this thread! My eyes hurt!
> Just a couple of things that have already been mentioned:
>
>  * I agree with the IBM approach (after Sun, IBM is probably the biggest
> company actively supporting and developing stuff in the Java world, and
> Linux for that matter). Someone with the right inffluence and/or
> approach to them could get them really interested. I don't know much
> about internal IBM politics though...

I know a few guys from IBM, but none that are influential in any way :-(

> * In parallel, there should be some activity towards "publicity". Talk
> to your favourite bloggers, columnits, etc. How about some real meat to
> write a Slashdot article about?  I think I've only seen *one* Groovy
> reference in OSNews and it was over a year ago. How many articles per
> day does Ruby get?   For each full time developer, we should have at
> least two full time publicists/evangelists :-)

We'd need articles and blog posts from users and affictionados.

> * There's no point in keeping talking about this on this list. The only
> people who read the lists are already Groovy users!

Yeah, we're probably wasting our time.
Well spotted.
Let's all work together into making Groovy the best platform possible,
and Grails the best agile web dev environment!

--
Guillaume Laforge
Groovy Project Manager
http://glaforge.free.fr/blog/groovy

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[Cédric Beust ♔-2]

On 9/8/06, Guillaume Laforge <glaforge@...> wrote:

> I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, but I look back over these past
> three years and I just can't believe that 1.0 is still not out.

It's funny how much you always focus on the "version number".

It's unfortunate that you don't see how important that number is, especially if it's 1.0.

Once you ship 1.0, you have established a contract with your users.  You have an extensive documentation and you're making the promise that regardless of what features get added from that point on, the code they are running will always be backward compatible.

--
Cédric
http://testng.org

[Chorg Heavy Industries]

 each full time developer, we should have at
> least two full time publicists/evangelists :-)

We'd need articles and blog posts from users and affictionados.

I'm a total newbie, to groovy. I've been watching this thread with interest however, and I'd (fearfully) like to suggest something:

I looked at both languages and i feel Groovy is the better one by far.  What JRuby has is essentially Ruby's docs, which makes it easier for people to access. 
Talk of 'evangelism' is premature.  Groovy should be a secret right now, until the documentation and releases are up to release quality.  ( In a few weeks I'd like to help out with the documentation , just need to clear my schedule ).   For all the talk about ruby , we must keep in mind that it was out there in the haskell zone until Rails. In fact , unix scripting was done with perl and python mainly until Rails.

Groovy's integration with the existing java classes gives it a class library second only to the perl/CPAN mix.  This flattens problems ... but the list knows all this.

Like I said above, I think it's a better solution to a certain class of problems than JRuby, or ruby for that matter.  What should happen with the social web is that quality should eventually rise to the top.  However, generating "buzz" before it's ready will hurt the language adoption much more, IMHO.

just some thoughts.

[Eric Brown-14]

On Sep 8, 2006, at 12:29 PM, Darren Davison wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 07:14:56AM +0100, Russel Winder wrote:
>> Jython has missed the boat and unless someone picks it up and  
>> gives it a
>> good injection of development I think it is probably now just a  
>> point on
>> the graph of the history of programming languages.  Unless I have  
>> missed
>> something of course.
>
> It looks like jython is missing a friend.  Latest "news" item on their
> website is 18 months old.  Their roadmap from last year said 2.4  
> implemented
> by Nov. '05, but they're still at an alpha of 2.2 AFAICT.
>

I've been following their mailing list a bit and they do have some  
part time developers. I think they're working toward 2.3 with what's  
under source code control currently. But progress does seem slow.

And IMO, its interpreter is much better for interactive testing of  
java than groovy or beanshell. None of this typing "go" and readline  
works really well. I could care less that they're a few versions  
behind cpython as the most I care about is the interpreter for  
testing java. But jirb (jruby's interpreter) also looks very  
promising as an interpreter for testing java code as well. If I could  
only figure out how I installed it last time...

Also, on jython, the language hasn't changed too significantly from  
2.3 to 2.5. It is more libraries I think. And I'd imagine most using  
jython would be equally or more likely to use java libraries as  
python libs.

[snip]

Cheers,
Eric


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[Justin Forder]

Cédric Beust ♔ wrote:

> On 9/8/06, Guillaume Laforge <glaforge@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, but I look back over these
>> past
>> > three years and I just can't believe that 1.0 is still not out.
>>
>> It's funny how much you always focus on the "version number".
>
>
> It's unfortunate that you don't see how important that number is,
> especially
> if it's 1.0.
>
> Once you ship 1.0, you have established a contract with your users.  You
> have an extensive documentation and you're making the promise that
> regardless of what features get added from that point on, the code they are
> running will always be backward compatible.

I agree. This is something that Rails has got wrong: (i) they didn't
declare version 1.0 early enough, and (ii) when version 1.0 was released
they didn't treat it as a baseline that had to be maintained. It's not
so much that they have lost backwards compatibility (although there are
some places where this is the case), but more that they have added new
ways of doing things and deprecated old ones to the extent that the
best-selling "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" is no longer a
good guide on the use of Rails (unless you get the beta of the second
edition).

regards

   Justin

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[Tom Nichols]

> they have added new
> ways of doing things and deprecated old ones to the extent that the
> best-selling "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" is no longer a
> good guide on the use of Rails (unless you get the beta of the second
> edition).

Agreed.  Unfortunately this hasn't stopped them from gaining boatloads
of users and selling boatloads of books.

See also:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2006/09/sun_hires_jruby_developers.html
for some opposing opinion.  In my first reply I sounded like a jerk,
but I think I redeemed myself (and Groovy) by the end.

Take care,
-Tom

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[graemer]

On 9/9/06, Tom Nichols <tmnichols@...> wrote:

> > they have added new
> > ways of doing things and deprecated old ones to the extent that the
> > best-selling "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" is no longer a
> > good guide on the use of Rails (unless you get the beta of the second
> > edition).
>
> Agreed.  Unfortunately this hasn't stopped them from gaining boatloads
> of users and selling boatloads of books.
>
> See also:
> http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2006/09/sun_hires_jruby_developers.html
> for some opposing opinion.  In my first reply I sounded like a jerk,
> but I think I redeemed myself (and Groovy) by the end.

Thanks for sticking up for Grails Tom, Tim O'Brien has a typical
Ruby-user mentality of thinking everyone else is the enemy. Its a
shame really.

Cheers
Graeme

>
> Take care,
> -Tom
>
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> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>
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>
>

--
Graeme Rocher
Grails Project Lead
http://grails.org

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[Russel Winder]

On Sat, 2006-09-09 at 19:21 +0100, Graeme Rocher wrote:

> Thanks for sticking up for Grails Tom, Tim O'Brien has a typical
> Ruby-user mentality of thinking everyone else is the enemy. Its a
> shame really.

What's Groovy on Grails ?  ;-)

--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Antti Karanta]

 

On 9/8/06, Guillaume Laforge <glaforge@...> wrote:

> I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, but I look back over these past
> three years and I just can't believe that 1.0 is still not out.

It's funny how much you always focus on the "version number".

It's unfortunate that you don't see how important that number is, especially if it's 1.0.

Once you ship 1.0, you have established a contract with your users.  You have an extensive documentation and you're making the promise that regardless of what features get added from that point on, the code they are running will always be backward compatible.

  Like between Java 1.0 and 1.1? = )

 

 

 

        -Antti-

 

 

[Jochen Theodorou]

Russel Winder schrieb:
[...]
> The problem is not that Groovy has taken so long to get to 1.0 but that
> the organization behind it needs to evolve from part-time, volunteer
> open-source project to a professional open source project working with
> volunteers.  The difference is crucial.  As evidence I present Linux,
> Gnome, KDE, Python.

Professional means paid. That must be said. but then I agree to 100%...
maybe we should speak with the apache people?

bye blackdrag

--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[Jochen Theodorou]

Michael Baehr schrieb:

> Well, the wild part was that the community is coming up with some
> money, not the big companys like Sun or IBM.
>
> Ok, I talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk!
>
> I'm just a freelancer, but I'm sure that Groovy will help me to get
> some work done faster (which means I'll make more money).
>
> For now, I'm offering 100 Euro per month for the next 12 months, or
> alternatively 200 Euro per month for the next 6 months - probably
> better to get Groovy 1.0 on track.
>
> Of course that only makes sense if I'm not the only one ...

thanks, that's the spirit.

bye blackdrag


--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[Michael Baehr-2]

We'll see if others are willing to do the same.

Can somebody setup a donation page on the wiki?

On 9/11/06, Jochen Theodorou <blackdrag@...> wrote:

Michael Baehr schrieb:

> Well, the wild part was that the community is coming up with some
> money, not the big companys like Sun or IBM.
>
> Ok, I talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk!
>
> I'm just a freelancer, but I'm sure that Groovy will help me to get
> some work done faster (which means I'll make more money).
>
> For now, I'm offering 100 Euro per month for the next 12 months, or
> alternatively 200 Euro per month for the next 6 months - probably
> better to get Groovy 1.0 on track.
>
> Of course that only makes sense if I'm not the only one ...

thanks, that's the spirit.

bye blackdrag


--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[Michael Baehr-2]

Both Apache and IBM would be on my list to look for support.

Andy Glover wrote about Groovy on IBM developerWorks - maybe he knows how to get in touch with the right people there.

On 9/11/06, Jochen Theodorou <blackdrag@...> wrote:

Russel Winder schrieb:
[...]
> The problem is not that Groovy has taken so long to get to 1.0 but that
> the organization behind it needs to evolve from part-time, volunteer
> open-source project to a professional open source project working with
> volunteers.  The difference is crucial.  As evidence I present Linux,
> Gnome, KDE, Python.

Professional means paid. That must be said. but then I agree to 100%...
maybe we should speak with the apache people?

bye blackdrag

--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[Jochen Theodorou]

Michael Baehr schrieb:
> Both Apache and IBM would be on my list to look for support.
>
> Andy Glover wrote about Groovy on IBM developerWorks - maybe he knows
> how to get in touch with the right people there.

It is Andrew Glover... the name is also found in the list of authors for
GinA.

bye blackdrag

--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[Russel Winder]

On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 09:53 +0200, Jochen Theodorou wrote:

> Professional means paid. That must be said. but then I agree to 100%...
> maybe we should speak with the apache people?

In order to do this we need a not-for-profit / charitable foundation
with proper independent legal status.

My prejudice here is that whilst it might be easier for Guillaume,
Dierk, John, yourself, myself and whoever wants to be involved to
organize this as a French, German, Swiss or UK organization, the
pragmatics of the way money flows in computing and IT is that it
probably ought to be a USA organization.  This means finding a US lawyer
and accountant to act appropriately to set up a foundation with
appropriate constitution and rules.  Not to mention bank account.

I suspect the Gnome Foundation is a bad model as Gnome is so big.  The
Python Software Foundation on the other hand may be a good model.
 
--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[glaforge]

Feel free to create such a page on the wiki directly.
Does it have to be some PayPal system, or something like that?
I don't know anything about that.

Furthermore, though this offer is really really nice & generous from yours, we have to think about the use of this money.
It can help us found a developer on a specific task, or it can help us organize our yearly developer conference (also sponsored by Codehaus who paid for accomodations, and the infrastructure by Sun who provided us with rooms in the past).

Before even accepting this offer or setting things up, we have to think a bit more about what to do and how to do those things.

Guillaume

Michael Baehr wrote:

We'll see if others are willing to do the same.

Can somebody setup a donation page on the wiki?

On 9/11/06, Jochen Theodorou <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> Michael Baehr schrieb:
> > Well, the wild part was that the community is coming up with some
> > money, not the big companys like Sun or IBM.
> >
> > Ok, I talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk!
> >
> > I'm just a freelancer, but I'm sure that Groovy will help me to get
> > some work done faster (which means I'll make more money).
> >
> > For now, I'm offering 100 Euro per month for the next 12 months, or
> > alternatively 200 Euro per month for the next 6 months - probably
> > better to get Groovy 1.0 on track.
> >
> > Of course that only makes sense if I'm not the only one ...
>
> thanks, that's the spirit.
>
> bye blackdrag
>
>
> --
> Jochen Theodorou
> Groovy Tech Lead
> http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>
>     http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>
>

[Michael Baehr-2]

In the first place, I see my offer as a signal for others to come forward.

To be honest, I don't really expect that to happen - this is why I called it a "wild idea" in the first place.

Regarding the wiki page - I would prefer it to be a page maintained by the Groovy team - not writable for the public - to avoid abuse.

Also I'm not sure whether we should include real names on a page like that - personally I'm not doing that in order to get publicity.

Michael

On 9/11/06, glaforge <glaforge@...> wrote:

Feel free to create such a page on the wiki directly.
Does it have to be some PayPal system, or something like that?
I don't know anything about that.

Furthermore, though this offer is really really nice & generous from yours,
we have to think about the use of this money.
It can help us found a developer on a specific task, or it can help us
organize our yearly developer conference (also sponsored by Codehaus who
paid for accomodations, and the infrastructure by Sun who provided us with
rooms in the past).

Before even accepting this offer or setting things up, we have to think a
bit more about what to do and how to do those things.

Guillaume


Michael Baehr wrote:
>
> We'll see if others are willing to do the same.
>
> Can somebody setup a donation page on the wiki?
>
> On 9/11/06, Jochen Theodorou <blackdrag@... > wrote:
>>
>> Michael Baehr schrieb:
>> > Well, the wild part was that the community is coming up with some
>> > money, not the big companys like Sun or IBM.
>> >
>> > Ok, I talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk!

>> >
>> > I'm just a freelancer, but I'm sure that Groovy will help me to get
>> > some work done faster (which means I'll make more money).
>> >
>> > For now, I'm offering 100 Euro per month for the next 12 months, or
>> > alternatively 200 Euro per month for the next 6 months - probably
>> > better to get Groovy 1.0 on track.
>> >
>> > Of course that only makes sense if I'm not the only one ...
>>
>> thanks, that's the spirit.
>>
>> bye blackdrag
>>
>>

>> --

>> Jochen Theodorou
>> Groovy Tech Lead
>> http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe from this list please visit:
>>
>>     http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
>>
>>
>
>

--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Sun-begins-to-fund-JVM-scripting-languages-tf2234774.html#a6243124
Sent from the groovy - user forum at Nabble.com.


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[Michael Baehr-2]

You're absolutely right that a proper foundation is the best solution for this.

But that takes time and money, both is probably not available right now, so I see that as an option after 1.0 is out.

My personal view on the current situation is as follows:

- I'd like continuations, tail recursion, fast mode and I don't know what else in Groovy - after 1.0 is out
- I'd like to see a professionally organized entity (foundation) for Groovy - after 1.0 is out
- I'd like to see comprehensive online documentation about Groovy on every detail it has to offer - after 1.0 is out

The list could be much longer, but you get the point.

Out there are a lot of people with some influence, but Groovy doesn't have the best reputation. A solid 1.0 could change that, and everything else might fall into place.

Just my 0.02 cents.

Michael

On 9/11/06, Russel Winder <russel@...> wrote:

On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 09:53 +0200, Jochen Theodorou wrote:

> Professional means paid. That must be said. but then I agree to 100%...
> maybe we should speak with the apache people?

In order to do this we need a not-for-profit / charitable foundation
with proper independent legal status.

My prejudice here is that whilst it might be easier for Guillaume,
Dierk, John, yourself, myself and whoever wants to be involved to
organize this as a French, German, Swiss or UK organization, the
pragmatics of the way money flows in computing and IT is that it
probably ought to be a USA organization.  This means finding a US lawyer
and accountant to act appropriately to set up a foundation with
appropriate constitution and rules.  Not to mention bank account.

I suspect the Gnome Foundation is a bad model as Gnome is so big.  The
Python Software Foundation on the other hand may be a good model.

--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...