Steve O’Grady

As with the past few years, we'll start by examining via various statistical benchmarks where Java is today and how it is performing relative to its competition. We'll mine various communities use and discussion of Java to try and determine where Java ranks today versus its historical performance.

With that foundation set, we'll examine three important developer trends and the opportunities - or threats - they present to Java. From the convenience of cloud to the challenges of application lifecycles to the fatigue of fragmentation, we'll walk through the basics of the choices and challenges developers are facing today with an eye towards their implications for Java.

From its early beginnings in 1991 as the runtime for interactive television set top boxes to its fundamental role in everything from big data to cloud today, Java's rise has had more than its share of twists and turns. In this session, we'll quantitatively explore the decline of some Java projects against the rise of others. Understanding what Java was, is, and might become will help Java advocates from all areas to better communicate the strengths and future of the platform moving forward.

Even today, in spite of its widespread and evident market success, there are those who would claim that Java is either dead or dying.

Part of the problem, however, may be in outdated perceptions of what Java was versus what it is today. In this session, we'll quantitatively explore the decline of some Java projects against the rise of still others. Understanding what Java was, is and might be will help Java advocates from all areas better communicate the strengths and future of the platform moving forward.

What Java is has changed, and the better appreciated these changes are, the better equipped the Java community is to navigate the years ahead.

Having left the unsupportable "Java is Dead" narratives in the rear view mirror, the important question facing Java today isn't how popular it is: Java remains quite popular. Both the qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that while Java has likely peaked from an overall popularity perspective, it remains an immensely robust, respected platform for building technology for businesses and consumers alike.

Of greater concern for Java advocates, instead, should be how to ensure Java's continued growth, even in the face of an ever more competitive landscape. With even enterprise buyers sanctioning - tacitly or otherwise - the usage of runtimes like JavaScript, Python and Ruby the role of Java moving forward is an open question.

Just because Java's not going away doesn't mean it's getting ahead. What can Java learn, then, from newly emerging competitive platforms? What are the drivers and characteristics behind the growth of these platforms and what, if anything, can Java learn from that?

To address this, I'll present a series of lessons, backed by quantitative data, that Java may want to take away to guarantee its momentum moving forward.

By now, it's become well understood that Java is far from dead, and that rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. The language once written off maintains its truly unique role as the power behind the legacy enterprise applications as well as the foundation for some of the biggest and most influential next generation companies on the web. What is less clear, however, is the future of Java the language versus Java the platform. JVM based languages are proliferating wildly: Scala, Clojure and its brethren are household names, and even established specialized languages like R are being ported to the JVM. What does this mean for the future of Java? Will they carry it forward into the future, or relegate it to the role of lower level component? We'll explore this question through a mix of quantitative data derived from sources like GitHub, HackerNews and StackOverflow, as well as qualitative research on technology developments and directions.