In 1996, Sun Microsystems released the Java platform. Although it was yet another programming language entering a landscape already populated by the likes of older languages like Perl, C++, and C, Java had an ace up its sleeve: While older languages required recompilation for every different platform, Java was cross-platform. Older languages also needed special tweaks to handle the issues they encountered when running on different platforms. From the start, Java ran on any operating system without the need for recompilation or operating system-specific tweaking.
WORA does it again: HTML 5 has the signs of following Java’s winning strategy
Google releases Go runtime version for App Engine
Google announced the launch of a runtime version of Go for the Google App Engine. Go is a platform-as-a-service specialized programming language in the same category as Java and Python. Both these latter languages have runtimes already available for theGoogle App Engine.
According to Google engineer Andrew Gerrand’s post on the Go Programming Language Blog, “This means you can take that Go app you’ve been working on (or meaning to work on) and deploy it to App Engine right now with the new 1.5.2 SDK.”

Well, not exactly “right now.” You’d have to get the SDK first by downloading it. The developer kit has 2 versions, 64-bit and 32-bit, forMac OS X and Linux. If you need to get up to speed on Google App Engine and Go, you might want to first check out Google’s docs on getting started.
Oracle releases first big update to Java language platform since buying Sun Microsystems
When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, it gained control of one of Sun’s mammoth contributions to computing – the Java platform. With the release of Java SE 7, Oracle has produced the first key update to the ubiquitous open-source platform in several years. In fact, it’s been five long years since Java had a major update. SE 7 packs some goodies that are sure to please many developers– support for Javascript, Python, and Ruby, simplified common tasks, and an application programminginterface that is ready for multicore processors.

Based on Oracle’s numbers, Java runs on the vast majority of enterprise desktops (over 97%!) and over three billion computing/communication devices run on Java technology.
In addition to formally releasing SE 7, Oracle also announced that it is planning to work on the next version of the platform, Java SE 8. This is all in keeping with Oracle’s long-term plans. According to Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java Products senior vice president, Hasan Rizvi, “Oracle has a strong vested interest in the success of the Java platform and is firmly committed to delivering a consistent, high-performance, high-quality Java SE implementation and will be supporting the Java SE 7 release across the Oracle FusionMiddleware product portfolio.” In fact, Oracle is increasing the amount of resources it is investing in the platform. Based on an Oracleblog entry, Oracle’s senior VP of app server development, Steve Harris, said the company’s goals regarding Java are to keep Java’s features and offerings “vibrant” as well as “free and open,” and to boost support for the platform’s developer community.
Ten years ago, the open source stack of platforms, languages, scripts, and procedures of Python/PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Linux (also known as LAMP) ushered the flowering of low cost start ups. Due to the free infrastructure LAMP provided, startups easily and economically got their web presences up. The low-cost hardware needed for a LAMP set up triggered an avalanche of startups since the barrier to entry in terms of web presence and application development was significantly lowered by this open source stack. Given the huge user base some of these start ups generated, LAMP setups dramatically lowered scaling and upgrade costs. However, there was a major problem – a possibly missed opportunity – that such large user bases using open source infrastructure created. Read the rest of this entry »
