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How would you like your Java? Sunny or Googly?

Whatever little bit I read about recently held JavaOne 2006, the biggest news undoubtedly was created by the man at the helm himself. Whole world (well almost complete Java Developer's community) waited with baited breath as Sun Microsystem's new CEO Jonathan Schwartz raised the issue about Java being open sourced and then left it open!

There are those who love its being open sourced, those who hate its being open sourced and those who simply don't care now and won't care about its getting open sourced till they come up against any compatibility issue or something that really makes using Java simpler or better or both (Imagine an integrated AJAX-like API in Java6.0!)

Apart from that the conference was buzzing loud (again this is what my RSS Feeds have told me!) with chatter about new Frameworks, Web 2.0 (O'Reilly please don't send me a legal notice for using that term!) and obviously AJAX. And due to all this 'new stuff' there was another question: Has J2EE become too old and bulky for Web Application Development? I can't answer that question but I would love to hear Rod Jhonson's take on that (I am very sure that he will find some arguementto blame EJBs for this!)

But for me as a developer, Google releasing their new API, Google Web Toolkit (GWT) for AJAX development in Java was the greatest news. Not only they have made AJAX development easier, but also opened this for many more developers worldwide who wanted to do AJAX but couldn't due to JavaScript being involved!

In past couple of years, Google has almost routinely come up with new Java APIs for developers. They started with Google WebService API, which was an instant hit and produced many applications with developers being able to access Google Database and simulate it's features. I am not very sure about who was the first to release Map API, Yahoo (their API is based on JavaScript and Flash) or Google (again JavaScript based). Then there is Google Desktop API for creating desktop applications, mainly search and indexing tools. A few weeks ago Google released Google Sitemaps, an API for submitting your URL to Google and it involves creating sitemap for a site. And now this GWT.

I think Google is playing well. They don't have a reputation in OpenSource arena and hence need not be bothered about not being sufficiently 'open' and that's pretty understandable as well. And on the same note by giving the Java Community these APIs to play with they position themselves as a 'friendly' company. You might even say that they are sufficiently open, as much as they could!

Lately most of the companies have started following this route. Microsoft wants you to develop your own widgets to be used with Live.com and Yahoo has a really interesting Yahoo Developer Network (even for PHP Developers!)

So amateurs like me can tweak around with these biggies and create something amusing! Who cares if Java is open source or not!
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