Peak Java?

Has Java peaked? To me the Java 7 release feels like it did when Java 3 came out; some gravy no meat. It's not a ground breaker as the evolution from Java 1.1 to 1.2 or when Java 5 was released. Sure there has been some nice language improvements but for me, Java as a language has pretty much stabilised. These new syntactical changes are just glossing over pain points for which they are ample (although sometimes arduous) workarounds.


The big changes I see in the future in Java 8 are the Java Module System (JSR 277) and Closures (JSR 335). The latter is needed to make Fork/Join more useable. Closures may have made a bigger impact a few years ago, but now with a plethora of other JVM languages, I feel this will no longer be the case.


What's becoming increasingly apparent is the increasing importance of  Java platform. The important thing is not the Java language itself but the JVM.  This acts as a substrate for different languages. Although from above the languages may seem different, it ensures that underneath the covers the the behaviour is consistent.


Some examples of JVM languages which have gained traction over the last few years are:

• Scala
• Groovy and its statically typed cousin Groovy++ (A great article outlining it's usefulness http://groovy.dzone.com/articles/sneak-peak-groovy-what-it-why)
• Clojure
• JRuby

And we have some new kids on the block:

• Ceylon, Red Hat's Java competitor
• CAL, a Haskell-inspired functional programming language.
• Gosu (programming language), an extensible type-system language compiled to Java bytecode.

Maybe Java has reached its peak. It's certainly looks like it reached its plateau. I'm looking forward to using Java 7 and 8, but for the JVM improvements only. The platform matters more than the language now.