As was discussed in the last post, Jakarta EE: Into the Fourth Epoch, enterprise Java is undergoing the biggest change in the 20-year history of the platform. Although a big part of this is the brand change from Java EE to Jakarta EE as well as a new technical direction (i.e. cloud-native and microservices) the most important change will be the move from a proprietary Java EE to fully open source Jakarta EE platform. The change in custodianship, from Oracle to the Eclipse Foundation, is fundamentally the most important change to the entire platform. To understand why, it's important to…
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This year, enterprise Java is undergoing the biggest change in the 20-year history of the platform. Although a big part of this is the brand change from Java EE to Jakarta EE, the most important is a new openness and the technical direction. With the transition to the auspicious of the Eclipse Foundation and a new focus on cloud-native and microservices, this year demarcates a new Epoch in the story of enterprise Java. A Brief History of Enterprise Java I like to think of the history of Enterprise Java as taking place in four Epochs, the Fourth Epoch being the…
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As you probably already know, Java EE has been donated by Oracle to the Eclipse Foundation and re-branded as Jakarta EE. The first version of Jakarta EE has not yet been released (as of this writing), but when it is, it will include all of the specifications and will essentially be the same as Java EE 8 with some updates. As a result, the first release will be christened Jakarta EE 8 to show that the evolution of the platform continues; that it's not an entirely new platform. That's a good thing! In the beginning Java EE - originally called…
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In 1996 I started developing software with Java and JDBC and fell in love with the beauty of the language and the idea of creating common standardized, vendor agnostic APIs. The Servlet container system arrived in 1997 in the form of the Sun's Java Web Server, adding to my enjoyment, and when EJB was introduced in 1998 and J2EE in 1999, I was hooked. I wrote books, did public speaking, worked in open source, and developed J2EE applications for production. It was wonderful to be part of such a huge sea of change in enterprise application development. But by 2004,…
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Open source heroes are never hard to find. They begin projects, lead communities, and inspire others. It takes a special kind of person to contribute to open source. Most projects never reach the status of Linux or Apache or Eclipse, but even the smallest and most obscure projects can make software development easier for other developers. It is hard - no, impossible - to imagine our world without open source and the people who create and maintain it. We forget our heroes Yet, we do forget! As a society, we forget all the developers who come together and give some…
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In my 23+ years as a career software developer and technologist, I've worked for a lot of companies and run a couple of my own. Sometimes I work from my home office and sometimes I work at the company headquarters. I love it! Some people need to have face-to-face interactions and live contact with people or they go nuts, but I'm not one of them. I LOVE working remotely from my home office. I've designed and built my own office furniture (that sounds more impressive than it is) and made my home office, a sunroom with windows on 3 sides,…
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Most people in the Java industry don't know me but there was a time when I was very involved with Java, open source, standardization, and the community. I started working professionally as a Java developer in late 1995 and continued to grow professionally within the Java community until 2004 when I left to become an analyst. Since then I have worked a lot of jobs, a few startups, and done a lot of development but none of it was in Java or involved open source. I'm grateful for everything I discovered during my 14-year hiatus, but sometimes I wish I…
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