Comments on: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New Axis of Evil (Oracle) http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/ Humans + Software Development = Always Interesting Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:05:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kirill Chilingarashvili http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-858 Kirill Chilingarashvili Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:49:28 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-858 "Or finally develop the successor language to Java that revolutionizes the software community the way Java did in the mid-90s" C# ? :) Interesting Article! Kirill “Or finally develop the successor language to Java that revolutionizes the software community the way Java did in the mid-90s”
C# ?

:)

Interesting Article!

Kirill

]]> By: Weekly LinkedList #4 « Code Anthem Blog http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-821 Weekly LinkedList #4 « Code Anthem Blog Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:35:44 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-821 [...] How I learned to love the new axis of evil I think Oracle taking over Sun and acting stupid is actually a GOOD THING. [...] [...] How I learned to love the new axis of evil I think Oracle taking over Sun and acting stupid is actually a GOOD THING. [...]

]]> By: Scotty W http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-819 Scotty W Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:47:31 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-819 "I personally like the layoffs that happened biannually but basically culled the best folks who took packages to get out of the toxic environment" I don't really agree with this. Certainly from where I was sitting in Sun, the layoffs just culled entire projects at a time, regardless of the experience of their staff. Sometimes that meant you lost very senior managers and engineers (well, most times, because Sun had a virtual hiring freeze for almost a decade), sometimes it didn't. I can only recall one, maybe two rounds of layoffs early on that allowed for voluntary redundancies, at least in any parts of the company I was working for or dealing with. “I personally like the layoffs that happened biannually but basically culled the best folks who took packages to get out of the toxic environment”

I don’t really agree with this. Certainly from where I was sitting in Sun, the layoffs just culled entire projects at a time, regardless of the experience of their staff. Sometimes that meant you lost very senior managers and engineers (well, most times, because Sun had a virtual hiring freeze for almost a decade), sometimes it didn’t. I can only recall one, maybe two rounds of layoffs early on that allowed for voluntary redundancies, at least in any parts of the company I was working for or dealing with.

]]> By: ok http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-817 ok Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:11:07 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-817 well, peter, then go run off and play on twitter. the adults are trying to have a conversation. well, peter, then go run off and play on twitter. the adults are trying to have a conversation.

]]> By: Peter http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-769 Peter Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:08:25 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-769 That's why I prefer reading Twitter. You could just have said: "I love Oracle because it kills Java". That’s why I prefer reading Twitter. You could just have said: “I love Oracle because it kills Java”.

]]> By: joel garry http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-762 joel garry Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:35:48 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-762 1995... I had already been working on Sun and other unix for half a dozen years, after a decade of DEC. Of course it wasn't an innovator, it was already mainstream. I thought that Borland and MS stuff was crap then, and haven't had much reason to change my opinion - periodically since then, I've really tried to give MS a chance, and every time it bones itself. Even now, 64-bit Windows, java, and Oracle can be a lousy combination. I've never bought into java either. I'm a db server oriented guy, no apologies. Computers are for sharing and communicating, not a bunch of nerds sitting in a corner. Yes, Oracle has a business oriented world view, that's what companies with shareholders do, their mission is clear. So what happened to all those innovative companies? Netscape? Roadkill. Borland? Kahn made a good living spewing buzzwords at expensive conferences. C and object paradigms as development environments? A big cause of legions of modern developers not being very good at programming applications. The internet? Look at Google's SEC filings and see where it makes its money - one big advertising agency. There's a huge skew of how successful technological revolutions really are. A few big home-runs overshadow the vast majority of failure - and even those winners lose as they can't evolve. Marketing always wins over technical superiority. Remember the productivity paradox. Oracle isn't stupid, developers thinking they are more important than they are is stupid. 1995… I had already been working on Sun and other unix for half a dozen years, after a decade of DEC. Of course it wasn’t an innovator, it was already mainstream. I thought that Borland and MS stuff was crap then, and haven’t had much reason to change my opinion – periodically since then, I’ve really tried to give MS a chance, and every time it bones itself. Even now, 64-bit Windows, java, and Oracle can be a lousy combination.

I’ve never bought into java either. I’m a db server oriented guy, no apologies. Computers are for sharing and communicating, not a bunch of nerds sitting in a corner. Yes, Oracle has a business oriented world view, that’s what companies with shareholders do, their mission is clear.

So what happened to all those innovative companies? Netscape? Roadkill. Borland? Kahn made a good living spewing buzzwords at expensive conferences. C and object paradigms as development environments? A big cause of legions of modern developers not being very good at programming applications. The internet? Look at Google’s SEC filings and see where it makes its money – one big advertising agency.

There’s a huge skew of how successful technological revolutions really are. A few big home-runs overshadow the vast majority of failure – and even those winners lose as they can’t evolve. Marketing always wins over technical superiority.

Remember the productivity paradox.

Oracle isn’t stupid, developers thinking they are more important than they are is stupid.

]]> By: Paul Keeble http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-760 Paul Keeble Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:49:26 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-760 I have to agree. I think the building storm around Java and all the little and big things Oracle are doing are driving developers to look elsewhere. Before the Oracle announcement I was annoyed that the decline wasn't really getting started despite better language availability. Oracle taking over is the nail that may finally do enough damage. But when people are looking for their next language I don't think they will look too weird compared to their current base knowledge. Nor will they just jump to anything. Java solved genuine problems with c and I think the language chosen will be solving real problems that make a material difference in the reliability of Java's code. Parallelism may well be that killer problem, but slightly better syntax and a bit of functional magic just isn't important enough. I may be eating my words in two years time of course. I have to agree. I think the building storm around Java and all the little and big things Oracle are doing are driving developers to look elsewhere. Before the Oracle announcement I was annoyed that the decline wasn’t really getting started despite better language availability. Oracle taking over is the nail that may finally do enough damage.

But when people are looking for their next language I don’t think they will look too weird compared to their current base knowledge. Nor will they just jump to anything. Java solved genuine problems with c and I think the language chosen will be solving real problems that make a material difference in the reliability of Java’s code. Parallelism may well be that killer problem, but slightly better syntax and a bit of functional magic just isn’t important enough. I may be eating my words in two years time of course.

]]> By: Dave http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-759 Dave Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:11:18 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-759 Yes, I have see .NET on Linux before, but I don't think it has the momentum to be the "next big thing", at least that's my NSHO. If it was going to go big, I suspect it would have already...maybe something will change that, but I'm not sure Oracle's stupidity is that catalyst. :) Yes, I have see .NET on Linux before, but I don’t think it has the momentum to be the “next big thing”, at least that’s my NSHO. If it was going to go big, I suspect it would have already…maybe something will change that, but I’m not sure Oracle’s stupidity is that catalyst. :)

]]> By: D. Lambert http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/how-i-learned-to-love-new-evil-empire-oracle/comment-page-1/#comment-758 D. Lambert Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:05:44 +0000 http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/?p=742#comment-758 Have you seen the stuff the Mono project is doing? http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page Any reason this wouldn't get the job done? Does it really have to be an entirely new language? Have you seen the stuff the Mono project is doing?

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

Any reason this wouldn’t get the job done?

Does it really have to be an entirely new language?

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