A few hours ago I attended the “Java Rockstars Panel”, a press only event with:
- Bob Brewin, CTO of Sun Software
- Tim Bray, Director of Web Technologies for Sun
- Jeet Kaul, VP of Developer Products and Programs for Sun
- Eric Klein, VP of Java Marketing for Sun
I will try to summarize some key points:
- This year is about Java on the client, the ubiquity of the platform and the energy of the community.
- Tim Bray likes JavaScript’s ubiquity 🙂
- Fact of life: Ruby and Python are (almost) as old as Java (chronologically
- Alternative (scripting) languages that will be able to run on the JVM with automatically increase their potential user base
- “People love the Web platform because it has no platform vendor” – Tim Bray
- Having no real specs for dynamic languages (except JavaScript) makes it hard for people trust them.
Dio Synodinos 
I freakin’ hate JavaScript. The only reason we tolerate it is because there is really nothing we can do about it. We are stuck with it. Its a monopoly with no vendor.