[mapgrep]

You make Java's decline sound almost inevitable. Perhaps it is. But Java retains significant performance advantages thanks to the (by now) well optimized JVM, and SaaS has actually helped it replace more elegant languages like Ruby in contexts where performance is critical, since the whole code base doesn't have to be thrown out, and Java can be dropped in strategically.

A good talk on this is "Twitter: From Ruby on Rails to the JVM" by Twitter's app services chief Raffi Krikorian http://ontwik.com/rails/oreilly-oscon-java-2011-raffi-krikor...

The fact that Twitter just hired Oracle's Adam Messinger as its new CTO seems to be a strong sign this direction is continuing. http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/07/twitter-nabs-former-oracle-...

Certainly languages like Ruby and Python will continue to post performance gains as their interpreters mature. Certainly the migration of e.g. Lisp (Clojure) and Ruby (JRuby) to the JVM will accelerate these gains. SaaS will allow a mixture of languages. And surely other language platforms will be Good Enough for many startups and for smaller apps at large companies.

But at the edge of the performance envelope, among memory managed languages, Java still seems to be a big winner, at least if the folks at Twitter are to be believed.

[kls]

I apologize if my writing inferred that Java's decline was inevitable, it was not my intention, rather my intention was to point out that Java's dominance is related to some factors that are now changing and may give room to other options. It may or it may not, I generally try to stay away from predictions because there are many variables that can affect the outcome of the future. As such I was not trying to predict the rise of alternative or the fall of Java just merely stating the point that SaaS will allow vendors behind the service curtain a lot more flexibility it what they choose to provide those services.

[mapgrep]

Fair enough, I enjoyed your comment overall, a lot of good points. Maybe I read too much into it. Apologies if I did!

[kls]

No it did read like I was predicting it's demise, it was not my intent but it did read like it. Thanks for the kind words, I enjoy participating here and it is always nice to have someone say they enjoy my contributions.