The news this week from JavaOne is that Sun has decided to create a new language called JavaFX Script. I am still shaking my head wondering why does the software industry need another scripting language? Also, what has happened to Sun’s support for JRuby?
Before JavaOne, I was convinced Sun was heading down a strategy of pushing JRuby as their dynamic language. They hired the key guys on the JRuby project; the new news about NetBeans is all about JRuby; there are sessions about JRuby at JavaOne; everything pointed to Sun adopting a big strategy for JRuby. However, at the keynote JRuby was barely mentioned and there just seems to be no buzz about JRuby at JavaOne. Instead Sun decided to create a new language, that was created by an individual Sun engineer as a research project, there does not appear to be tools support but it is being positioned as the killer of MS Silverlight and Adobe Flex? I just have to think MS and Adobe are laughing at the thought.
I certainly hope the work on JRuby keeps going. To me that seems like a winning strategy for Sun and Java.
