A couple of predictions for this year:
- Java will become cool again
- JavaScript running on the JVM will be interesting
- Maven will become cool
Java
Java 8 will bring lambda functions into the fold and enhance its collections to support them. Functions as first-class objects are one of my favourite features of other languages such as JavaScript. What I like about them is the mainly the flow of writing code. With Java today there's a bit too much of a context switch when providing some type to handle lambda style behaviour. This can curb productivity.
It is a shame that automatic property access isn't being incorporated as I think that this would be the final nail that pushes aside a few other JVM languages.
JavaScript on the JVM
Both Nashorn and DynJs will change the landscape in terms of running JavaScript on the JVM. I'm personally quite impressed with Mozilla's Rhino and have always found it to be quite functional. Having something that builds off of our API learnings and simultaneously runs much faster will make the JVM a first class platform for running JavaScript. Watch out Node.js… I'm suspecting that they'll be a nice JVM based equivalent coming along.
Maven
It seems to me that people's main issue with Maven is the XML pom file format. Its about time that we had a better DSL for POMs. Imagine what a JavaScript POM DSL would look like… My belief is that moving away from XML will make Maven appeal to many current naysayers.
Click here for my reflections a year on.
