Brian Goetz - Stewardship: the Sobering Parts

Against my better judgement I did a reverse image search and found the post that you found that screenshot from [1]. The post is full of people having exactly the sort of problems you would expect from an automatic software updater, along with instructions from Jeff on how to manually update using SSH and git. These things happen. The world is messy, and whether due to technical inadequacy or run-of-the-mill software updater bugs, web backends will not always be updated. As you've noted, this could eventually lead to security problems, and I agree -- but that doesn't justify intentionally breaking their code. To say that their breakage is justifiable because they'll be 0wned at some point anyway is an absurdly darwinian argument. To address your last question, the way you update a system like the web is exactly the way we always have -- accretion . With very few exceptions, websites from the early 90s still work today. We didn't remove the `table` tag when we introduced flex boxes. We add new APIs while preserving existing functionality. If you want to see a fantastic talk on this exact subject, watch "Stewardship: The Sobering Parts" by Brian Goetz [2]. It is well worth your time. [1] link [2] ▶ this video

Brian Goetz the Java Language Architect addressed the very points you raised in a talk called "Stewardship: the Sobering Parts" [1] I highly recommend anyone with these very valid concerns to view it once. [1] ▶ this video

On the topic of stewardship, I highly recommend this talk by Brian Goetz titled "Stewardship: the Sobering Parts" [1] Brian goes about how important compatibility is for the language, the concept not throwing customers code under the bus by bringing breaking incompatibilities. (ie Python 2 --> 3) Java has its warts and isn't "cool" but I respect their design decisions. [1] ▶ this video

To add on to that... Even though, I haven't been involved in the contributing process for Clojure, but I thought it was interesting that Brian Goetz's keynote at the Conj 6 months ago was about stewardship, in particular, stewardship of the Java language: ▶ this video It gave me a better appreciation for the differing concerns of someone using a language or contributing a patch vs. someone designing & maintaining a language. In my day-to-day, I use languages other than Clojure, and I sorely miss the cohesive and good design. Brian Goetz's talk nails it on the head why the languages in my day-to-day are sub-optimal, even if they're currently the "new hotness"... at least for now...

Watch this awesome keynote by Brian Goetz, he talks about valie types and generics. Brian Goetz - Stewardship: the Sobering Parts ▶ this video

Thank you for sharing this one! Also there are interesting talks published on YT where he discusses data/functional programming, OOP etc. Multiparadigm (including plain old procedural) seems to be the most pragmatic approach to me, because I don’t need to bend over backwards to express something in a particular way. Aside: It’s really fascinating how Java and the JVM manage to evolve while retaining reliability. He talks about that here: ▶ this video

I recommend Brian Goetz’ talk about language stewardship. I don’t think what you’ve said here is true, and it kind of bums me out because some of these features took years to develop so they wouldn’t break people on ancient versions. That deserves much respect and appreciation. ▶ this video

Things are innovating faster than ever, but, the trick is always to address the challenges of both today and tomorrow, while staying true to compatibility and stability. Check out Brian's talk on Stewardship: ▶ this video

And by telling I think you mean that over time Java has very thoughtfully evolved in a way that respects backwards compatibility, or that once a feature is in the language it'll very likely stay there for the next 25 years. Yes, innovation is very important (and happening faster than ever now with the 6-month release cadence), but a majority of the work isn't in deciding what goes in, it's deciding what stays out and if something does go in how does it satisfy both audiences of "move slow don't break" and "move faster we want features". A good video on this process: ▶ this video

As far as speed-of-evolution, it is worth understanding that the slower speed is at least partly a by-product of different goals. This talk, "Stewardship: The Sobering Parts" by Brian Goetz, is informative and well worth the watch: ▶ this video

See Brian Goetz's talk on language stewardship ( ▶ this video ). I'm sure nobody wants to add new and interesting features to Java more than the people who work on the language every damn day, but they've made a strong commitment to the community to not break existing code.

It is only tangentially related, but I recommend this video from Brian Geotz, a Java language architect. He breaks down the challenges of adding features to the language, in a room full of Clojure devs no less. Worth a watch: ▶ this video