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James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

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Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#71

Post by brisance »

Tamerlin wrote: post #25
10ren wrote: post #21

Oracle has brilliant opportunities at the moment: they own a great processor (Sparc) that they could closely integrate with their database, application software and even Java... and (finally!) give IBM a run for their money. They have the cool and fast technology of both Sun's JVM and BEA's JVM (JRockit). They have acquired other brilliant technologies, and have in practice endless resources to acquire more: http://e…

" they own a great processor (Sparc)" I'm not so sure about that. For years x86 has been chewing up the market for Sparc processors, and one of the reasons that Sun had such poor finances is that it was selling x86-based servers more than Sparc based servers (they cost considerably less, and perform better). Fujutsu's Sparc implementation significantly outperforms Sun's. Contemporary Xeons outperform both these days.…

Gosling also wrote about being at the mercy of suppliers impacting SPARC and it probably contributed to the problems.

http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/at_the_mercy_of_suppl...

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#72

Post by [deleted] »

flatline wrote: post #32
skullsplitter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real, "That bent Gosling’s resolve like a wishbone in the hands of two eager siblings in mid-pull after Thanksgiving dinner, but even that didn’t break it."

And later - I'm not sure what I was actually reading about for half the article: "But unlike Oracle, Davis and the Raiders have not had a winning season for awhile – not since my Baltimore Ravens flattened their hopes and the shoulder of quarterback Rich Gannon after a vicious pancake tackle by Tony Siragusa on the way to a Ravens’ Super Bowl winning season in 2001."

[deleted]

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#73

Post by philwelch »

ataranto wrote: post #31

"But unlike Oracle, Davis and the Raiders have not had a winning season for awhile – not since my Baltimore Ravens flattened their hopes and the shoulder of quarterback Rich Gannon after a vicious pancake tackle by Tony Siragusa on the way to a Ravens’ Super Bowl winning season in 2001." The Raiders were 11-5 the next year (2002) and went to the Super Bowl.

By "in 2001" he actually means the 2001 Super Bowl, so the 2000 season. The 2001 season was a Super Bowl winning season for the Patriots.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#74

Post by bcantrill »

VladRussian wrote: post #70

a lot of Sun's prima donnas didn't make it in Oracle wolf pack. They had their day at Sun (it was an unbelievable feast during plague), and it resulted in the failure of the company on all fronts, business and engineering, software and hardware.

More accurately, we (for there are many of us) realized that we could go solve much more interesting problems elsewhere -- and in a much better environment besides. Why would anyone wish to suffer at a technically mediocre company when there are so many interesting problems yet to solve?

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#75

Post by adharmad »

From the article: "All of the senior people at Sun got screwed compensation-wise. Their job titles may have been the same, but their ability to decide anything was just gone."

It need not have come to that if they had used their "ability to decide" in managing Sun properly. You cannot hang your hat for very long on "we made good software but were unable to sell it".

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#76

Post by compay »

jbjohns wrote: post #26
yellowbkpk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons I left GE was because there was no notion of a senior engineer in the software field (there are senior science positions in the research divisions). To go beyond "Software Engineer" you had to step into a managerial role and away from doing any software engineering. This burned out several people (including myself). You can only wait for the implementation of "Technical Career Path" for so long.

I don't get why technical people who don't want to go in management sign on as permanent employees. Why deal with all that career review nonsense, etc. when as a technical person you have no track anyway?

I'm almost 38 and had my first child not too long ago. Sometimes I surprise myself at feeling tempted to chase the illusion of "stability" at a bigger company. Then I remind myself of all my friends who have been through terrible layoffs and remember that there almost never is such a thing as stability nowadays.

I think a lot of people get the same feeling I do for the same reasons, but then forget the whole "remind yourself" part.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#77

Post by 10ren »

Tamerlin wrote: post #25
10ren wrote: post #21

Oracle has brilliant opportunities at the moment: they own a great processor (Sparc) that they could closely integrate with their database, application software and even Java... and (finally!) give IBM a run for their money. They have the cool and fast technology of both Sun's JVM and BEA's JVM (JRockit). They have acquired other brilliant technologies, and have in practice endless resources to acquire more: http://e…

" they own a great processor (Sparc)" I'm not so sure about that. For years x86 has been chewing up the market for Sparc processors, and one of the reasons that Sun had such poor finances is that it was selling x86-based servers more than Sparc based servers (they cost considerably less, and perform better). Fujutsu's Sparc implementation significantly outperforms Sun's. Contemporary Xeons outperform both these days.…

OK, my mistake. I assumed Sun were still great at building processors (and they got killed only because they were disrupted, in the Christensen sense, like Digital were.)

I now make a further assumption that the remaining echo $((`wc -w`-6)) 315 words about the importance of technical talent are OK. :-)

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#79

Post by rglovejoy »

ergo98 wrote: post #35
johnzabroski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Larry also owns a beach house in the mansions area of Newport, Rhode Island, aka sailing capital of the world (the main street connecting to the dwarfs is called America's Cup Avenue).

Very interesting. I am in the area soon and will set up a side trip to come and visit the road that leads to the dwarfs.

Say hi to Gimli for me then.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#80

Post by fondue »

“All of the senior people at Sun got screwed compensation-wise. Their job titles may have been the same, but their ability to decide anything was just gone.”

Probably the best thing to happen as the decision makers managed to decide Sun to the selling block.

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