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Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

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Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#41
post #8
post #3

Hypothetical Question: Is it at all possible to eventually merge Java and C# back into a single language? Say in 2030 ?

Funnily enough I was thinking an almost identical thing this morning. We had IKVM [0] for.NET, which if I understood it correctly allowed Java to run on the CLR (I probably misunderstood this). I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft don't build something official to run Java code on the CLR/.NET, is it a technical or legal limitation, or simply that there's no business need? [0]: https://www.ikvm.net/

It would be huge if they implemented a way to run java libraries from .NET. Be it ikvm or something else. This would immediately open up huge amounts of very interesting libraries to .NET. For example Bouncy Castle or Lucene. Years ago I worked on a document search app. Wrote it in .NET but then almost all interesting libraries were in Java exclusively or with an outdated .NET port. Being able to use the up to date java libraries would have been huge. This experience alone makes me reluctant to use .NET. The Java ecosystem is just much broader.

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#42
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that as if they are somehow being sparing in their support of C# and .NET, which is clearly not true. What specifically do you see as lacking on that front?

The speed of development, the scope and quality of new language features has dropped significantly ever since Hejlsberg left C#. C# with .Net should compete with Go and rust these days, fight for the mindshare of developers.

I don't understand your concern.

I think Mads Torgersen & co. are doing a wonderful job.

We've had a new version of C# with each new (recent at least) release of Visual Studio.

Did you have issues with the quality of new features? I'm really puzzled by your comment.

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#43
post #3

Hypothetical Question: Is it at all possible to eventually merge Java and C# back into a single language? Say in 2030 ?

Not likely.

Something more likely. Two things.

Make dot NET a truly first class citizen on other platforms. Including the ecosystem of C# and dot NET libraries. Some of this may be difficult due to the long time that dot NET has been Windows only. There would have to be a clear boundary between APIs and features of the runtime and libraries that are only available on Windows. I think Microsoft is already making moves in this direction. But I don't keep up with it.

Make Java a truly first class citizen on Windows.

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#45

>> As many of you may know, Microsoft and its subsidiaries are heavily dependent on Java in many aspects, and also offers Java runtimes in its Microsoft Azure cloud to its customers. Anyone know details on how MS uses Java outside of hosted runtimes?

I'm mystified as well. I worked at Microsoft for seven years and never once heard any mention of Java. Maybe it's in the acquisitions? (GitHub, LinkedIn, etc.)

Being mystified about the value of Java to Microsoft suggests that you lead a somewhat insulated life in software development.

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed of development, the scope and quality of new language features has dropped significantly ever since Hejlsberg left C#. C# with .Net should compete with Go and rust these days, fight for the mindshare of developers.

I don't understand your concern. I think Mads Torgersen & co. are doing a wonderful job. We've had a new version of C# with each new (recent at least) release of Visual Studio. Did you have issues with the quality of new features? I'm really puzzled by your comment.

What I meant is that most of the recent C# additions are merely syntactic sugar that does not increase developer productivity in a significant way, does not boost the expressiveness of the language, sometimes even decreases the readability of the code. That's in contrast to things like generics and li q.

Besides apart from C# there's also CLR and Jit that could use more love. It is well known that jvm is a better vm than CLR. Most of the CLR speed comes from using references to value types but somewhat as an afterthought and without tools that C++ provides (readonly gives you muh less power that const reference).

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#47

>> As many of you may know, Microsoft and its subsidiaries are heavily dependent on Java in many aspects, and also offers Java runtimes in its Microsoft Azure cloud to its customers. Anyone know details on how MS uses Java outside of hosted runtimes?

I imagine that C# is used less and less within Azure's infrastructure and embracing other languages such as Java where appropriate. This would go well beyond direct Java runtime support. C# cannot compete with the Java ecosystem for open source cloud management software. Just take a glance at Apache projects and see how strongly Java is represented there. I imagine that Microsoft is investing heavily in Python as well.

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#48

>> As many of you may know, Microsoft and its subsidiaries are heavily dependent on Java in many aspects, and also offers Java runtimes in its Microsoft Azure cloud to its customers. Anyone know details on how MS uses Java outside of hosted runtimes?

Hi, I'm the PM for Java at Microsoft. You can see this slide I presented at MS Ignite couple months ago:

https://twitter.com/chanezon/status/1192140812718657536

Happy to point you to the presentation if you are interested.

But in short, we use Java at some places like (there's probably more):

- Azure runtimes for end-users (App Service, Functions)

- Azure runtimes for other services (Azure HDInsight aka Big Data)

- LinkedIn backend

- Yammer backend

- Mojang Minecraft

- SQL Server Big Data Connectors (JVM is embedded in the DB)

- Internal Android and Xamarin development

Best, Bruno

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#49

>> As many of you may know, Microsoft and its subsidiaries are heavily dependent on Java in many aspects, and also offers Java runtimes in its Microsoft Azure cloud to its customers. Anyone know details on how MS uses Java outside of hosted runtimes?

Hi, I'm the PM for Java at Microsoft. You can see this slide I presented at MS Ignite couple months ago: https://twitter.com/chanezon/status/1192140812718657536 Happy to point you to the presentation if you are interested. But in short, we use Java at some places like (there's probably more): - Azure runtimes for end-users (App Service, Functions) - Azure runtimes for other services (Azure HDInsight aka Big Data) - L…

Thanks Bruno! And I totally forgot about Minecraft!

Re: Microsoft’s Ready to Contribute to OpenJDK

#50
post #7

Cool, looks according to post submission this actually happened end of October. How did it go so far? Anyone know more?

So far we have submitted couple patches [1][2] that we felt were good opportunities to learn how contributions flow into OpenJDK, and we are now starting to experiment with JFR and other GCs like Shenandoah. As we progress, we may find other fixes and enhancements that we aim at upstreaming as well.

If you have further questions, I'd be happy to take them.

Best,

Bruno Borges,

PM for Java at Microsoft

[1] https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/rev/aebd72de84b0

[2] https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/rev/c6e474ae266b

[3] https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/shenandoah-dev/2019-... (still under review)

[4] https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-compiler-dev... (ongoing discussion)

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