Sun has hired Frank Wierzbicki, project lead for Jython (an implementation of Python on the JVM), and Ted Leung, a "Pythonista" as Tim Bray calls him. Frank said that this was great - not only does he get to spend more time on Jython, but it also signals a promotion of Python to top-level support on the JVM, along with Ruby, Groovy, and - of course - Java. The landscape around the JVM is changing. Java is still the primary focus, but it's clear, with Charles Enebo and Thomas Nutter being hired by Sun, and now Frank and Ted, that the Java Virtual Machine is becoming "less Java" and more "Virtual Machine." ("Farewell to the 'J' in 'JVM'?" on DZone concurs, although Java in this sense isn't going away, but simply undergoing a change in meaning.) With Frank and Ted at Sun, we can probably see Django or TurboGears gaining the same sort of visibility in the Java community that Rails does, via JRuby. These hires mean that Jython's going to be integrated into Netbeans, and a new release of Jython is likely to be accellerated - sometime in 2008, which is cautious but still a good statement. Jython is still slower than CPython, but much of that is due to an emphasis on correctness rather than speed - once correctness is achieved, you're likely to see some real increases in speed, much as JRuby's speed increased dramatically with focus. Altogether, this is great news - congratulations, Frank and Ted, and we'll be watching for complete Django and TurboGears support.

This is great news indeed. Good on you Frank ! And good luck. Its also great as they will get to work closely with Charles & co on the jruby team, and probably have netbeans tooling. Sun are taking the Multi Language VM (MLVM) seriously now, and not a moment to soon. Michael ------- www.michaelneale.net

I guess I should post this link: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/mlvm/ Looks like Sun is serious about getting more dynamic languages onto (J)VM. Me, I prefer Java anyway :-)

Scripting languages are for glue code with the main language to get more productive depending the situation. Scripting languages are not mean to replace Java. Me too I prefer Java but I could use Jython or Groovy to prototype or script a system.

Scripting languages are for glue code with the main language to get more productive depending the situation. Scripting languages are not mean to replace Java. Me too I prefer Java but I could use Jython or Groovy to prototype or script a system.

I just hope the trend is to get all these scripting languages on the VM. Then we won't have to worry about reimplementing/porting all our older mature services/tools if Java becomes legacy. For instance, I'd like to see frameworks like RoR start integrating with things like hibernate, transactions, etc... that are available in the Java platform, but integratable with RoR via JRuby. Its silly to reinvent the wheel. -- Bill Burke JBoss, a division of Red Hat http://bill.burkecentral.com

Hopefully it catches up to the C version... -- Bill Burke JBoss, a division of Red Hat http://bill.burkecentral.com

Hopefully it catches up to the C version...

--
Bill Burke
JBoss, a division of Red Hat
http://bill.burkecentral.com

If it follows the Ruby path, it'll probably pass. Anecdotally, I've found it equivalent in a few places, but Frank said right now they're focusing on accuracy/compliance over speed.

To Frank and Ted: Congratulations on getting hired by Sun. I am delighted to see this as recognition of the hard work you put into the Jython project. I am ex-Sun myself and can tell you that Sun's engineering culture will give you a stable and supportive base of resources to do wonderful things. Well done! The Server Side Java Symposium is coming up in a couple of weeks and I am leading the session on dynamic scripting on the JVM. Between the news of the hires, the DaVinci program, and the work John Rose is doing with JSR 292, there is a whole lot going on! The session info is here. -Frank Cohen http://www.pushtotest.com