adam bien's blog

Sorry, but I like the idea of JCP and especially the JSRs 📎

After yesterdays reactions about the Guice post, I though about my opinion about the jcp.org process and resulting JSRs. I have to admit ...I like it very much, some reasons why:
  1. I started with Java long before JSR-1. And it was chaos. There were many middleware vendors - it was even impossible to deploy event a servlet to different "appservers" without a modification of some property files (do you remember the Java Web Server and Jigsaw?).
  2. JSRs come with the specification - which is a great resource for learning more about the technology, and often free reference implementation, with that you can try things without buying a product.
  3. JCP process is open, so everyone can participate. If you have something to contribute, change or improve - go for it! The participation is free for individuals.
  4. Most of JSRs are supported by many vendors, so after release of a certain JSRs, often even before the final release, many products are available. This is good for our customers (I'm a consultant, freelancer), because they can choose different, mostly compatible (nothing is perfect) products.
  5. I know some Expert Group Members and JSR-Leaders, all of them are bright and talented people. Chances are very high, that if you participate in the construction of a JSR you will learn something new - which is the key benefit.
  6. JSR is a democratic process - so it's inherently slow. This is good, because it makes the APIs more stable over time. This is not always true for "home-grown" frameworks :-).
  7. Because the industry invests in the development of JSRs, it promotes the products (sometimes with funny buzzwords :-)), but the result is: many books, articles, trainings and ressources.
  8. For developer it is easier to focus on the most important technologies first. JSRs are more likely to become a part of Java ME, SE or EE.
  9. Strong JCP is huge advantage over the "non-java" competition.
  10. More and more luminaries participate in the JCP process now, after beeing very successful in the opensource space.
JCP is not perfect, but there is even a "meta-level" which defines the process itselt - so even this can be changed... If you have a good idea - JCP gives you the unique chances to change even a industry standard... I also started my own JSR 5 years ago, which was similar to JSR 296 or the Swing Application Framework. I had to withdrawn it because of "politics" - but it's real life :-)