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How Oracle benefits from Android using their APIs. | 388 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
How Oracle benefits from Android using their APIs.
Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 06 2012 @ 01:25 PM EDT

PJ - I don't endorse the comment you are responding to at all, but at least where he said "Both eco-systems benefit from the sharing of the APIs", this is absolutely true. This line has inspired a good and worthy question from you, answered as follow...

Suppose you write applications for both the Android platform and other Java platforms. You can use the same Eclipse compiler, the same JUint tester, the same Java SDK, the same documentation on Java, the same knowledge where it comes to Java core classes and syntax, and you can copy and paste code between the two projects freely, wherever that code does not exhibit platform dependencies. This is an absolutely huge benefit to productivity!

Beyond that, imagine all the new programmers who never used java that are attracted to Android as a cool new platform, and they are inspired by it to learn both Java and Android. They create a huge pool of potential Java developers for the future, expanding the ecosystem and mind share for Java, even ensuring its future!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Possible Partial exPlanation
Authored by: pem on Sunday, May 06 2012 @ 01:30 PM EDT
I am a programmer and hardware designer.

I don't use Java.

Among other things, I regularly use C, a tiny bit of C++, lots of Python, and a
fair amount of Verilog. I used to write a ton of assembly language, but that
was eons ago.

I could easily pick up Java. They reuse a lot from C, such as regular
expressions, and I understand object orientation fairly well.

But I haven't had any good reason to bother with Java. Until, perhaps, now. I
have an Android tablet, and at some point might want to do some programming on
it.

This is how Android can help Oracle, by taking people who aren't using Java, and
giving them a reason to slog through the learning curve and produce that first
real program.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PJ - You haven't yet gotten it re: #4
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 06 2012 @ 02:22 PM EDT
It means programmers who write code for Android will learn how to use Java
libraries which also work on Android. Assuming they have any interest in
writing other kinds of software, the knowledge they gained while writing
programs for Android also applies to writing desktop or server apps in Java.

If useful libraries are developed entirely on top of Android, those might get
ported back to Java. For example: if someone makes a compression library
well-suited to mobile devices, they could take that same library and use it in
desktop Java apps or back-end server apps that need to interoperate with the
mobile devices.

I admit the benefits of Google reusing the APIs mostly accrued to everybody
else, other than Sun (all those programmers whose skills and library knowledge
is now more useful). But the alternative of Google _not_ reusing the APIs would
have actually been harmful to everybody, including Sun.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PJ - You haven't yet gotten it re: #4
Authored by: PolR on Sunday, May 06 2012 @ 04:32 PM EDT
> OK. Then please explain to me how Oracle
> benefits from Android using their APIs.

This is for the same reason Microsoft benefits from having a lot of people
trained in Microsoft programming tools and having a lot of legacy applications
relying on their technologies. It creates a critical mass that makes existing
customers reluctant to switch to something else and makes the technology
attractive to new customers.

The more there are programmers fluent in Java, the easier it is for corporations
to decide they want their in-house software development written in Java. And the
more there are existing Java programs the more corporations will keep using
Java. This extends to APIs because they are part of the language. People and
applications which use the language also use the APIs. Oracle benefits from
Android using the Java API because Android programs and programmers add to this
critical mass. This brings more people and customers to everything Java and not
just Android.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PJ - You haven't yet gotten it re: #4
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 06 2012 @ 11:57 PM EDT
It's the same as how Microsoft benefits from Mono and other DotNet runtime
clones that they do not prevent others from implementing. Regardless of whether
we like it or not, it is effective at encouraging more people to pick up skills
and familiarity with it, additionally it generate more acceptance. Some
developers who had no interest in learning C# because Microsoft's implementation
did not fit their needs, now pick it up due to Mono and other implementations.
Once they have picked it up, Microsoft would have less one barrier to try entice
them into coding for Microsoft's platform. How successful Microsoft has been
with this strategy is disputable of course, but that is due to other factors.

With Android, this strategy is much more successful, because the wide
availability of highly capable Android devices created a market for applications
that developers would be interested joining. Since Google's recommendation for
developing Dalvik based Android applications is to use Java based tools, and
even Sun's official implementation of Java. It naturally get developers to pick
up skills, familiarity and acceptance of at least some Java technologies.
Specially with the lost of popularity of Java applets on the web, the ever
increasing number of credible competing platforms/frameworks and the failure of
the JavaME platform, Android was vital to keep Java in any shape or form
relevant to many developers. Otherwise, Java would have been relegated to only a
subset of server applications (as significant as this subset is for many
developers, it is of very little interest to others), and no longer have any
relevance at all in other areas. In the longer run, it would have slowly become
like Cobol and/or Fortran. Specialised for particular applications, and very
slowly get replaced by alternatives when push comes to shove. Not to say that it
still won't happen, specially with Oracle behaving this way, but Android has at
the very least slowed the process, if not turned it around for now.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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