embedded software boot camp

Real-Time Java is Dead

Friday, April 25th, 2008 by Michael Barr

A few months less than ten years ago, I presented a paper at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) for the first time. My 1.5 hour course was entitled “Embedded Java” or something similar. This was in Silicon Valley, and the audience was standing room only–despite a rather large room to start with.

I’ve tracked technical and business developments in the world of embedded and real-time Java for even longer–and written a number of articles on the subject. And so I didn’t miss that over the years the audiences for courses on either variant of Java dwindled. After a hopeful year or two too long, I gave up on Java in our space and stopped proposing the topic at ESC.

Then, last Spring, I had the refreshing experience of teaching a two-day hands-on real-time Java programming class in the Netherlands. The room was packed. There was enthusiasm. And these guys were really using Java to develop software (though it wasn’t truly embedded code). So I thought I’d try again at ESC and reproposed the topic.

Last week I taught a course called “Real-Time Java Programming” at the ESC Silicon Valley venue. A lot had changed about the audience size. This time, in a room of a similar size, there were many empty chairs and tables. I think there were perhaps 15 people attending this time.

By my reckoning, Java is officially dead in the embedded systems community–especially in the U.S.

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One Response to “Real-Time Java is Dead”

  1. James Grenning says:

    I hope it is not totally dead. There are a lot of Java in cell phone applications. Java was invented for embedded. I am also amazed how much more productive programming is in Java compared to C or C++. Use advanced tools like Eclipse and JUnit and the code almost writes itself. You will dread programming in C after Java/Eclipse/Junit. My unscientific study (how many use cases are completed in a one week class) shows that C delivers one COW (C Output Week) and Java delivers 3 to 4 COWs.

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