James Gosling
Mastermind of Java
“If you look at the way that the medical system works in the U.S., it’s bits of paper. Islands that don’t talk to each other. You go to the doctor, who scrawls out a prescription. And you go to some pharmacy and they fill it out. There are all kinds of opportunities for error and fraud. You go to some other doctor who doesn’t know what another doctor might have done and who doesn’t get to see your medical records because they’re not instantly accessible.
“In the Brazilian system,” Gosling continues, “there are national databases and a doctor sticks your ID card in a little reader to see your complete medical history, wherever the doctor is and wherever you came from. Brazil has a national medical system and we have chaos.”
No Boundaries
“What happens once your car is on the Internet?” Gosling posits. “You can do things like download your day planner and let the GPS navigation system set up the route. You could get traffic reports integrated into the routing so the pathfinder in the GPS system knows to avoid really bad intersections or a really bad traffic accident.
“What happens once your car is on the Internet? You can download your day planner and let the GPS navigation system set up the route.”
“There are any number of horrifying scenarios involving advertising,” Gosling says, recalling a discussion he had with a car executive. “He told me with a straight face that one of the company’s dream business propositions was to advertise over the GPS system. You’re driving along in your car and it’s about 11:30, close to lunchtime, and your location is reported through the GPS system. So an ad shows up on your screen at 11:30, encouraging you to ‘Turn left now for a special lunch offer!’”
For good or ill, Gosling says we’re just beginning to see what can be done with the network. Java is a networking programming language. But the explosion in development is with the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) on top of Java — the things that connect the pieces. Which is good news for the worldwide community of boutique/garage shop engineers and consultants who, in Gosling’s opinion, create almost all of the world’s interesting software.
Writing software on the Mac for any platform is, increasingly, becoming their cup of tea.
