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I love closures as much as the next guy (maybe even a little more), but I'm 100% *convinced* that it would be a mistake to try to add them to Java. For one thing, there is no way to make the syntax any less than unbearably verbose without type inference. For another, Java as a language has almost become a force of nature. Everyone knows it, and that's its greatest strength. You take that away if you start reinventing the language.

This "reboot of Java" mentioned in the comments already exists: it's called Scala. I think that Sun may not be conservative enough, since they are actually *considering* new language features for Java 7. I think they need to take a step back, look at the industry as a whole and realize that most people don't want Java to change terribly much, they like to have a stable tool that they can rely upon. Let developers jump to a different language if they simply must have the latest-and-greatest in syntax. Sun isn't really losing anything since everyone is on the JVM these days, whether they are using Java or not.

In principle I agree with you. But perception is marketshare, if people perceive Java to be obsolete, it's going to become a legacy development tool and no one will continue to use it, JVM or no JVM.

Sun desperately needs to show some leadership here. It's great that there are alternative languages for the JVM, but Sun needs to say; "look here we are going to support Language X in precisely the same way we support Java, training, certifications and all"
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sadly I agree with both of you; closures should stay in languages like scala and groovy, but marketing pushes them into java and this is a true shame :-(

What an impressive argument : "if java gets no closures, it will become obsolete"... I'm a java/flex developer, and I can tell that the choice of using java for a project is not based on such features...

Really?!, three years ago Java was a slam dunk, now we throw RoR as an alternative for no other reason than because the perception is that it's more productive than Java (which it is).

I don't think .Net is more productive than Java, but just about every CIO I know thinks it is. Furthermore M$ has all these exciting technologies like Linq which which utilise these new functional style language features. So great there might be an existing investment in Java but from the CIO's point of view, It's behind other languages and it has a slower development time, why write any new systems in it.

But hey, you're doing Flex, Why are you using Flex instead of Applets/Webstart?

> now we throw RoR as an alternative for no other reason than because the perception is that it's more productive than Java (which it is).

So is symfony for php. But php has no closures (yet. As mentined in the article they are coming.) So then it could possibly be something else than closures that make RoR more productive?

More productive is a correct argument, I think...
I can't talk over RoR because I've never used it.
And I'm not a "Use Java everywhere because it is java", I try to use the language which I think is the best for the job.
So yes, I'm a big fan of Flex because I developed a lot of applet (charts,...) but it is not easy as flex... And if you take a look over the web, you'll see that java is working perfectly with flex...
I've never tried the new JavaFX, so maybe with JavaFX, I will be back to java for RIA :)

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