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I don't think java has the "flu", but I susspect that many of the so called "community leaders" suffer from "accute hype-ittis" :), or maybe their blood glucose levels (sold books and seminars) is too low ?.

The centerpiece of the article, stats from O'Reilly, is flawed since O'Reilly itself has been surpassed as the go-to publisher for technical books by Apress, Manning, and the Pragmatic Programmer.

Quite an odd article. Not quite sure why anyone would pick such a poor metric as book sales from one publisher as a measure of a popularity.

Seems obvious to me that the sales of Java books will decrease as the language gets older. High quality online resources are more available because the language has matured. There is simply no reason for folk to buy as many books.

I think job stats is a better metric, but that's just me.

Ever time I read an article like this I can never find the point; it seems like a lot of work for no reason. But I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt that there is a purpose.

Is it to influence the Java Community to do more fun things? If that's the case, I would suggest a keg party or maybe we go to Vegas for JavaOne next year. Java is a language, to build software applications. Maybe we could add some slang to the language that would make it more hip.

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Maybe a new Mascot would make it cool, Nah, Duke kicks ass. Check out my picture with duke from this years JavaOne (http://g8l.us/8x7)

Maybe the applications that people build with JavaOne need to be cooler. Not sure, Web 2.0 Company Mint seems pretty cool; one of the most popular online games, runescape is built in Java. I could also talk about the 10-100 million dollar IT projects underway that use Java as the backbone. Providing people with skills that allow them to earn a good living and will be valuable not only now but well into the future seems like a pretty cool thing to me.

Other suggestions on making Java Cool again welcome, for every suggestion you’ll get a free red cup for my Keg party.

Java is already a mature language. There are lots of books on the shelves of every programmer in every company and at home. The computer book venture as a whole is in decline compared with 4 years ago. I remember huge sections of computer books in every book store a few years back. Now if you look usually there are a couple of small shelves. The online information is comprehensive for Java. Just look here at dzone.com what is the volume of information created every day and available for free. So saying that Java market is in decline because the book sales are low is absurd. The truth is Java is not the new thing anymore. But it is a language every new CS graduate knows by default.

I know it's a bit much to ask folks to read below the fold, but after my much-maligned book sales factoid, I had a prescription for what Java should do next, Namely:
Here is my prescription for curing the Java Flu:
* Fight for the low end: in modern warfare, death may come from above. In technology, death comes from below. Ten years from now, who will have more power over IT - web designers or core developers? If Microsoft and Adobe win the designers today, Java developers will be the COBOL developers of tomorrow.
* Make Java easier to get started with: something is wrong when very useful but also very complex code frameworks like Spring are considered the "easy" way to do Java development. Java needs to be easy enough for your mother to build her web-based phone list with it. I'm talking Hypercard/Filemaker/Access easy.
* Make Java prettier: just put a bullet in JavaFX and adopt something with momentum like Dojo or Ext. If you just can't stomach Javascript, then adopt GWT.
* Make Java fun: can't do this without doing the first three items. For an example of one attempt to make Java easy, check out the WaveMaker download.

"Here is my prescription for curing the Java Flu: "
IOW, turn Java into something "funky", something it isn't and should never be. If you want a "funky" language, just pick the next hyped thing.

Java is easy, Java is fun, the world isn't ruled by people making flashy website buttons.
If you want to dumb down the language, change its syntax to be more in vogue with scriptkiddies, go ahead and download the sources, make your changes, and watch the world laugh at your "creation".

But leave professionals who know what they're doing alone.

I read the whole thing; I just thought it didn't make sense.... I was going to comment on each item in your list but them I finally got it...

What we are seeing is a bifurcation of the software industry where tools like WaveMaker’s cover all/most the underlying technology and people learn just a tool. The only problem is that instead of learning software best practices and fundamentals skills that are transferable to their next job, all they are left with is knowledge of set of menu and accelerator key sequences on a tool that 99.9% of all other jobs they apply for won’t use.

On the other side of the isle are frameworks like Spring, JBoss Seam… that do offer an easier way to build J2EE applications without the removal of underlying concepts that all applications are built on. Let Microsoft and Adobe win the designers. If software development comes down to a pixel contest then every developer is in trouble. Making things look nice isn’t about easy or pretty; it is about an inherent ability of the designer, which most developers don't have art/science. I am sure I can sit with Photoshop and every plugin ever made and not make something that looks as nice as a good designer with MsPaint.

“Java needs to be easy enough for your mother to build her web-based phone list with it. I'm talking Hypercard/Filemaker/Access easy.”… What??? One of the problems is that there is way too much software. My mom needs an online phone list? How do you know my mom and why does she need the list online? I don’t want my mom building software applications. I want her making apple pies (Best I have ever had) and when at work doing her job not mine.

@buffone
I think you are exactly right. My point is just that there is no equivalent of FileMaker/PowerBuilder/Notes/Access for building web applications.

To be fair, there is no particular reason a RAD tool for the web has to be written in Java. It is a time-honored tradition for RAD tools to have enormous proprietary hairballs at the back end.

On the other hand, there is no reason you can't build a RAD tool in Java and make it standard enough that an Eclipse developer can take the output and extend it without the RAD tool.

I agree - mom's in general are better at pie than Hypercard app development. I'll have to find a new analogy ;-)