Still having my Java Cuppa since '99

While having my cuppa in the rainy cooling Singapore, I reflected on my journey or relationship with Java (not the brew) but the programming language.

I first started learning it when I was in Uni and it was my first programming module. It is not my first programming language but my first object oriented language and to Java itself. I had not been doing programming for a couple of years before I started uni, so learning the OO concepts and Java language was a daunting task.

I put lots of effort and learning from my classmates and doing practices till I finally had a good grasp of the language. I became good at it and I began to explore lots of the different capabilities (or lack of) of the Java languages and its packages. During the course, Java was a second language to me, as good as my spoken language.

My honors thesis involved developing cryptographic library for J2ME (MicroEdition) running on Palm IV devices. I got deeper and not only writing Java program but now rebuilding the virtual machine for small devices. I loved it and poured a year of my life working it out and achieving a very good result and reviews from my supervisors and assessors.

In one of my earlier job, I was hired at A*Star Singapore's Java Wireless Competency Center and this was due primarily the work I did for my honours and my deep competency on Java.

Moving ahead, I developed tools and IDE plugins for Java development in my early days in Oracle which gave me opportunities to run labs and sessions at Oracle Open World and many of my projects were implemented using this language. Many years went by and I am always close to the language itself. Although, I picked other languages along the way, Java is still a language that I am most comfortable with despite its many evolution.

Coming to a complete circle, now I find myself working in the Java Platform Group - the very group that is responsible for the Java language. While this wasn't something I anticipated a year ago, things happened and I found this opportunity to contribute to the Java language and community.

I am very excited with this challenge and there are many things that I could contribute to move the language forward. Java has definitely moved a lot and changes are made to be inline with the current trend in programming languages. I never doubt the importance of Java as it still runs in many data centers around the world and each one of us are unwittingly making use of services built on it.

My love affair with Java has been rekindled, not only that I am on the sidelines using it. I will be part of the team that is going to shape its future. This is definitely not the end of my Java journey but we are creating new chapter(s) together and I look forward to see how far I am going with my Java love affair.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to sip my brew and enjoy the cool air on a nice Deepavali 2019 holiday before my footie game.