"Father of Java" Receives Prestigious Canadian Honor

Sun VP & Fellow James Gosling, the "Father of Java," pictured here talking with Jeremy Geelan on SYS-CON.TV at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, has just been named as a member of the Order of Canada, which recognizes 'outstanding lifetime achievement and contributions to society and the country' by Canadians from all walks of life.

During the Waldorf interview, Gosling mentioned that one of the key differentiators between Pascal and Java is that computer science students who learn Java at university can go out into the working world and use it to hold down a job. Those who study Pascal, on the other hand, don't have that advantage.
"Unlike Pascal, [Java] has actually got a career path that follows on from what you learn," said Gosling. In other words, you can earn your living from it.
Java is now used "very heavily" by universities as the first programming language that people are taught, he continued, and Sun does a great deal of work with the university sector, in particular with regard to tooling.
"The hi-tech world has pretty much recovered from the dot-com boom..." Gosling noted, and Java has recovered right along with it:

"Java fits into everything - that's ended up being the inevitable consequence of the network. There was a time when we build gizmos and they sat by themselves. These days the gizmos are talking to each other. The cellphones are talking to the back-ends, PDAs are talking to everything, desktops are talking to everything ... people are doing on-board electronics for cars and airplanes and all the rest of it."

"And all these things are talking to each other, so having an intellectual underpinning for all of this stuff that spans it is a big piece of what makes it all work."

"Trying to make sure that you can build things so that you really can integrate this universe and that universe and the other universe across technological and national bundaries ... is very entertaining."

View the SYS-CON.TV Exclusive interview in full: James Gosling and Jeremy Geelan in New York City