Pre-conj Prep: Brian Goetz
Talk: Keynote
Background
Brian Goetz's talk at the conj is the keynote, which doesn't have a description (which is common with keynotes). I would only be guessing if I said what the talk was about. But here are the things that I wouldn't be surprised to hear in a keynote by the Java Language Architect at a Clojure conference:
- Java Lambdas (their design and implementation)
- Future features of Java/JVM (that they're working on now)
- JVM and dynamic languages like Clojure
- How Java will approach concurrency
Whatever he talks about, it will be important.
Why it matters
Rich Hickey made the decision to design Clojure as a hosted language. Clojure is tied to the JVM. Also, JVM languages are gaining popularity, and they obviously must play a part in Oracle's strategy. This talk has the potential to set the tone for Java's interaction with Clojure in the future.
About Brian Goetz
Brian Goetz is quite an important figure in the Java world. He's the Java Language Architect at Oracle (the company that produces Java). He was instrumental in bringing lambdas to Java 8. The book he wrote, Java Concurrency in Practice is one of the books on Rich Hickey's reading list.
He's been giving a talk recently called Lambda: A Peek Under the Hood about the design decisions and how they are finally implemented in Java Bytecode.