James Gosling, Father of Java, Retires: The Career Paths of Programming Language Creators - JVM Weekly vol. 91

Today, we will once again touch on a topic related to the careers of "the giants" of our industry.

Jul 11, 2024

Let's start with the most important announcement: Last week, James Gosling announced on LinkedIn that he is retiring.

James Gosling, known as the "father of Java," created this programming language in 1995 while working for Sun Microsystems, where he worked for 26 years, to become CTO of Client Software Group inside the company. After Sun, he joined Google briefly in 2011 as a software engineer (that’s what I call the proper implementation of The Pendulum!) before becoming the Chief Software Architect at Liquid Robotics, where he worked on ocean-going robots and cloud data solutions until 2017. Concurrently, he served on the board of directors for DIRTT Environmental Solutions from 2003 to 2017.

In 2017, he joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a Distinguished Engineer, focusing on IoT projects and launching AWS Greengrass, until his retirement in July 2024. After leaving Sun Microsystems, Gosling worked at various tech companies, including Google and Liquid Robotics, where he dealt with autonomous ocean systems. In 2017, he joined Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he worked as a Distinguished Engineer on cloud computing projects, particularly in the areas of IoT and automation.

Best wishes, James. Enjoy your retirement!

PS: Back when Lex Friedman still talked to technologists instead of Ivanka Trump (though I appreciate the guy for having such a wide range of guests), he once interviewed James Gosling. It was actually the first episode of his podcast that I listened to. I highly recommend the conversation:

And here, I could end it, but I have to admit, what fascinates me most in such announcements are the fates of people who laid the foundation of our industry. It's not that old, so many titans on whose shoulders we stand are still professionally active. That’s why I started wondering what other language creators have been up to over the years. And since this research turned out to be quite interesting, I decided to dedicate today's edition to this topic.

Guido van Rossum

Let's start with Python. Guido van Rossum, its creator, developed this language in 1991 at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam. The goal of Python was to create a programming language that would be easy to learn and use for academics. After leaving CWI, van Rossum worked at various organizations, including Zope Corporation, Google, where he worked on App Engine, and Dropbox, where he helped integrate Python into their infrastructure. Although he announced his retirement in 2018, in 2020 he joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer, continuing to work on the development of Python and supporting the open-source community. So maybe James will return to the industry someday (which I wish him only if he has the opportunity to work on a mega interesting project).

Suppose you're curious to learn more, just like with James Gosling. In that case (once again), I recommend Lex Friedman’s podcast, where he talks with Guido for over three hours about implementation decisions in Python and his broader view of the entire industry.

Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup created the C++ language in 1983 while working at Bell Labs. His goal was to combine the efficiency of the C language with the benefits of object-oriented programming, which made C++ one of the most important languages, especially used in high-performance systems such as computer games, operating systems, and financial software. After leaving Bell Labs, Stroustrup continued his academic career as a professor at Texas A&M University and conducted research at Morgan Stanley. He is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University, where he continues to develop his concepts regarding programming and programming languages, publishing numerous books and scientific articles. He is also still involved in the development of C++; his latest publication on the topic is from April 2024.

And of course, I have another Lex Friedman podcast for you, where he talks with Bjarne:

Dennis Ritchie

Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of the C language and the Unix operating system, developed these technologies in the 1970s at Bell Labs along with Ken Thompson. The C language became the foundation for many modern programming languages, such as C++, C#, and Java, and Unix became the base for many modern operating systems, including Linux and macOS. Ritchie spent most of his career at Bell Labs, where he contributed to numerous groundbreaking research and technology developments. His work had a fundamental impact on the development of computer science and software engineering.

He passed away in 2011, leaving behind a huge legacy in the field of computer science, for which he was posthumously honored with numerous awards.

Unfortunately, I found just a short interview with Dennis, as he left us before the whole podcast craziness:

Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson, co-creator of the Unix operating system and the B programming language, which was the direct predecessor of C, worked at Bell Labs, where together with the aforementioned Dennis Ritchie, he created Unix in 1969. Unix became the foundation for many operating systems and influenced the development of modern computer science.

I wish there was a book in the style of Chip War about the above two companies. Working there must have been an incredibly satisfying experience.

However, his achievements do not end there. After leaving Bell Labs, Thompson joined Google, where he worked with Robert Griesemer and Rob Pike on Go, which was designed for efficiency and simplicity, making it popular among programmers worldwide.

Thompson is currently enjoying a well-deserved retirement but remains active in the tech community and often attends conferences and meetings related to software development.

He has his own feature film-length interview published on Computer History Museum YouTube Channel:

Brendan Eich

Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript language, developed this language in 1995 while working for Netscape Communications Corporation. As we all probably know, JavaScript became a key language in web development, enabling dynamic and interactive user interfaces.

After Netscape, Eich co-founded the Mozilla Foundation and worked on developing the Firefox browser, which became one of the most popular web browsers in the world and broke Microsoft's monopoly in this regard.

In 2014, he founded Brave Software, where as CEO he developed the Brave browser, focusing on user privacy and security on the Internet. Brave is known for introducing an innovative approach to online advertising, offering users the opportunity to earn money by watching ads using the cryptocurrency BAT (Basic Attention Token).

Here is another Lex Friedman interview:

Niklaus Wirth

Niklaus Wirth, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the creator of the Pascal language, which was introduced in 1970. Coming from an academic background, Pascal was designed as an educational language to help students understand the principles of structured programming. In later years, Wirth also developed languages such as Modula-2 and Oberon. He was associated with his department for his entire life.

Niklaus Wirth unfortunately passed away on January 1, 2024, a month before his 90th birthday. Here you will find the last interview I found:

Anders Hejlsberg

Anders Hejlsberg is the creator of the C# language, which was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 (the context of its creation and the many legends surrounding it also deserve a book – maybe someday). Hejlsberg previously worked on the Turbo Pascal and Delphi languages at Borland. C# was designed as a modern, object-oriented programming language for the .NET platform, combining features of languages like C++ and Java.

This language quickly became one of the most important tools in the Microsoft ecosystem, used to create desktop, web, and mobile applications (Adam Gordon Bell's latest podcast episode CoRecursive slightly touches on this story, presenting the creation of PowerShell). Hejlsberg continues to work at Microsoft, developing C# and .NET.

And here is the interview:

Rasmus Lerdorf

Rasmus Lerdorf is the creator of PHP, which was introduced in 1995 as simple CGI scripts to track visits on his personal website. PHP (originally stood for Personal Home Page, today Hypertext Preprocessor) quickly evolved into a full-fledged programming language for creating dynamic web pages.

r/ProgrammerHumor - phpGonnaDieWhenWeGetFusionPower — His legacy will be a carbon footprint of all the PHP memes.

Lerdorf continued working on PHP and worked at several commercial companies such as Yahoo! (2002-2009) and Etsy (where he works today as a Distinguished Engineer), dealing with the scalability and performance of web systems.

And here Rasmus talking about the history of PHP:

PS: PHP was my first language ever, thank you Rasmus for introducing me to the world of programming ❤️. You are partially the reason I’m even writing it.

I hate you. One day I will learn where you live.

Alright, so since we've covered the most well-known programming languages (though the list will probably still be incomplete for many), it's time to finally look at those on the JVM.

Martin Odersky

Martin Odersky is the creator of Scala, which was introduced to the world in 2003. Odersky, a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, developed Scala as a language that combines object-oriented and functional programming features, running on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Scala quickly gained popularity, especially among tech companies like Twitter and LinkedIn, thanks to its flexibility and efficiency.

Odersky co-founded Lightbend (initially known as Typesafe), a company that has significantly contributed to the development of the Scala ecosystem and frameworks such as Akka. Currently, the development of Scala is a collaborative effort between EPFL (university), the Scala Center (an NGO), Lightbend, and VirtusLab—the company where I currently work. We have been able to cooperate closely with Odersky himself.

I had the opportunity to meet Martin personally, and he's a very nice guy. When I see a picture of him posing with my plush seal (don’t ask, but she has Instagram), it always warms my heart.

Odersky currently continues his academic work and researches programming languages.

Rich Hickey

Rich Hickey is the creator of the Clojure language, which was published in 2007. Clojure is a functional programming language based on Lisp, running on the JVM, known for its simple and elegant approach to concurrency problems. Clojure became popular among programmers thanks to its "code as data" philosophy and support for concurrent programming.

Before creating Clojure, Rich Hickey worked as an independent consultant and software developer. In 2014, he founded Cognitect, which supports the development of Clojure and its ecosystem and develops its own product – the Datomic database. Cognitect was acquired by Nubank, a leading Brazilian fintech company, in 2020, and Hickey became a Distinguished Engineer at the company. In August 2023, he retired.

Through the years, he was a regular guest on Cognitect Podcast.

Hickey remains an active member of the programming community and often participates in tech conferences, sharing his thoughts on programming. His Hammock-Oriented Design talk is a classic that I recommend to everyone.

Andrey Breslav

Andrey Breslav is one of the main creators of Kotlin, which was developed by JetBrains and released in 2011. Breslav joined JetBrains in June 2010, where he served as the lead designer of the language for 10 years.

From 2017 to 2020, Breslav served as the President of the Kotlin Foundation, an organization aimed at promoting and supporting the development of Kotlin and its community.

In December 2020, Breslav left JetBrains, and his role was taken over by Roman Elizarov.

In July 2017, Breslav co-founded the platform Alter, which focuses on mental health. This company aims to provide mental support to users through modern technologies.

Last month, we got a plot twist that I was going to mention the next time I wrote about Kotlin - the opportunity came sooner than expected. In June 2024, Breslav returned to JetBrains, where he took on the role of Principal Manager. His role will be to support CEO Kirill Skrygan in managing the company's operations.

Here, you will find Andrey Breslav talking about history of Kotlin:

As you can see, we have a mix of very different careers here. Some have dedicated their careers to the academic environment, others continued their engineering careers, and we even have a few examples of CEOs/CTOs. I have to admit, the whole thing was a very interesting research project, and I would gladly repeat this experiment in a few years.

And yes, the list could probably be even longer, so if your favorite language is not listed here - please don't hold it against me.

I still wonder how fascinating it must have been to work with James Gosling on the same team.