Level: Introductory

Ted Neward (ted@tedneward.com), Principal, Neward & Associates

27 May 2008

With the recent reports of Java™'s imminent demise, you're probably wondering if it's time to leave the platform behind for greener pastures. Before you make a decision, step back and examine the Java ecosystem, along with that of its competitors, to see if the rumors have any substance. It's time, in other words, to have a State of the Java Union address, holding neither pride nor prejudice in the evaluation of the platform.

Students of history may recall the predictions of Thomas Malthus, who wrote that mankind's upward trend in population could no longer be supported by the agricultural system that itself supports the masses of men and women that form civilization, and that a swing the other way, typically attributed to be a major plague or other natural disaster, was imminent and unavoidable. "Population," he wrote, "when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind."

Thomas Malthus published his "Essay on the Principle of Population" (see Resources) in June 1798. We have been waiting for his "Malthusian check" on population growth ever since.

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