Java(TM) Technology Evangelists: Max Goff

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://java.sun.com/features/2000/04/max.goff.html

An Interview with Max Goff

Max Goff

by Janice Heiss, April 19, 2000

We normally think of evangelists as folks who seek to convert the masses to their religious beliefs, and in so doing, save their souls, all the while serving truth, goodness and God. Java^TM technology evangelists are also in the business of conversion and, yes, there is a religious component to their mission, if religion has to do with our fundamental values and sense of how life should be lived. In this new series, we talk to Java technology evangelists who are casting their own creative light on the meaning of the technology.

Here we interview Max Goff, a technology evangelist for Sun Microsystems. Goff grew up in Utah, became a developer, worked for Unisys and Amdahl, got an MBA from the University of San Francisco, and has been at Sun for over six years. He was chairperson of the X/Open Kernel working group during the heyday of that consortium and a UNIX^® developer for years before his encounter with Java technology set him on a new course. When he is not out evangelizing for Java technology, he enjoys developing his talents as an actor, and currently is making a film with friends.

Can you describe the moment when your love affair with the Java platform began?

It was an epiphany. It was 1995, and I was reading some specs for the Java platform, when suddenly it dawned on me that there was real power here. I remember thinking, "This is really something!" A project called JMAPI, the Java Management API, had begun, and I asked to be transferred to it. I started out as a program manager and soon became an evangelist.

"I see a truth in the Java^TM platform -- a natural, object-oriented-ness in the syntax of the language that is, for lack of a better word, beautiful."

Java technology has a kind of purity, a level of truth and beauty that is worth talking about, working for, and striving to perfect. When I look at the Java programming language and the syntax it offers the human mind, I see a truth -- a natural, object-oriented-ness built into the syntax that is, for lack of a better word, beautiful. When I first encountered the Java platform, I had the classic "ah ha" experience. It pulled together a lot of different things to create a superior platform that was easy to get your head around -- and did it in a platform-neutral way. That was its beauty.

Java technology leveled the playing field and offered wonderful opportunities for software development shops, which in turn drives other things. It made it easier to prototype and turn things around, which gives businesses a strategic advantage. The marriage of a C++-like syntax, compact byte code, and a platform-neutral approach made the Java platform ideal for Internet-based applications, which has been the promise of the net since its inception. Java technology is a key component in realizing that vast potential.

What are the greatest misconceptions people have about Java technology?

There're two. First, some people still think that it has some serious performance problems. That's become a non-issue. Java technology performs very well now.

Second, a number of people still think that proprietary software will inevitably win and completely dominate the market. But the market in information technology can turn on a dime, and the industry could wipe out proprietary solutions tomorrow.

Since you brought it up, what do you expect to happen in the competition between Java technology and proprietary software?

I believe Java technology will win. This is a war for the hearts and souls of developers, and ultimately people throughout the world. A lot is at stake. How do you choose to do business? What kind of platform do you use? What's proprietary? What's open? Software is one of the big drivers of this booming economy, and Java technology allows you to write code faster and more safely.

"...using the right software is an important part of human evolution. And Java^TM technology provides the right software."

Java technology eliminates a whole level of security considerations. It provides a software platform in which developers can depend on their code. We can produce components with Java technology. You don't have errant pointers going awry with Java platform. You don't have the problem of some other piece of code inadvertently messing with your memory space, as is the case with other approaches. With Java technology we finally have a viable software platform that can fulfill the promise of component-based architectures -- and amazingly, it's also platform-independent.

I really think that software offers hope for humanity -- that is the one message I would like to give to developers. The vehicle by which the future of Java technology will be realized is through the Java Community Process^SM. It is up to the community that has embraced Java technology to ultimately determine what happens.

Around 1995, productivity started to take off in the US. That was the time when the idea of pervasive computing began to take hold. Sun has been right from day one -- The Network Is The Computer^TM. We had to get the network out there. And Metcalfe's law -- the value of the network is a function of the size of the network -- comes into play here. Networks become more valuable through increased growth and productivity.

Do you have any comments on the importance of scalability?

Java technology's ability to scale enables you to go to platforms that are still being determined, so it has a built-in capacity for growth. We are going off the desktop; we're going wireless and we're going to have personal area networks. The future is not in the desktop -- it's in webtop, phonetop, belttop, shoetop, everytop. It's pervasive. And Java technology is just right for these things.

The winners in the technology horse race are going to be those who make the right bets on technology. People have to look at the big picture, look at all the influences. I think inevitably, people will come to Java technology if they look at the big picture. Change is constantly accelerating. If you are in business, no matter which business, you will be affected by the Internet.

Java technology addresses all the major influences today; global competition in an information-based world has clear implications for businesses and the software that enables them. All businesses must be nimble, lean, globally aware and fully prepared to eat and be eaten when it comes to the interfaces they expose to the world. The Java platform addresses these influences as does no other. The timing was right for Java technology to take off with the commercial advent of the Internet. It is winning the day because it is the right idea at the right time.

What is your vision for the future?

Over the next ten years we will experience a lot more augmented reality. Augmented reality is reality enhanced by network-based digital technology. We will have Internet-based wearable appliances. The Terminator, a movie with Arnold Schwarzennegger, gives you a sense of how a machine sees the world. You can digitally project things onto reality so that the reality you perceive is augmented by some digital feed and altered in the process. It could be useful when driving a bus, or delivering mail, or building a house. When you're in school, you could have your professor's lecture notes in front of you through a wearable Internet appliance. The wireless broadband will help us see augmented reality.

"I really think that software offers hope for humanity -- that is the one message I would like to give to developers."

On a more mundane level, I was recently submitting something I'd written for a copyright. I couldn't wait the standard six weeks for a response from the copyright office, so I needed to have the matter expedited through an agency in Washington, D.C. As I was standing in line down at Fed Ex, ready to ship my document and pay for the transaction with my credit card, it dawned on me that all the electronic events that would be triggered by my activities -- the credit card transaction, the Fed Ex tracking database update, the notification of events as they progress through the delivery cycle, the information contained in the document itself as well as the update to the federal copyright database -- could take place digitally from my home. These are, after all, digital transactions. Why couldn't I have simply submitted an electronic copy of my document directly to the copyright office?

We are not there yet, but with enablers like Java technology, one day we will be. When electricity came along and they first wired up the home, 90% of the stuff that you could use it for had not yet been invented. All we had were lightbulbs. Now, we have microwave ovens, TV sets, computers, CD players, and all these other things that consume electricity. All of these could have worked via electricity 100 years ago. It just took awhile for these things to be invented for electricity to be made more useful. Similarly, you have to have the basic infrastructure to make use of software. It could be fiber optic, broadband, wireless, who knows?

What is the difference between an evangelist and a salesperson?

There's one big difference. Whatever a salesperson may or may not believe about their product, you can be sure that an evangelist really believes everything he or she says. Growing up in the high-tech world, it was easy for me to become cynical, and during my years with Sun, I had an awakening. The wake-up call was Java^TM technology. When I encountered it for the first time, along with the Internet, I got it. I saw vast potential there, and luckily, I happened to be in the right company.

I understand you have a spiritual perspective on technology. Can you comment on that?

Yes, I do. A Jesuit priest named Teilhard de Chardin wrote a book called The Phenomenon of Man and talked about how the point of life is to become infinitely intelligent -- when we reach what he called the Omega point. If you look at Moore's law, you see computing growing increasingly faster and more intelligent, and I suppose eventually it could reach some sort of infinite intelligence, which would be something like God.

An interesting movie, The Matrix, took as its premise the idea that the world we live in is a simulation inside some kind of a computer. Given an infinite number of computing cycles, all realities are possible, "in simulation," so to speak. I think we are spiritual creatures having a human experience, and I think that what we are doing in software is fairly sacred. I think there is a possibility we could be bootstrapping God here. This notion of God is really a future event that we are being pulled toward. Software is a mechanism, the next step in human evolution. I think of software as a building block of evolution. So using the right software is an important part of human evolution. And Java technology provides the right software.

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