Bruno de Souza, 30, is considered the Java Man. Every year he makes a pilgrimage from Sao Paolo, Brazil, to the JavaOne conference, held this week in San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO -- Among devoted Java programmers, Bruno de Souza is considered the Java Man. He even owns the bragging rights to JavaMan.com.
Every year, De Souza, 30, makes a pilgrimage from Sao Paolo, Brazil, to the JavaOne conference, held this week in San Francisco.
This year De Souza packed light -- just a pair of jeans, a Brazilian flag as a cape and a T-shirt with the Java steaming cup logo. He usually recruits other programmers from his online Java forum, Sociedade de Usuarios JAVA, and at least 30 of them -- all clad in Brazilian flags and Java T-shirts -- are seen and heard in keynote presentations hooting and hollering.
De Souza admits his wife had to talk him out of wearing a Java T-shirt at their wedding and that he even postponed his honeymoon six years ago to attend JavaOne.
"My whole life since 1995 has revolved around Java," he said. "The technology gave us the freedom to do things … I can do servers and smart cards. You have the freedom to choose what you want to do with your career."
For a group of zealous programmers, including De Souza, that choice involves congregating in San Francisco every year to evangelize the merits of Java.
Independent observers have compared the enthusiasm surrounding Java -- a programming language invented by Sun Microsystems -- to a religion and a cult. As one analyst put it, it's "something in between a fervor and a wild west mentality."
Programmers adore Java because it works on top of any operating system and over a multitude of devices, including servers, mobile phones and PCs. The most ardent Java programmers are very much anti-Microsoft because they view the behemoth's software as inaccessible, difficult and full of bugs.
Nathaniel Baughman, a 28-year-old software engineer from North Syracuse, New York, said he spent all his undergraduate and graduate studies writing programs in the C++ language -- a favorite of Microsoft developers. But, he prefers to write in Java code, he said.
"If you have a problem and want to write a piece of software to fix that problem … in C++ you will run into a lot of technical difficulties," Baughman said. "Java almost protects you from tripping yourself up."
Of course, some C++ programmers would disagree with that.
But many Java backers, including Baughman, are irked by what they consider to be Microsoft's arrogance in the software industry. Several engineers at JavaOne complained that Microsoft did not bundle Java with its Windows operating system. In a way, rallying for Java is seen as a fight against an evil empire, one observer said.
"Java is relatively new and has that cachet to it," IDC analyst David Senf said. "So it's going to inspire developers to continue to gather and to support Java parties."
While they don't represent all of Java's 3 million developers, a hard-core group of engineers just can't seem to get enough of the program.
Typically, these geeks go to JavaOne every year, no matter what the trip costs them. They offer and eat up programming tips at in-person and online Java user groups. They pull all-nighters for coding parties.
Edward Gause, an information services supervisor from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, said that he was shocked at how late the classes ran at JavaOne. Some of the technical coding sessions didn't start until 11 p.m. But Gause quickly added that he would attend the classes anyway.
Even though this was Gause's first JavaOne, he also discovered a long-held ritual here: a trip to the Java store to buy anything with the steaming cup logo or the Java mascot, Duke. Gause purchased a $43 black jacket with the steaming cup logo.
Jim Childers, the store's manager, said he typically gets between 6,000 and 7,000 customers over the four-day span of the show. Childers's company, BrandVia, has set up shop at the Moscone Center for the last five years.
Some JavaOne customers will spend between $500 and $600 each on the latest Java gear, he said.
Childers expects this year's turnout to be no different. As of Thursday morning, he had sold five black leather bomber jackets with the Java logo for $325 each. He was down to 24 coffee mugs from a total of 500 on Tuesday. If anything, he said, he expects even more customers this year because the steaming cup logo, he pointed out, was slightly altered from that placed on last year's gear.
"People have noticed," Childers said. "[Java] has quite the cult following."
