It’s still unreal to me that I’m writing this, but here it is. After over 22 years at Oracle (13 at Sun), I’m moving on to another company. In my time at Oracle, I have had a chance to help shape technologies that have had a positive impact on our industry and lives.

I’m not into bragging, humble or otherwise, but I do want to call out a few projects with which I am especially thankful to have been involved. I am not going to name names for fear of leaving someone out, but I am deeply thankful for all my friends who have helped me over the years.

Anything to do with JCP

I’m very glad for my chance to contribute to and validate the Java Community Process (JCP) as a demonstrably successful way to allow a broad spectrum of contributors to practically influence the Java they use in their own jobs. Oracle practices a culture of diversity, and this is one area where the practice was apparent.

The most rewarding part of my career so far was working on JSF as part of the JCP. The technology we built, and the community we built around it, is very special. There have been many highpoints but one that sticks out for me personally was the gathering at my house after the JSFSummit in December 2008 in Orlando.

There are several other JCP specs that I’ve had the chance to work on, including Servlet and Bean Validation. Those have been very rewarding as well.

Conference Speaking

I had my first taste of conference speaking at JavaOne 2002, and my first keynote opportunity in 2005. Since then I’ve been very blessed to continue speaking.

Book Opportunities

I’m very grateful for the chance to co-author several books about Java technologies. Those opportunities were possible thanks to the awesome community around Java.

NullPointers

If you’ve ever seen my Rockstar talk, you know about my fondness for Buckaroo Banzai and his part-time rockstar ways. Having a chance to act that out during some fun times at JavaOne, GoTo, and DevNexus was the fulfillment of a career dream.

Netscape 6 and OJI

Back in the heady days of the Sun-Netscape-AOL Alliance, I was part of a small group of people from Sun that went into the client side of that deal.

AOL and Sun together will develop the next version of Netscape’s Navigator and Communicator software clients and AOL will use Java in its e-commerce offerings, the company said.”

This gave me a first hand look at the birth of JavaScript and the management decisions around Java in the browser that eventually lead to the rise and fall of Applet, JavaFX, and even Java on the desktop.

Creating Opportunities

Finally, I’m very thankful to work on technologies that create opportunities for others to create things. Those of us who work on programming platforms can honestly say that we allow individuals and entrepeneurs to create their own businesses (often employing many people, sometimes paying a very good wage) that create solutions for their customers. This position in at a lower-level of the value chain is a great place to be.

Oracle was and is a great place to work, and they have trusted me to contribute in the above areas and several others. In return, I have deep trust in my management chain at Oracle. I have nothing but good things to say about working there.