If you have not watched the “Java Story” from Cult.Repo, then get on over to YouTube and give it a watch. It is an extremely well produced story of the 31 year old language that became the backbone of the Internet and every non-fruit based phone.

It was an absolute joy to see so many familiar faces tell their part of the story, though many were missing. I appreciate the sheer logistics of pulling this together meant hard editorial decisions had to be made, but there was definitely some drama glossed-over/missed (J2ME/Android, Applets, Swing, C#, Computer is the Network to name a few).

I was part of the Java Servlet world before I started writing for JDJ (I remember James Davidson and Jason Hunter touring me around Fry’s when I flew over from Scotland to the Bay Area – it was like Willy Wonka for me). I also had the honor of being Editor-in-Chief of Java Developers Journal (JDJ) magazine for many of its years, which at its hey day was over 200,000 printed copies each month, available in your local Barnes and Noble.

The documentary brought back lots of memories, especially when I seen JDJ get flashed up and I screamed when I spotted my name!

JavaOne was always a highlight in the calendar, taking over both Moscone Centers, including all the neighboring hotels, as speakers held sessions everywhere. I pretty much attended, with my SYS-CON friends, every single one before OracleWorld kicked in, and spoke at many of them on the wonders of Java Servlets. I shared a hotel room with Jeremy Geelan our Editorial Producer/Director (sadly no longer with us and someone whom I learned a lot from) each year, which was fine, since Jeremy never slept, so I pretty much had the room to myself the whole time.

I interviewed everyone over the years, including James Gosling a number of times. He was/is a genuinely lovely big man. I remember one JavaOne he set the cat amongst the pigeons by declaring no one needs to use EJB’s – Servlets is all you need. This was news – the man himself shitting on J2EE!

Unfortunately though, phones in camera’s weren’t really that great back then, so I offer up some real grainy photos of those years.

Java was a defining moment in my career and I thank it for the people I met, life long friendships forged and the opportunities it opened up for me and I was honored to be one of the early Java Champion’s. The documentary was a nice reminder of the journey so far.

Well worth the watch, and frankly, I think deserves a Netflix series in the future as some of the drama with Sun/Microsoft, then Oracle/Google needs telling.