JetBrains elected to the JCP Executive Committee

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Recently the Java Community Process had a Special Election to fill the two vacant ratified seats on the Executive Committee (EC). JetBrains was honoured to be elected, and will serve on the Executive Committee until 2018.

The Java Community Process is the mechanism for developing specifications for Java. Java Specification Requests (which may cover Java EE specs, for example, or define what’s going to be in the next version of Java) describe the standards for new (or sometimes existing) functionality, and the JSRs have to pass through a series of gateways before they are finally approved and become an official part of the Java landscape. At each of these gateways, the Executive Committee members vote on whether they should progress, and may give feedback on changes that need to be made to the spec. This is a really important part of making sure that official parts of the language have been looked at by the wider community (EC members represent vendors, user groups and individuals) before being dropped onto developers.

The process of the Executive Committee approving Java Specification Requests (JSRs) has recently been in the news after the unusual “no” vote on Jigsaw’s public review. JetBrains joined the EC too late to vote on that first round, but this interesting situation has brought a lot of visibility to the whole process, and we’re excited to be part of it.

We believe it’s important for JetBrains to be on the JCP EC. We can pass on feedback from users like you to those who create the specifications for the language. Where you have frustrations or questions, we can use those to push the Java platform in a direction that makes your life easier. It also means we have a clear view of upcoming changes in the language and the common frameworks we use, and we’ll do what we always do – evolve our tools inline with these changes.

The JetBrains representatives on the Executive Committee are Anna Kozlova and me, Trisha Gee. I’ve a bit of experience with the EC from when I was in the JCP working group for the London Java Community, and I’m looking forward to being involved again. We’re not the only JetBrains people who get to have a say, we’ve formed a working group of people inside JetBrains who share an interest in the specifications that are coming and in the future of Java, so our votes will represent diverse opinions and voices. Most importantly, we hope to represent you, the users, on the JCP EC.