Book excerpt: Bruce Tate, author of the Jolt Award-winning Better, Faster, Lighter Java has an intriguing notion about the future of Java, and it's causing some agitation among Java developers. Bruce believes Java is abandoning its base, and conditions are ripe for an alternative to emerge. In Beyond Java, Bruce chronicles the rise of the most successful language of all time, and then lays out, in painstaking detail, the compromises the founders had to make to establish success. Then, he describes the characteristics of likely successors to Java. He builds to a rapid and heady climax, presenting alternative languages and frameworks with productivity and innovation unmatched in Java. He closes with an evaluation of the most popular and important programming languages, and their future role in a world beyond Java. If you are agree with the book's premise--that Java's reign is coming to an end--then this book will help you start to build your skills accordingly. You can download some of the frameworks discussed and learn a few new languages. This book will teach you what a new language needs to succeed, so when things do change, you'll be more prepared. And even if you think Java is here to stay, you can use the best techniques from frameworks introduced in this book to improve what you're doing in Java today.