As somebody who has worked in the game industry professionally let me try my hand at commenting..
Your thoughts on java being slow are very valid, given that Java is about 20 times slower then the "normal" languages used for big projects, based on real world performance testing that I have seen done. Most professional "shrink-box" titles are programmed in a mix of C/C++, possibly with LAU-like scripting languages if the code base is meant to be around for a while (and it usually is, as code-reuse is big in the industry due to cost cutting, etc). I'm not getting into JIT code generation here, for the record. And Java's garbage collection sucks either way.
That said, the fact remains that library calls, etc make it harder to port to another language easily. The closest (in syntax) I can think of for java would be C#, and even then library calls, includes (usings, imports, etc) would be totally different. I'm sure it could be done, but who would want to?
It really depends on how the code is laid out. Notch has gone on record as saying that he used a pretty standard graphics interface (oGL, I believe?) and if the codes class hierarchy is at least half sane, I'm sure it could be done. that said, it may be better to start out new.
In the end , I don't think Notch is willing to do this. He has also stated publicly that he is sort of married to the fact that he wants it to work in a web browser, and as broken as it is, Java is till the best way to do that (Don't bother talking about MSFT's offerings, they suck from a development and network architecture support pov and greatly increase developments costs with no real benefit unless you have a lot of .Net you have to use, and that not the case here.)
So to answer your question, no it will probably never be changed from Java, and that is what will help the guy who starts his clone fresh as this iteration of ideas keeps expanding, just like it did with MUDs back in the good old days.
1
Your thoughts on java being slow are very valid, given that Java is about 20 times slower then the "normal" languages used for big projects, based on real world performance testing that I have seen done. Most professional "shrink-box" titles are programmed in a mix of C/C++, possibly with LAU-like scripting languages if the code base is meant to be around for a while (and it usually is, as code-reuse is big in the industry due to cost cutting, etc). I'm not getting into JIT code generation here, for the record. And Java's garbage collection sucks either way.
That said, the fact remains that library calls, etc make it harder to port to another language easily. The closest (in syntax) I can think of for java would be C#, and even then library calls, includes (usings, imports, etc) would be totally different. I'm sure it could be done, but who would want to?
It really depends on how the code is laid out. Notch has gone on record as saying that he used a pretty standard graphics interface (oGL, I believe?) and if the codes class hierarchy is at least half sane, I'm sure it could be done. that said, it may be better to start out new.
In the end , I don't think Notch is willing to do this. He has also stated publicly that he is sort of married to the fact that he wants it to work in a web browser, and as broken as it is, Java is till the best way to do that (Don't bother talking about MSFT's offerings, they suck from a development and network architecture support pov and greatly increase developments costs with no real benefit unless you have a lot of .Net you have to use, and that not the case here.)
So to answer your question, no it will probably never be changed from Java, and that is what will help the guy who starts his clone fresh as this iteration of ideas keeps expanding, just like it did with MUDs back in the good old days.