One Runtime To Bind Them All

Sowbug writes "Here's some interesting Saturday night reading: a critical examination of many of the advertised benefits of .NET's CLR (Common Language Runtime) and the other technologies (MSIL, CLS, CTS) that make it possible. It's written from the perspective of a Java advocate, Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein. "

Comments

Unbiased Articles?

[Scrag]

I have seen several articles on .net in the last week. All of them have been from Java advocates or MS haters. Could we please get some unbiased articles on .net? It is going to be a very important technology in the future, whether you like it or not. It doesn't help anyone to only look at one side of the picture.

Re:Unbiased Articles?

[RedWizzard]

Then it goes on to say that surely the JVM can be extended if this proves to be a selling point for .NET (which is probably true, but it kind of makes you wonder why sun haven't already done it).

Probably because language neutrality is not really that big an advantage anyway. Java is a good enough language so that if you really need to use something else chances are you don't want the JVM anyway. The most common case where you might want to target something else at the JVM is scripting languages which appear to already be quite well supported.

Re:Unbiased Articles?

[sheldon]

Language neutrality is actually quite a substantial advantage. Perhaps not to you, or Java developers...

But to the horde of developers that will be migrating from Visual Studio 6.0 to Visual Studio.NET. I've met quite a few VB developers who are unwilling to give up their syntax yet would love to take advantage of .Net.

It is a very valuable marketing point, and it allows for a very easy transition/upgrade for many developers out there already targetting Windows.

Re:Well, m$ has to do something.

[the eric conspiracy]

Java itself is not any kind of 'true' general standard, sun can do whatever they want to with it.

While Sun can do anything it wants with Java, it is just as much a standard as .NET, complete with specifications and third party implementations.

Now, what makes you think that Microsoft won't do exactly what it wants with .NET? I mean we already have interoperability problems between SOAP implementations. What is going to stop Microsoft from issuing .NET+ or .NET 2002 or whatever? Complete with extensions to the .NET standard (perhaps some even documented) that mean the code that is written for .NET on Windows doesn't run well or at all on .NET for other platforms?

And of course all those fancy development tools (Visual .NET) will require and make full use of these extensions.

Closed standard? Open Standard? I pick door #2

[Jack William Bell]

This point has been made before, but it bears repeating. C# and the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) are ECMA standards! As such Microsoft no longer truly controls them. There is nothing to keep Microsoft from 'embracing and extending' these standards if they do not like the direction they are going. Just as they can with any open standard. Just as you can with any open standard.

MS tried the embrace and extend strategy with Java, remember? And they ran into a huge roadblock. Namely Java is not an open standard. Despite what Sun says in the press releases the standard is not open in the same sense. Sun controls it and Sun can shut down any attempt to create a non-conforming version.

From some points of view this is a good thing. But, although I appreciate any argument that starts with 'We need to avoid incompatible versions.' I also know that Sun has not proven any better than Microsoft as a steward when it comes to keeping the commons clean and competitive. To put it simply; I just don't trust them. And I think there is an equally persuasive argument that competing products evolve faster while products without competition tend towards stagnation. This eco-system analogy appeals to me.

From this point of view let us return to 'embrace and extend'. In a closed standard a single organization controls all progress for that standard, with limited participation from the outside. In an open standard the process is, at least titually, open to outside input and you are more likely to see third-party enhancements absorbed into the standard itself. Furthermore no corporation is going to sue you if you create your own implementation of the standard. Even if it is tweaked to work best on a competing platform. (Can we all say 'Mono'?)

So, the way I look at it, C# and the CLI will drive Sun to improve Java. Third-party implementors will drive the C# and CLI specifications faster than MS would alone. In the end we get better technology. I like better technology. So I win either way.

Besides, I like the design of the CLI a lot. And C# looks like an arguably better language than Java.

Finally, many arguments in the 'One Runtime' article seem a bit weak to me. For example, "... Design-by-Contract, a fundamental strength of Eiffel that .NET does not support." Since when does 'Design By Contract' have to be baked into the underlying runtime to make it work? What is keeping you from implementing any kind of runtime you want on top of the CLS?

Jack William Bell, who likes the idea of coding with mix-n-match programming languages.

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Re:Very nice article.

[wadetemp]

The second paragraph from the article you posted states that "mainstream CPUs are equally fitted to very different languages as they only do the most fundamental, low-level operations, so they cannot be biased towards particular languages." If you agree with that statement, and think it's a crux in the arguement, I'm not sure how you can say you don't agree with the inclusion of "unsafe" modes in the .NET framework. They're part of what makes the framework flexible enough to even come close to supporting "non skinned" languages, and in a speedy method at that.

Yawn . . .

[Pituritus Ani]

1977 - UCSD Pascal P-Code was going to unify computing under one language.

1990 - Visual Basic revolutionized programming by interpreting to P-code and requiring a run-time.

1991 - Java was going to rock our worlds and promised "write once, run anywhere" using an intermediate byte code that looks a lot like P-code.

2002 - Microsoft promises one runtime to which many languages will compile in the megarevolutionary (and some say Orwellian) dot net architecture.

Like it was said in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.

And behind #2 is... Java!

[SuperKendall]

Looks like you picked the right door! Not only do you win a platform supported by a whole industry, but the only truly open standard around! Now THAT bears repeating.

Of course, I'm talking about the Java language. Where else do you get something where the language and VM are controlled by a standards body composed of many companies across many industries, that have to approve all changes made (Sun only controls licencing of the Java trademark)? How about a standard where real everyday people like you and I can propose changes and make comments on proposed standards?

Wait, you were thinking you might get .NET? Odd, I thought they didn't have the full standard submitted to the standards body. And I'm not clear on how I can comment on progressing ECMA standards.

Lastly, what's stopping you from writing everything on top of a raw turning machine? After all, everything you want to do is technically supported...

Check out calling conventions from Eiffel# to C# and then perhaps you'll rethink the usability of cross-language prgramming.

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