"MS Killed Java" (on the Client) JL Founder

jgeelan writes "In a commentary titled "Microsoft Killed Java" the founder of JavaLobby, Rick Ross, revisits the 'death' of Java on the client. "Five years ago, almost to the day," Ross declares, "Microsoft shipped IE4 with a JVM that was intentionally engineered to provide leverage to corrupt and pollute Java compatibility standards." According to an Associated Press report, Microsoft Corp has until only October 4 to respond to Sun Microsystems' request for a federal court injunction requiring Microsoft to integrate Java into Windows."

Comments

Re:I made a new language

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the web site for OJ? "http:////////" ?

Get the facts straight....

[Lxy]

Sun didn't help. For years they complained that Microsoft was implementing Java without proper licensing, and wiping the courtroom floor with MS. Then MS raised their middle finger at Sun and told them where to go today, and removed Java completely. Then Sun let them use the broken client from several years ago in IE5.5 SP2 and IE6.0 as some silly settlement. Now, Sun is whining that MS isn't using their newest client. Yes, I'm sure MS tried to re-invent Java (J++ or whatever they call it now), but remember the facts, Sun was a huge help is screwing themselves over.

Re:Get the facts straight....

[Exedore]

Not to mention Sun childishly refusing to submit Java to standards bodies so they could maintain full control of the language. Here's a hint, Sun: it's either proprietary, or it's a standard. Pick one.

The whole MS/Sun Java fight is little more than two children fighting over a toy and smashing the toy in the process. This works out okay for MS, cuz they have a lot more toys in their box than Sun does. They'll just go play with .net for awhile while Sun sobs and whines in a corner.

Missed the point

[Bodrius]

The typical argument for "MS Killed Java" is not that Java died because it was not included in Windows, but rather because it was included in a crippled way that misrepresented the language.

It would be the equivalent of Microsoft giving away a Linux distribution "MS Linux" that crashes often, doesn't run most of the GNU programs (gcc included), has a different set of C libraries with their own quirks, and uses a really old version of Gnome as a fixed, non-configurable GUI.

Then everyone would say "I tried Linux, it came with Windows, but it sucks" and it would take a lengthy, unwanted explanation to let them know that their "free Linux" was crippled. Even then most will never try it again.

It's not clear that MS killed Java on the client. In my opinion, Java was not ready for the client and therefore it killed itself with the Applet hype.

But that doesn't mean shooting a man dying of cancer is not a crime.

Java Died?

[laserjet]

This sucks that Java has died. I just finished up my first week of a Java programming course. And, now, I find out that I am learning a dead language?

When will it end?
(sarcasm skills required for reading this comment)

Re:Okay... and...?

[GusherJizmac]

Java is not even cold on the client, must less dead. There are TONS of line of business applications written in Java that are used on a daily basis. The web isn't everything. Just because you don't see Java Applets doesn't mean Java on the desktop is dead. Do a little research first.

Java has always sucked on the client side

[alienmole]

I'm a guru-level Microsoft-basher, but the fact that Java sucked for the development of GUI apps was not Microsoft's fault. Including pure Java in IE probably wouldn't have done much to change that - the embedding of Java in browsers was always a Frankenstein's monster kind of deal, anyway, and had little to do with the development of real Java apps.

Java still sucks for GUI development today. I use it heavily for server-side development, and I've worked with plenty of Java UIs. The only acceptable Java UI system I've ever seen is IBM's SWT framework, as used in Eclipse. Swing UIs are borderline at best, and AWT isn't even worth discussing. In Sun's defense, creating a decent fully cross-platform UI (without depending on native widgets) is a tough problem. SWT's use of native widgets makes a whole lot more sense - Sun should take note.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Microsoft did everything in its monopoly power to crush Java. Abandoning Visual J++ and then insulting their userbase with J# and "Jump to .NET" showed that when it comes to crushing the competition, even Microsoft's own customers better not get in the way.

HTML killed Java

[zero_offset]

Java has never delivered on it's client-side promises, and it never MADE any server-side promises, it's just that the server gives the programmers enough control that the "write once / run anywhere" myth doesn't bite them in the ass and nobody cares about how difficult it is to build a decent UI in Java.

Java on the client was mainly killed by plain old HTML and round-trip processing (CGI, ASP, forms, etc), which proved far superior for quickly and easily building decent, usable UIs, and which downloaded to and rendered on end-user machines much more quickly.

The really stupid thing is that Microsoft was probably Sun's best chance for keeping Java alive on the client. MS had the fastest JVM around for a LONG time, and they had the most bug-free JVM for a long time. (I wrote Java apps for a number of years and had to constantly test on about a dozen JVM/JITs, I even recall the first Sun Java event where Sun people were praising and recommending the Microsoft JVM.)

Microsoft probably could have killed Java, and it's reasonable to assume they thought about it -- although I personally disagree that J++ was an actual attempt to do so (it was a kick-ass environment, and I produced vast amounts of full-compatible code with it) -- but the simple fact is they didn't have to, because Java never really got going on the client. Java lives on in the server-side world as a kind of VB-for-people-who-hate-Microsoft, and that's about it, but MS didn't kill it.

Sun killed Java on the client

[g4dget]

Java was supposed to be a small, open platform for writing clients that are delivered through the web browser. Sun messed up on all of that: Java mushroomed to a size of many megabytes, its original toolkit was horrible, its original runtime was slow, its graphics support was lousy, and Sun renegged on their promise to make Java an international standard. Java also had some really serious design problems. And Sun was stupid by explicitly tweaking and taunting Microsoft.

Look at Flash and its success in comparison: Macromedia positioned it as harmless eye candy (so it didn't catch Microsoft's attention), didn't promise much of anything, had great graphics and animation support, and provided great authoring tools. Flash came in under the radar screen and didn't look like like a threat to Microsoft, and it picked a market and stuck to it (eye candy).

Sun could have succeeded with Java: they should have fixed severe technical problems with Java earlier and standardized it through a standards body. Sun should also have focussed on keeping Java small and on the client. Microsoft would likely have supported standard Java and added lots of proprietary libraries--just like what Apple is doing with Java, for example.

Today, Java is still a pretty decent programming environment with a very efficient runtime and capable libraries. I'd still recommend using it for many kinds of commercial applications. Java will likely continue to be a big deal for server side programming. For lightweight clients, Flash will continue to make inroads. For widespread adoption by the open source community, Java missed its window of opportunity for the most part--Sun's policies still don't make it a good platform.

But what Java is today is Sun's responsibility, not Microsoft's or anybody else. Companies like Macromedia and Adobe have shown that you can compete with Microsoft and that you can ship formats and software that cuts into Microsoft's markets. But if a company behaves as stupidly as Sun did, they will fail. And the fact that Sun has so thoroughly failed with their promises towards the open source community and has failed to keep Java suitable for its original purpose also means that I don't have that much sympathy for them.

Netscape fucked it up worse.

[autopr0n]

Actually, I think Netscape did more harm to java in the early days then Microsoft's. I actually read one of the affidavits in the case by a technical expert, who outlined the incompatibilities. They were tiny. *TINY*. And yet, Netscape was still shipping only the java 1.0 API. People couldn't write code for the newer, more robust 1.1 API and have it work with Netscape. They could write the code to work in IE, however. And if they avoided Microsoft documentation that might mix the incompatible stuff with the regular stuff they would have been fine.

Did MS purposely taint the API: almost certainly, there was no reason for them to put their functions and code in the Java.* packages. Did it really matter: not as much as Netscape sticking with 1.0.

Microsoft might have made stuff worse over time, but who knows. But anyway, microsoft probably wanted to kill Java and in a way, they succeded.