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Even Sun Can't Use Java
cowmix writes "It turns out that Sun does not eat its own dog food. Specifically, this
internal memo from Sun strongly
suggests that Java should not be used for Sun's internal projects.
More interesting still, they go on to state which other languages
fullfil Java's goals better than Java does itself. Finally, the
memo states Sun's own Solaris is the cause of many of Java's woes. Yikes."
Read the article poeple, what their saying is that the JRE on solrais has huge significant bugs that need fixing!!
And equally as unlikely. You think the JRE is bad - have you seen how Microsoft's .NET runtime performs on Solaris?
(Blah... blah... Mono... Free... chasing a moving wall in order to pound your head against it...)
To me, this report seems to be the manifestation of a battle going on with Sun between the Java Engineers and the folks who integrate Java with Sun's other products. They went to the Engineers initially to explain the problems, but it didn't change anything. So they wrote a damning memo to management to force them to deal with the situation.
This isn't Sun saying to the world that Java sucks, its simply two groups within Sun saying that their official implementation needs to have a few bugs worked out.
-jrod5000
When people ask me about using Java, I always give them a simple answer: it is much nicer to program in then any other language that I use (except for API changes over different versions), but it takes way too much memory and is too slow for programs that I would use regularly.
The memo agrees with me and lists the huge memory requirements as the number 2 problem (number 1 is that Java programs require the JVM to run).
Considering that compiling Java into a native executable would seriously improve its performance (and remove the JVM requirement), I wonder why the memo doesn't discuss that possibility?
In the rush to bash Java, the summary here was totally off the mark. From the article:
A review of the problem indicates that these issues are not inherent to Java but instead represent implementation oversights and inconsistencies common to projects which do not communicate effectively with partners and users.
And it goes on to mention issues with Solaris. Nothing about Java itself being inherently problematic, just issues with certain implementation.
InternalMemos is notorious for running hoax emails. This email is no exception. It includes a number of inaccuracies and curious references. The comparisons with Python are just amusing.
Doing a quick search on the names, you'll note that there's no reference to the sender anywhere in Google, let alone associated with Sun. Most of the folks in the CC list do not have Sun email addresses. They're probably friends of the hoaxer. The Sun folks in the CC list include a JavaOne and a guy who has himself on the J2ME JSR.
I wouldn't hold out for Sun switching to Python. haha
I was especially interested in the part of the memo that talked about extensions being rolled into the main product. But, apart from backwards compatibility, I think it just makes learning the language more difficult.
I learned the language back in 1.3, and I'm amazed at how much more has been added to the 1.4 release. Sifting through the javadocs has become a bit more of a pain, but nothing someone already familiar with the language can't handle.
My concern is people who are learning the language. I think the API is becoming more and more overwhelming to future Java developers. Look how much fatter O'Reilly's Learning Java book has become!
A smaller J2SE with standard extensions to be downloaded as necessary makes better conceptual sense.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Reads to me like a memo that has intentionally leaked out into the open, trying to force Sun Management to act. Software Development Dept is clearly unhappy with the Solaris implementation of JRE and therefore stops all use of it, until is has been fixed. While the Java Dept does not seem to have too much hurry to do that (majority of cases closed - "will not fix".
What would you do in your own line organization, when you are the boss of one department and the boss of the other department just gives you the finger? And your superior is unable/unwilling to solve the conflict? You write a flaming mail to your superior's superior, threaten to withdraw any support for the platform your company is famous for and leak the memo into the open to get public support. This, of course, has to be done nicely so that no-one can blame you directly for it.
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
How do we know this is even a real internal memo? I mean, this is comming froma site *named* internalmemos.com. Come on! There's a submission form. I could just send any old thing in if I wanted. The only difficult part is making it look convincing. That only takes a few hours of effort.
Anyone that has an axe to grind with Sun could have sent this in. That could be some big company or (far more realistic) some random slob that just wants to be mean.
Or it could be real. But who cares? As the Score 5 AC pointed out, this is about bugs in the JRE on Solrais, not necessarily about Java in general.
Does anyone on slashdot remember what FUD is?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
My wife writes Java GUIs and actually has never ever had any of the problems that they are referring to in this memo. The GUIs she writes runs fine, and they are very complex GUIs, things that do tasks such as controlling telephone switches.
/I/ may personally like it for many uses, where control outweighs performance. But it's malicious for Sun to claim it fit for mainstream desktop apps.
I have written complex GUIs, which actually overwrite the paint() methods of Components, and Swing is slow on Windows and Unix. Also, I've used Swing apps, and guess what, they're slow memory hogs too.
Inevitably someone proclaims that Swing runs fast if you program well enough. (I'm not referring to you but to Sun's party line.) BULLSHIT. It's slow. It trades memory for speed, and still isn't that speedy. Run Jext or Borland JBuilder and you'll see what I mean.
Now,
It boggles the mind that after half a dozen years of Java, Sun has not yet moved their default desktop over to Java GUI apps. And Sun has missed lots of great opportunities popularizing Java by failing to deliver desktop apps and utilities that would motivate Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac users to download the JRE.
For server-side apps, it makes no difference whether Microsoft bundles the JRE or not--anybody putting together a bunch of servers is going to install the latest JRE directly from Sun anyway.
In fact, while Java is a decent language for server-side development (and that's pretty much the only thing it's really good at), it's ironic that its cross-platform features in particular are largely irrelevant there: for many other reasons, any reasonable place is going to have a homogeneous server environment for individual web apps, and re-compiling for that server environment is a tiny part of deployment.
So, something like GNU gcj, which requires recompilation for each target platform, may well be the better choice than Sun's bloated JRE: while you don't get universal byte code deployment, which you don't need, gcj binaries start up much faster and consume less resources, which may be more important on your server.
The note is certain to be used by Microsoft in their appeal against the Java injunction.
In particular the points about Java code being tied to a particular runtime completely negates Sun's claims about the need to distribute in the O/S base. Clearly that is not going to help much since Sun have no clue about dependency management.
Consider the following thought experiment. Microsoft distribute 30Mb of Java 1.3 with XP. Then Sun upgrade to 1.4, what does Microsoft do? Do they distribute 1.4 on the new O/S versions only, add it to the current release of XP or put it on instant update. None of these work. The instant update option will break existing java applets on the system. Mixed versions of java will mean that consumers buying a Java based progam will not be able to rely on the release number of XP to decide whether the program works on their machine. Waiting till the next O/S version is released will result in a lawsuit from sun.
The note shows clear similarities to the early articles on C# explaining the difference in approach between Java and dotNet. If the Java lobby was not so convinced that Java was the end of program language design they would have realised their significance.
To give one example, the version incompatibility problem is known to Windows developers as 'DLLHell'.
My company uses Java for a lot of projects. I would not be suprised however if we didn't end up on .NET server with the applications compiled down to native code through J# and IL.
Unfortunately Sun don't have a level 5 leader in charge. They have an egotistical idiot who is concentrated like a laser on another companies business instead of his own.Antics like those of McNeally and Ellison play well in the press but measured by the success of the companies stock price leaders like Jack Welch or Lee Iaccoca don't do as well as their PR would have it. Iaccoca may have saved Chrysler (it might also have been the government loans) but once he started concentrating his energies on being a folk hero Chrysler's performance went back down the tubes. Similarly Jack Welch's performance does not look that hot if you look at the growth in GE earnings rather than the stock price - which is certain to shrink as GE returns to its old P/E multiple.
One of the things a level 5 leader does is to encourage comment. The memo only says what others outside Sun have been saying for eight years.
My take on the Sun/Microsoft Java war is based on a lot of time working in standards groups with both groups of engineers. I think that the Microsoft engineers thought they could improve Java and got frustrated because the Sun engineers behaved - well like Microsoft engineers sometimes do.
Of course this will all be rationalised away. Of course it was all the fault of the Redmond club's evil schemes. Nobody outside Sun has any ideas of any value and Sun's JCM is genuinely open and not a proprietary farce.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Anyone that compares a scripting languate (python) to a full programming language that also as a VM has no clue. a scripting language has minimal overhead memory requirements because it does not have much of a memory management job to do.
I don't see how that makes any sense. Python also has bytecode and a VM, and it does the same job in less memory with equivalent or better performence. It's object-oriented and performs garbage collection, as does java. What do you mean, "it does not have much of a memory management job to do"?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
"The note is certain to be used by Microsoft in their appeal against the Java injunction."
Um, no.
First off, who knows if the note is even authentic.
Secondly, what will be MS's argument?:
"Judge, Sun feels they should improve their Java product. As you know, the law states that no company should be able to improve their products, unless they are us, and we can improve other people's products, but only for Windows. Thank you."
smd4985
InternalMemos is notorious for running hoax emails. This email is no exception. It includes a number of inaccuracies and curious references. The comparisons with Python are just amusing. Doing a quick search on the names, you'll note that there's no reference to the sender anywhere in Google, let alone associated with Sun. Most of the folks in the CC list do not have Sun email addresses. They're probably friends of the hoaxer. The Sun folks in the CC list include a JavaOne and a guy who has himself on the J2ME JSR. I wouldn't hold out for Sun switching to Python. haha
Well... The Inquirer had a blurb about this about a week ago, before anyone heard about any "memo".
First, you make it sound like, in some sense, scripting languages are not as complete as "real" programming languages. And your comments about memory management make even less sense-- any language with OO features (and many without) are going to have to do dynamic allocation-- how else are object references going to be dealt with?-- and that means that they're going to have to deal with memory-management issues. And if you think that all scripts are like little baby shellscripts, you haven't been around much.
I've developed medium-sized apps in Python and in Perl (on the order of 50K lines of executable code), and much bigger apps in Java. Python is semantically rich enough, and in most instances fast enough, to do anything that Java can do, and almost always with shorter, more readable code. The same can be said for Perl (though it requires more discipline to achieve the readability), and probably also Ruby and Scheme. From a software engineering point of view, I'd be happiest coding the whole app in Jython (the Python variant that compiles down to Java bytecodes), then recoding the hotspots in Java, or in some even lower-level language. Developers, even smart ones, usually guess wrong about what to optimize, so deferring tuning until you observe the working system is usually a good idea. Exceptions would be embedded and hard-realtime systems. Almost every business app I've seen is neither of these.
This in no way eliminates the need to design your app before coding it, BTW, contrary to what some bozos who once read the blurb on the back of an XP how-to book might have you believe.
When I did a demo of one Python-based app that I developed, my client was willing to accept a performance hit for the sake of better maintainability. When I benched its performance on one content-mangement task, it clocked in at 100 times faster than its C++ predecessor. Now obviously, a very clever C++ crew could have done a lot better than that. But in the real world, everyone's in a hurry and don't always choose the cleanest implementation. And when language features are too low-level, developers waste a lot of time reinventing "infrastructure." In this instance, they not only reinvented, but did it much more poorly than the developers of Python did.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
How many times do you have to visit a web site that gives you 15 popup windows complaining about script errors in IE?
You do know that that's Javascript which is nothing to do with Java, right?
Who here hasn't had to download an older version of the JRE because you've found a program that doesn't work on the newer versions.
Yes, inter-version compatibility is a big problem, as mentioned in the Sun memo.
Yeah, it was cool back in the days before DHTML, Flash, and XML. But now it offers very little additional functionality.
Oh for chrissake! The memo is talking about large applications. As in, not java applets. Read the damn memo. And get a clue. "Java was cool back in the days before ... XML. But now it offers very little additional functionality"? What does that even mean? It sounds like you're just throwing buzzwords around. I suppose C offers little functionality over ASCII, and C# just isn't cool now we have WordPerfect and ISO9660?
I am a former Sun employee and I wrote these kinds of memos.
Specifically, I wrote that Java was unsuitable for Sun's own web development projects, and that this represented a serious problem in terms of missed opportunities to improve our software and for our public relations and marketing.
The memo may be a fake, but it's right on target. I especially agree with the problem of internal tech support for critical bug fixes.
I worked on several projects that were a nightmare due to subtle bugs in Java's HTML and XML classes. In each case, the bugs were easy to fix: a few lines of code, changing private methods to protected methods, etc.
The response from Sun support? "Will not fix."
So I had to rewrite the classes-- basically rederiving the entire Java HTML+XML parsing tree-- which stuck the customer using my custom code. Talk about a bad upgrade path!
There were many, many examples of this. As a result, I deployed many projects using Perl on Linux instead of Java on Solaris, and I wrote internal memos like the one in this article.
All that said, the Java engineers were some of the smartest, nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I have a lot of confidence in them, and each Java release gets substantially better and faster. The problem IMHO is not the engineers, but the corporate culture that misses opportunities to learn from employee projects.
The Sun engineers and internal developers can really do some amazing things, if McNealy and Zander could start prioritizing Java inside Sun, and start funding rapid-turnaround tech support for employee programmers.
Cheers,
Joel