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Industry Leaders Discuss Java Status Quo

prostoalex writes "JavaPro magazine published a wrap-up report on Java discussions at the recent JavaOne. If you missed JavaOne, the video Webcasts of McNealy, Schwartz, Gosling et al. are available from this site. The round table mentioned above gathered people from Sun, Oracle, Borland, Novell, Motorola and others. The discussion topics included: Java vs. NET, integration issues, the impact of open source and top problems that Java is facing today."

390 comments

  1. Enough! by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Funny

    Java Script, Java Beans, Java Swing, Java Status Quo!? Enough!

    1. Re:Enough! by L.+VeGas · · Score: 3, Funny

      Java Script, Java Beans, Java Swing, Java Status Quo!? Enough!

      I thought this sounded familiar. It's the lyrics from that old Ink Spots song. Java Jive.

      Java script,
      Java bean,
      Java jive,
      Java swing
      Java status quo?
      Java gotta go!
      Go cat go!

    2. Re:Enough! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



      Seriously? I just made that crap up from the story title in a paltry attempt at a +1 Funny.

    3. Re:Enough! by scottcha+4 · · Score: 1

      You forgot JavaMan. Sorry, couldn't resist...

      --
      Sanity is overrated...Being CRAZY is much more fun!!!
    4. Re:Enough! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, dude, seriously!

      You must be like psychic or something.

    5. Re:Enough! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your leg's getting longer by the minute, dude.

  2. Make JavaOne Open Source! by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think it would benefit the Open Source developer community if the minutes of the conference were made public. That would enhance the understanding that the hundreds of millions of Java developers throughout the world have of Java.

    We need to be more agressive in building the respect and visibility of Java in the corporation. Only by doing so can we establish the necessary paradigm to determine the direction that the IT world, nay, the society in general has to take.

    It makes me mad when I look across the look and see the cookie-cutter drones that spout Windows drivel without questioning their origins and more importantly their destinies.

    Why must we live such a drab and empty existence? Why can't we challenge authority figures and build a better tomorrow. Not by force, mind you, but by knowledge. It is the only way to world peace.

    So in summary, if you don't support Java, you're against world peace.

    --
    Wearing pants should always be optional.
    1. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it just me who finds this post ironic? You rag on Microsoft and people who develop on their platforms while calling for Java to be open source, when the reason it isnt open source already is that Sun refuses to give up control over it. To me Java programmers are just as
      drone-like in their behavior as Win32 folks.

      People should start supporting a real OO language
      that is already open source, like python!

    2. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by kill+-9+$$ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm personally a little tired of the argument that Java is bad because its not open source. While Sun's implementation of the JVM is closed, Java as a language is light years from being a closed source, completely under Sun's control kind of thing.

      1) JVM is an open specification (how you implement it and whether that is open or closed is up to you) There are many JDK's/JVM's that you can use to run Java programs other than Sun's (IBM, Kaffe, or whatever the open source one is (and I'm sure there are more than just that, etc)

      2) You get the source code for all of the classes/libraries that come with java when you download Sun's JDK. These include the core classes like java.lang.String, etc, etc. The only thing missing, as stated above is the source code for the compiler/interpreter and other tools.

      3) There are open source JVM's (i.e. kaffe, etc) although I've found them to be lacking, but they'll get there

      So the argument that Sun has control of Java is moot, you can build/run/install and entire Java application without ever touching Sun tools.

      Is Java/JVM totally free? Depends who you ask. Its free/open enough for me, personally, but I can see how some open source fanatics can get their panties in a bunch over this.

      Also, unlike M$ products, I think the design of Java's classes shows insight, and well thought out design, so in a way I for one am for Sun keeping a bit of control over the language and "core" classes, but thats my opinion of course.

      --

      -- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
    3. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by KwisatzHaderach · · Score: 1

      Arrrgh. Holy crap, a sensible poster and where are my mod points??!!!

    4. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Hundreds of millions" - even SUN only claims 3 million so it's probably significantly less.

    5. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by triskaidekaphile · · Score: 1

      2) You get the source code for all of the classes/libraries that come with java when you download Sun's JDK. These include the core classes like java.lang.String, etc, etc. The only thing missing, as stated above is the source code for the compiler/interpreter and other tools.

      Though Sun provides the source code, it has not relinquished rights to that code. It is useful at times to peruse the code to see how some things get done, but don't copy or you may be violating Sun's copyright.

      Sun can set the terms as they wish for their implementation. Others have written their own API implementations, usually in parallel with their own virtual machine implementations. The FSF's efforts (GNU Classpath and GNU Classpath Extensions) are unfortunately lagging. The really frustrating part is that I can't help them along at all because I have seen Sun's source code. I could, but they would refuse my help to avoid copyright violations.

      --
      @HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
    6. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh I wasnt trying to say Java was bad because its not open source, it's bad as language because it's too low level (it's only one step above C++).

      My point was that it was not much better in terms of control than Microsoft stuff, which you
      can and do argue well against.

      I really have no interest in Sun, so I have
      to profess ignorance, but as to your point (1),
      what was Sun's complaint about Microsoft's
      implementation of the JVM then? Weren't they
      complaining that MS changed the JVM to favor
      Windows machines? If the JVM is really an
      open specification (how MS implements it is
      up to MS) then Sun doesnt have a case I would think.

      I don't think its helpful or 'sensible' to
      characterize open source people as fanatics
      who get their "panties in a bunch". If anything,
      it is Sun and McNealy who seem to be getting
      worried and worse, irrelevant.

    7. Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! by kill+-9+$$ · · Score: 1
      what was Sun's complaint about Microsoft's implementation of the JVM then?

      IIRC, the complaint was not that MS built there own JVM or optimized it for windows (again IIRC, MS's optimizations have since made there way into Sun's JDK distro for Win32). There complaint was that Microsoft took core classes in the language (i.e. stuff like java.lang.* and java.awt.*) and/or the JVM and modified the actual behavior of these classes which goes beyond simple optimization. The result was a program that ran on Microsoft's JVM could potentially run much differently on a standard JVM. Also, the whole lawsuit was heavily politically motivated. Sadly on a somewhat related note, the corp I work for purchased a product that runs only on MS's JVM. Its pretty stupid that I need to have a Windows instance around now just to run this app.

      I don't think its helpful or 'sensible' to characterize open source people as fanatics who get their "panties in a bunch".

      O.k. maybe too harsh of words. More of a jumping on the defensive before an onslaught of comments comes forth. Really, my only point here is there are some folks out there who feel that if a piece of software is not completely open in free, it must be bad, no scratch that, more evil than evil, bad-wrong even. Anyway, this is the argument I hear many times when Java comes up and why its bad. Its just rubbish to me. Would it be nice if it was a little more open, sure, but at the same time I'm not worried that its so proprietary that if Sun goes belly up, or if Sun goes crazy and pulls the plug on Java or something like that, that my clients/customers and I are gonna be fubar'd because we chose to use Java.

      --

      -- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
  3. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by el-spectre · · Score: 0

    It's always interesting when you can't tell is a poster is trolling, trying to be funny, sincere or just confused...

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  4. Java Status Quo by Richy_T · · Score: 3, Funny


    import music.blues.12bars;

    public void static main(){
    and.I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It);
    I.la.la.la.Like(it).la.la.la.Like();
    Here(We).go(o);
    Rocking.all.over.the.(World);
    }

    1. Re:Java Status Quo by BigBadBri · · Score: 3, Funny
      You missed

      int MAX_CHORDS = 3;

      --
      oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  5. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Right. I remember downloading the first Java sdk in 1995 from Sun. Then it was so s-l-o-w. And since it hasn't improved. Today if I load a site where the word Java comes up I know it's time for a break...

  6. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by el-spectre · · Score: 1

    Having read a few other posts by this fellow... I gotta say... GET BACK UNDER YOUR BRIDGE! :)

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  7. Hey They Mentioned Me! by stoolpigeon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a full time VB programmer who is looking to move away from microsoft tools as well as microsoft platforms.

    I started out not knowing anything but ms products- learned VB in school and landed my first job writing database apps. As I learned more, and my employer's needs grew- we started realizing that MS was too expensive and we looked for alternatives.

    Now we use linux and open source tools. I am learning to handle a system and use software that has been built by the open source community. I've even tweaked some code here and there for our own purposes.

    While all this has been going on- I've been trying to look to the future and work on some projects of my own. I really wanted to learn a language that would be portable, and have good tools I could afford. I've finally opted to go with Java.

    Java seems the simplest way to be able to work cross platform and have access to sufficient resources without having to shell out big bucks. In fact my development platform right now is a RedHat box with eclipse and Sun's JDK. I'm about 2 months into what I hope will be a long relationship. I think the article is right in that what is good for Linux is also very good for Java.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 0, Troll

      Have you actually USED a real java app? Not an applet, but a real app?

      I've used about a half dozen and every one or them it so close to completely unuseable due to the complete mess that the JRE from Sun is. Slow and visually buggy to the point of extreme annoyance. I can't believe that anyone would be satisfied with using Java App for free and certainly not for pay.

      Instead look to things like wxWindows which run NATIVE libs on all platforms, thus giving you the true look and feel of the platform as well as full speed, low memory requirements and NO UI bugs.

      --
      Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
    2. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      He's using Eclipse so more than likely he's also using the SWT GUI lib. The "slow and visually buggy" you're referring to is in AWT and much more specifically Swing. It's gotten better in 1.4.2 but the fact is that SWT is the way to go if you're targeting desktop apps since it results in apps that are indistinguishable from native apps in look, feel and speed. The only remaining drawback is the memory overhead but even this can be controlled via careful use of System.gc.

      That said, I'm a C++ person myself and totally agree that you can write tighter and faster apps using C/C++. However, if you MUST have a portable *GUI* application (ie. Win and Lin), Java really does make things very very easy for those without C/C++ backgrounds.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    3. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was a java app that really swung me over. I needed a GUI based telnet app that would allow a user to click on buttons that would send control characters to the host. (I work in a call center). I needed it to run on linux and I wanted something open source that I could modify. So I headed over to sourceforge and ended up with something that is working very well.

      You can find it here

      It can be run as an applet or application. (Something else I like is how easily you can move java to web stuff and vice versa) I run it as an application. It works well. And it didn't do everything just the way I wanted- so now I am fixing it to do just what I need. (that's an open source thing more than a java thing- but I love it) My IDE- Eclipse, is also a Java app that works well, on both platforms by the way. It does not seem slow or buggy to me.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    4. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Ribo99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      What apps have you been using?

      I used Borland's JBuilder 4 on Linux at my last job four years ago for all of my developement with fantastic results.
      Most of the developers at my company use Eclipse for their development, a pure java IDE that beats the pants off of any other IDE I've used or seen. The only reason I don't use it is because of the lack of VI keybindings, I use good ol' Vim instead.

      The point it moot anyway, Java really shines in the Enterprise side.

      --
      I wear pants.
    5. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've used quite a few, and they all run great. Like this latest one I discovered, an audio player: http://www.javazoom.net/jlgui/jlgui.html

      It's very fast (while playing an Ogg Vorbis file, it only consumes around 5% CPU time (Athlon 1.1GHz)), has fully custom GUI, with no glitches.

    6. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, if all the converted VB/MCSE people left slashdot, there'd only be about 12 people left.

    7. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have YOU used a Java app? Sounds like you haven't and are just repeating FUD.

      I use Java IDEs for my development and they are plenty fast, I would say easily comparable to VS.Net. As long as you have a decent machine then Java is fine. No gui bugs, no performance problems running Sun JDK on Debian.

      I use a dual athlon with 1.5GB of ram for my java development. It cost $1.5k which compared to the cost of the developer is not even an issue.

    8. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by arjun · · Score: 1

      ' That said, I'm a C++ person myself and totally agree that you can write tighter and faster apps using C/C++. However, if you MUST have a portable *GUI* application (ie. Win and Lin), Java really does make things very very easy for those without C/C++ backgrounds.'
      have you heard about a toolkit called qt ?

    9. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

      Yeah but last I checked there were no QT bindings for Java.:D

      For C++ I do like the look of QT (and KDE) more than the look of GTK. I've never seen a QT app on anything other than Linux, I assume it looks indistinguishable under Windows?

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    10. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      QtJava
      ScribbleWindow.java example

      It also work on Windows.

    11. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by kill+-9+$$ · · Score: 1

      Java GUI apps run great on a box like you have. I personally develop on a dual-PIII 800 with 768MB of RAM and it works great, but honestly, the workstations we're developing on are just not necessarilly on everybody's desk (or at least from what I've seen from the corporations I've worked for). Most boxes don't have more the 256MB of ram, and are typically no faster than 1GHz.

      Java GUI applications are typicallly sluggish from what I've seen. Usually, a bit more memory is whats needed to make them run better, or such has been my experience. I once debated this with somebody saying well memory's pretty damn cheap, but they spun around with, "cheap on PC's, how bout for that Sun workstation". Damn good point in my opinion.

      Will a Java GUI ever perform better than C/C++? I doubt it, but I think it can get kinda close if they keep hacking away and improving the GUI optimizations, etc. To those folks, I'd like to challenge you to port your application though from Windows, UNIX, Mac and tell me how you do. And before somebody steps up and says, "Hey, Java's not as portable as you state", I'll respond with yes I know, but I usually only have to tweak a line or two to get it to work somewhere else, and what I've seen is by doing that it will run anywhere a lot better.

      Aside from that, though, Java is rock solid on the server side. Servlet/JSP/J2EE, properly impelmented (unfortunately, its so broad of a subject I don't think this happens most of the time) is quick and maintaining complex business logic is relatively easy.

      --

      -- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
    12. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

      The problem with the speed of swing has nothing to do with Java. Java is as fast as or faster than C++. All tests I have ever seen, and personal experience bear this out. The problem with the GUI is the layers necessary to keep it cross platform. Swing is build on top of AWT which is on top of the local GUI toolkit. Thats 2 layers deeper than any local application. So it will always be slower, but for me its not noticeable anymore. (unless you have redraw on during drag operations)

    13. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wxWindows also has bindings for Perl, Python, and may other languages. It also runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. One of the best features is that you can layout your screens in XML resource files. Check it out: http://www.wxwindows.org/

    14. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that nasty little "commercial developer's fee". If you're developing commercial, cross-platform apps with QT, then it ain't free.

      --
      If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    15. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by __past__ · · Score: 1
      I've never seen a QT app on anything other than Linux
      Um, Opera? I doubt that they have a non-Qt Windows UI given that they use it on other platforms anyway.
    16. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by __past__ · · Score: 1
      Actually, there are some cross-platform toolkits without these problems. Like, um, SWT, Qt, Tk, WxWindows, Gtk, CLIM, DUIM, FLTK, Fox, CAPI, or simply, all other cross-platform toolkits I've ever heard about or used personally.

      IMHO, the problem with Swing is mostly that it is horribly overengineered and, frankly, that the implementation sucks. It's all in src.jar - read it and tell me if you would hire someone who would present that piece of crap as their prior experience.

    17. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by KenSeymour · · Score: 1

      I have programmed C++ for 7 years.
      I would still rather do a cross-platform GUI on Java.

      Also, when I go to look for job ads, I see more Java jobs than C++/qt and C++/MFC.

      --
      "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
    18. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Sikh+Soulja · · Score: 1

      I just tried that telnet program. It started off nicely but as soon as I tried connecting the GUI froze up, I left it running for several minutes and nothing changed. Heh, that is possibly the worst telnet client i've ever used. (Using Sun's Java 1.4 on linux) Another interesting point is that of all the clientside java apps mentioned, they've been Java gui development apps, ie Eclipse and Borland Jbuilder. Now excuse me, but why isnt that very impressive? Java promises so much but delivers little, very very slowly.. I for one have moved on to better things like Python.

    19. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by lewp · · Score: 1

      At least for Opera 7 I'm pretty much positive that their Win32 GUI isn't QT.

      --
      Game... blouses.
    20. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't miss the rest.

    21. Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use it every day. Sorry it didn't work for you.

      .

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  8. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by Sheetrock · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You raise a good point (well, except for the hyperbole about combining the game industry.) During this time of massive layoffs and outsourcing, maybe the Open Source paradigm is actually shooting us in the foot.

    I'm not saying that everybody needs to stop contributing their pet projects to the communal good, but maybe the deal doesn't need to be made sweeter for these scummy companies that are building cheap foreign and selling expensive domestic. I'm starting to think that (L)GPLv3 should involve a clause invokable by the author of a project so covered that it not be used in any commercial application whether source is included or not.

    The biggest irony is when movie companies using Free Software turn around and lobby our government to harm users of Free Software. This free ride shit has got to stop, there.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  9. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Mod Troll Down.

    That was so subtle, I had to read your post twice to catch it. Luckily, I don't follow those books so I could care less.

  10. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2, Funny
    Microsoft needs to stop the GPL, before it ruins the whole US economy, if we could just outlaw the GPL Microsoft wouldnt need to hire Indian programmers anymore.

    Monoculture produces great minds, like yours!

    You - and Mr. Gates - are quite welcome to whaterver is left, after the pursuit of your brilliant agenda.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  11. What does bloodninja think of Java? by Knunov · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Well, he loves the Java chat clients, that's for sure:

    ================

    bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?
    BritneySpears14: Aight.
    bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.
    BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.
    bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
    BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.
    bloodninja: Me too baby.
    BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
    bloodninja: I cast Lvl 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
    BritneySpears14: Hey...
    bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl 8 Penis of the Infinite.
    BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
    bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty of the Beyondness.
    BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
    bloodninja: Don't shit with me biznitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
    bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl 1, 000, 000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl 2 Druid.
    BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece.
    bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
    bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
    bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
    bloodninja: Baby?

    --

    bloodninja: Ok baby, we got to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep it ready for you.
    j_gurli3: thats ok. ok i'm a japanese schoolgirl, what r u.
    bloodninja: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.
    j_gurli3: haha, ok lets go.
    j_gurli3: i put my hand through ur hair, and kiss u on the neck.
    bloodninja: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.
    j_gurli3: haha, ok, u know that turns me on.
    j_gurli3: i start unbuttoning ur shirt.
    bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't wear shirts.
    j_gurli3: No, ur not really a Rhinocerus silly, it's just part of the game.
    bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't play games. They fucking charge your ass.
    j_gurli3: stop, cmon be serious.
    bloodninja: It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.
    bloodninja: I stomp my feet, the dust stirs around my tough skinned feet.
    j_gurli3: thats it.
    bloodninja: Nostrils flaring, I lower my head. My horn, like some phallic symbol of my potent virility, is the last thing you see as skulls collide and mine remains the victor. You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.
    bloodninja: Fuck am I hard now.

    --

    BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?
    eminemBNJA: Aight, yeah I'm ready.
    BritneySpears14: I like your music Em... Tee hee.
    eminemBNJA: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.
    BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.
    BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.
    eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
    BritneySpears14: What the fuck, I told you not to message me again.
    eminemBNJA:
    BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you fuck up.
    eminemBNJA: OheminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

    ------------

    --
    Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
    1. Re:What does bloodninja think of Java? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Histerical, how could that NOT be on topic? what's the topic again?

  12. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Bigby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Java isn't slow; Java is a language. Since when could languages be slow? It is Java vs C# and JVM vs .NET. But even that isn't a good comparison.

    Sun JRE is slow. The JVM runs as another layer on top of the OS, so of course it will be slower than if it were native to the OS. All Sun has to do is make a JM (Java Machine) chip that can be put into motherboards to do the processing at the hardware level, not hardware-os-software level. Then M$ will have a problem competing.

  13. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

    What does Sun's Java have to do with open source and the GPL?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  14. Re:What are you thinking?! by HeelToe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've not seen anyone take this tack with respect to OSS before. Care to back up your assertions? I'd like to hear at least anecdotal evidence from CIOs who are realizing this situation and capitalizing on the wealth of free software out there by saving local headcount and getting things done remotely.

    Or is this just an opinion?

  15. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

    Oh, I don't think this troll is just confused. All of the above?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  16. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Frodo falls under the spell of the Ring, and rises to become the new Dark Lord. With the help of Gandlaf, Frodo leads a successful invasion of the Undying Lands. Darkness rules eternally.

  17. Missed opportunities by Octagon+Most · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone else find it a little disconcerting that, "according to a recent Evans Data Corporation survey, developers who are migrating now from Visual Basic are moving to Java and C# in roughly equal numbers." What good is a few years head start and breathless hyperbole from the entire technology industry when Microsoft can simply create a new competitive product and quickly catch up? Java may well continue to be quite successful even though it has under-delivered, but that could mean little with C#, .NET, and whatever else comes out of Redmond. Does Java have enough momentum to thrive?

    1. Re:Missed opportunities by LarryRiedel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "...developers who are migrating now from Visual Basic are moving to Java and C# in roughly equal numbers." What good is a few years head start and breathless hyperbole from the entire technology industry when Microsoft can simply create a new competitive product and quickly catch up?

      That quote does not imply that C# is even starting to catch up with whatever lead Java has in developer base.

      Java may well continue to be quite successful even though it has under-delivered...

      I think Java has many flaws and weaknesses, but I also think it has more than delivered on its goal to be the successor to the platforms that preceeded it.

      Larry

    2. Re:Missed opportunities by Glock27 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Does anyone else find it a little disconcerting that, "according to a recent Evans Data Corporation survey, developers who are migrating now from Visual Basic are moving to Java and C# in roughly equal numbers." What good is a few years head start and breathless hyperbole from the entire technology industry when Microsoft can simply create a new competitive product and quickly catch up?

      You're looking at this the wrong way. Try this phrasing instead: "Microsoft is losing half of it's VB developers to Java, rather than having them move to C# [or VB.net]".

      Also, remember that C#/CLR is little more than warmed-over Java/JVM with the Microsoft label - it's not as though it's actually a different product...other than not being cross platform that is. ;-)

      Java may well continue to be quite successful even though it has under-delivered, but that could mean little with C#, .NET, and whatever else comes out of Redmond. Does Java have enough momentum to thrive?

      Will the 'whatever else comes out of Redmond' run on anything besides Windows? If not, Java will have a strong niche for the foreseeable future. Personally, I think Java and the JVM will outlive C# and the CLR. On the other hand, there is nothing preventing someone from coming out with a Java implementation for the CLR...

      Java has the momentum to thrive, not just survive. Red Hat's recent offer to support an open-source implementation may prove to be another positive inflection point for Java....we'll see.

      One thing that is very positive for Java - it is widely used in educational curricula, especially at the university level. That is a huge advantage over .Net.

      --
      Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
      Score: -1 100% Flamebait
    3. Re:Missed opportunities by rowanxmas · · Score: 1

      It is expected that Microsoft Visual Basic users will migrate to the next Microsoft product. Since half are going Java, that means that MS is actaully losing ground.

    4. Re:Missed opportunities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's interesting because Java is actually not very good at traditional VB tasks -- quick'n'dirty RAD, DB frontends, MS Office integration, etc.

      If anything it says that corporations are pushing more structured development and that integration and cross-platformness are outweighing MS's lock on the desktop.

      The other thing very interesting thing about the study is that more than half of VB shops aren't interested in either .NET or Java -- they are perfectly happy with VB6. I've seen this in the real world -- people get attached to their codebases and would rather not learn any new system.

    5. Re:Missed opportunities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      A few factoids:

      There are 300 million CPUs shipped each month.
      About 2% are the traditional intel/desktop variety.

      Java runs on ALL of those CPUs. C# and Windows
      runs on .. . a little over 2% of those cpus.

      As usual, Microsoft will use monopoly powers to dominate
      the desktop. Their deployment model utterly fails to penetrate
      the other fields.

      It's in the phones... not the desktop.

    6. Re:Missed opportunities by Dalcius · · Score: 1

      As I've pointed out in previous posts in another Java thread, with the momentum of Red Hat and the entire OSS movement behind it, probably.

      Much like Microsoft and the Internet revolution, Sun needs to wake up and smell the coffee (bad pun intended). Sun will die alone. Proprietary lock-in is a science at Microsoft and too big of a threat, in this developer's eyes. It won't last forever, but it very well may outlast Sun.

      --
      ~Dalcius
      Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
    7. Re:Missed opportunities by andr0meda · · Score: 1


      Yes, missed opportunities, but quite obviously, c# is the better alternative here.

      Microsoft essentially LOST BIG TIME in the Java race. But then it just learned, copied, rehashed, improved, and re-invented it. And it's just better than it's predecessors ever had the imagination of being possible to be. So it should survive and in it's own turn inspire new and rivaling technology. I may sound like an MS weasel now, I'm really not, I'm just convinced c# has more valid reasons to thrive than Java.

      Flame away!

      --
      With great power comes great electricity bills.
    8. Re:Missed opportunities by pmz · · Score: 1

      ... developers who are migrating now from Visual Basic are moving to Java and C# in roughly equal numbers."

      That isn't so bad. It means that there are a non-trivial number of developers leaving Microsoft and not coming back. Also, the ones moving to C# probably didn't think much about the alternatives--they were captured by default.

    9. Re:Missed opportunities by smagruder · · Score: 1

      And who's ever heard of an organization migrating from Java to .NET? Once they go Java, MS has lost them forever.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    10. Re:Missed opportunities by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      "Unix won the server market because it was powerful, not because it was easy to use. Microsoft won the desktop market because it was easy to use, not because it was powerful. We're now at a convergence where we need tools that are powerful and easy to use," he said.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they both win in their markets because they were there? Unix achieved market penetration because it was given away free by AT&T, and DOS achieved market penetration because IBM gave it market penetration.

      Not that I wouldn't like all my development tools to be powerful and easy to use, but neither of the aforementioned operating systems got there because they posessed these qualities. And nothing has really changed; if linux had cost just $5 a few years ago, I don't think we'd be talking about it today...

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    11. Re:Missed opportunities by __past__ · · Score: 2, Interesting
      In fact, I think it is only because of Java's relative weakness that it has succeeded that well.

      It was never meant to be the best language possible, it was meant to be better than C++ (and honestly, how hard is that!?). A language with which you can develop mostly boring software using lots of mediocre, exchangable developers in a half-way predictable amount of time. A limited, but not too confusing step up from what everybody used back then in the early nineties in the direction of what smart people have known scince the early sixties - without scaring anyone. Nothing more, nothing less.

      While this obviously is not very sexy, it is where a lot of the money is, and Java succeeded quite well in this niche. But, it also made some basic preconditions of real productive, high-level, state-of-the-art languages acceptable for the general public (like, hiring managers), garbage collection and bounds-checking being prominent examples, as is OO, even if there were other successfull OO languages before (Smalltalk was and is not unheard of in the enterprise), and people believing that Java's broken and crippled OO model is the very definition of object-orientedness is a shame.

      I for one believe that I have an easier time to advocate use of high-level languages thanks to Java - at the expense to having to use Java itself even where it is obviously not good enough. But hey, otherwise I could be forced to use C++...

    12. Re:Missed opportunities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'On the other hand, there is nothing preventing someone from coming out with a Java implementation for the CLR...'

      What do you think they built CLR for? C# and VB? You must be crazy. Read here.

      J#

    13. Re:Missed opportunities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C#/CLR is more than warmed over Java. The CLR part of .NET is actually very interesting.

      What they've done is made a bytecode that can be produced by a restricted C++, VB, C#, and now J# (Basically Java).

      So what? Well, classes made in one Language can be used in all the .NET languages. Yes, that means I can write a class library in "Managed C++", and then call it from all the other languages.

      In fact, the collections part of .NET illustrates this -- you learn how to use the collections classes in .NET and you've pretty much learned how to use the collections across those 4 languages -- the same library is callable from all of .net's languages. This is the power of CLR.

      This ability is beyond java really. They've constructed CLR so that a diverse set of languages can be compiled into it; once you've compiled into CLR you can interoperate.. So, the end result is that you have a set of languages to choose from to implement libraries, etc, and they are available to other people using a different language. No more porting libraries between languages.

      Yes, Java is bytecode in the end, but not like this at all. Not only that, but it seems that large parts of the .NET Framework (the library) is very well done. I like it much better than the Java Class Libraries. .NET is way beyond Java in my opinion. I just think people who say things like "this is just warmed over java" have no real idea what .NET is. The Windows.Forms GUI classes are great, and the apps based on them perform very well and look nice compared to awt/swing,swt,etc.

      We used java for a long time and are switching to .NET (using C#).

      Of course, the downside is that it is microsoft only (and that is no small downside)

    14. Re:Missed opportunities by kubrick · · Score: 1

      I also think that "powerful" is a changing metric; once we have something that's powerful and easy-to-use, we look for something in the same area that is more powerful and not as easy to use, as many of us are prepared to tolerate a certain level of complexity as a trade-off for that extra power.

      After all, I never would have imagined all the things about computers that I now practically take for granted when I first bashed out a program in Commodore 64 BASIC... but by those standards, they *are* both powerful and easy to use.

      Of course, as you say, quality is irrelevant, control of the market counts more. :)

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
    15. Re:Missed opportunities by Glock27 · · Score: 1
      In fact, the collections part of .NET illustrates this -- you learn how to use the collections classes in .NET and you've pretty much learned how to use the collections across those 4 languages -- the same library is callable from all of .net's languages. This is the power of CLR.

      I guess you haven't seen the plethora of languages available for the JVM. You can start with Jython, and go from there. BTW, Jython has access to the full set of Java libraries... ;-)

      (Also, Java can call just about any natively compiled code through JNI/CNI/etc.).

      --
      Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
      Score: -1 100% Flamebait
    16. Re:Missed opportunities by tpv · · Score: 1

      Wow! they solved a problem that pretty much no one had.

      They invented 4 new languages (Managed-C++, VB.NET, C# and J#) and made them all talk to each other.

      Now I get my development team to all write in completely different languages and still interoperate. I'm yet to see why that is useful...

      We don't need more languages. I don't need to have lots of new languages that all talk to other new languages.
      If it solved the problem of interfacing with legacy code, then I'd be happy, but it doesn't.

      MS tries to sell this language independance, but it really isn't a gain to anyone except language bigots.

      --
      Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
    17. Re:Missed opportunities by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      it was meant to be better than C++ (and honestly, how hard is that!?)

      pardong me!?

      sir, a duel... at dawn!

      --

      -pyrrho

    18. Re:Missed opportunities by Blitzshlag · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, there is nothing preventing someone from coming out with a Java implementation for the CLR... Java is fully compliant with the .NET CLR, as are over 30 other languages.

  18. I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is not a troll.

    Why does anyone use Java, ever? In what situation does it offer anything that justifies the pain and inconvience that it incurs?

    Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

    Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application?

    Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the competition? Standard C, C++ or Python (depending on your desired level of abstraction) are just as portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform. And programs written in these languages just fit in, they find their libraries without fuss, they start up rapidly (in comparison) instead of seemingly spawning an OS within an OS.

    I've felt this way about Java since the moment I first tried it, and I'm still at a loss. I just don't get why so many people decide that Java is the solution for them.

    1. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      amen brother... but I use C/C++ and PERL. I just can't find a place for Java... and Java's direction is controlled by one company, Sun.

      Java is a big wase of human effort... and Java books are a waste of good paper.

    2. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by starfish23 · · Score: 1

      Amen brother! Tell it like it is!

      Dom

    3. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by kelzer · · Score: 0

      This is not a troll.

      Coulda fooled me.

      --

      ---------------------------------------------
      SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    4. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by cfscript · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i'm very, very new to java, so i can't deny anything you're saying, however a lot of it seems like fud to me. i hope some senior java guy tells me where i make my mistakes.

      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      limewire?

      Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application?

      erm.. perl? isn't this what jar's are created for?

      Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the competition?

      VB?

      java is the solution for me because i want to spend my time -writing applications-, not fussing about with threads and low-level nonsense -IF I DON'T NEED TO-.

      i like java. i like the syntax, i like the documentation, and i like the portability. now, everyone start crying how System.out.print() doesn't work on HP-UX or another JVM not created by sun..

      --
      Are you MORE than your SPINAL COLUMN?
    5. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by bytes256 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The "portability concerns" you mention are really quite minor, have you ever attempted to write a semi-complex cross-platform piece of software that strayed beyond the Standard C and C++ libraries? Also, Python is just as much of a pain to integrate into your system if you must also deploy on windows...users have to install Python, and if you use any non-standard Python modules, you're stuck with a reallly ugly mess. Java includes a lot of nice things by default that are at best afterthought add-ons in other portable programming languages. Also, with Swing, you can make your app fit in perfectly with the underlying OS, also with today's fast computer systems and continued improvements in JIT technologies, Java really isn't bad performance-wise, and only stands to improve as time progresses. As far as apps I like that are written in Java? I could list dozens of websites, limewire, Eclipse, Ant, JavaCC Even with traditional cross-platform approaches, you are still left with the task of handling dependencies and integrating into the system. How is integrating your Java app into the system any different than making an InstallShield wizard for your C++ app on windows? The allure of Java for me is simplified development of the actual application. Sure, installation concerns are still there, but how does that differ from C++?

      --

      Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
    6. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I will relate to you my experience and the largely subjective reasons I ended up moving towards Java. I am still new at it, and open to other tools- but this is where I am at right now.

      I'm not trying to defend my choice but rather- just answering your question by describing what happened to me.

      All the code I had written outside the classroom- prior to a couple months ago was written in VB6. That is what I get paid to do. As I've learned more, read more, and dealt with things like MS licensing for a company app that exceeded the cost of the server it ran on by a large margin, I've decided that I want to move to tools that don't leave me depending on MS.

      I took a c++ class at a community college- I learned how to write stuff that ran from the command line. It was cool but I wanted to see the kind of progress I had working with VB. Writing GUI based apps in C++ was in a word daunting.

      At the same time, working on a project to move a group of people at my company off of windows to linux, I needed to start working with an App written in Java. I found that I could do GUI work that ran on linux and windows with the same code.

      Yes it took me a few tries to get things to run on each system. But I only had to figure it out once.

      To be frank- and this may get a negative reaction- but if I didn't read /. I wouldn't know what Python is.

      Java is accessible, launches you quickly into results that are enjoyable and runs on both platforms without too much effort.

      And once again my disclaimer-- I'm not interested in arguing why Java is or is not better. As someone new looking to move away from something that has grown undesirable- Java has attracted me the most. This article encouraged me - because my one concern was- "will java be around for a while". I think so.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    7. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by oops · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Why do people use Java ?

      [background: I work in technology for the financial centres in London]
      • multi-platform
      • a huge, standardised API
      • a large base of expertise available (especially at the moment)
      • it's especially productive for most programmers

      None of these are really technical reasons for Java being good at anything, but the combination allows enterprises to hire people easily, not have to cross-train them, and to get products out the door (usually within their own environment).

      None of the places I've consulted at use Java extensively on the desktop. Mostly it's used for back-end work. Front end is Microsoft / web, with a little Swing occasionally.
    8. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by pohl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Java shines in problem domains where you have a long-running service that needs to be secure, robust, scalable, and quickly mutable to changing requirements. If you don't live in that world, your confusion is understandable. Your post is not too different from usenet posts back in the day where Mac/Windows users didn't understand the appeal of unix. From their perspective, nobody used unix and it was extremely unfriendly. What they didn't know was that sometimes large organizations need to create large, custom internal systems that live long and adapt quickly. Java is no panacea there, but it's better than the alternatives.

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    9. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a webserver perhaps. My webserver is Unix but my development environment is XP, works on both, I guess that's where the portablity comes in handy. I agree applications leave a lot to be desired and I try and avoid them, I'm not that keen on applets either infact I never write them. IT IS POSSIBLE TO USE A LANGUAGE TO DO MORE THAN ONE THING, JAVA IS USEFUL ON THE SERVERSIDE FFS!!! I've felt this way about Java since the moment I first tried it.

      Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application?

      NOT ON THE SERVER.

      A LOT OF PEOPLE JUST USE JAVA ON THE SERVER!!!

      SERVER, WEB, HTML NO FEKKING WIDGETS!!!!!!!

      GET IT????

    10. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by gfxguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I use Java all the time and I love it.

      I will agree with you on many points, but the language is clean and I like the structure. After programming in Java for several years, I'm learning how to better deploy my in house applications to minimize impact on users (ie. they don't have to download new apis or set paths or environments variables).

      On the plus side, I'm also involved in a lot of web programming, and use JSP, with servlets and beans and MySQL has been a bit difficult to learn (and configure!), but the inherent security and flow of the website (linking .jsp pages to servlets, back to jsp pages, all the while passing information around with java beans) has been great.

      Moreover, there's the simple applets that are really quite useful - especially in the deployment.

      I agree that something like a word processor and games will run horribly, but there's the other 90% of programming - small tools and utilities with simple interfaces (if any UI at all) for which Java has served me well. I've even done image processing - I've compensated for the slow start up time for java by having the batch functionality built in (ie. you don't keep calling the java app over and over, you give it the values it needs to process the whole series of images). With no UI and startup time kept to a minimum, you'd be hard pressed to show a similar application written in C++ being substantially faster.

      I will admit some bias - I came from the luxery of programming C++ with all the tools and libraries available on SGIs, which was great. But the industry moved more and more towards Windows and so I decided to learn Java. We've been on Windows for several years now, I was able to adapt, and everything is done in Java, Perl, via a Linux based website, etc. I've managed to work on Windows without getting trapped, and it's all been much to the satisfaction of my department.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    11. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by ashultz · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Have you actually tried writing a serious app in Java? Having worked on big apps in C, C++, and Java, I've liked it a great deal.

      Of course, I don't really do GUI stuff much, and don't really care so much about how good the GUI is. That's someone else's problem.

      I also feel like you're understating the requirements to get a typical C program running. You seem to have used well-packaged other programs and badly-packaged Java, but that's just a packaging problem. I've certainly had my share of C etc. programs which won't run because they need a library that's available somewhere to be set to something and good luck finding out.

      Your milage obviously varies, but it doesn't sound like you've tried very hard.

    12. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by mcgroarty · · Score: 1

      Please define "robust." Everybody who says "robust" about a product means something different.

    13. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You use PERL? As in PERL?

    14. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 1

      Not true. You can use py2exe to distribute python apps to windows users. That creates a directory (Roughly 2MB in size usually) that you can zip up and give to your users. They simple unzip and do the double clicky.

      --
      TODO: Something witty here...
    15. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by lobsterGun · · Score: 4, Funny

      >this is not a troll......

      Please allow me to translate

      > Dear Mr. Moderator, please mod this up. I realize that it is posted every single time that slashdot posts an article on java, but this time it's serious. thanks.

    16. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 2, Informative
      The "portability concerns" you mention are really quite minor, have you ever attempted to write a semi-complex cross-platform piece of software that strayed beyond the Standard C and C++ libraries?

      Yes, I am a significant contributor to the audio editor Audacity. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It uses cross-platform libraries to do:
      • GUI (wxWindows)
      • Audio I/O (portaudio)
      • PCM sound file i/o (libsndfile)
      • mp3 decoding (libmad)
      • id3 tagging (libid3tag)
      • pcm resampling (libsamplerate)
      • time and pitch stretching (soundstretch)
      • vorbis encoding and decoding (libogg/libvorbis)
      • XML parsing (expat)

      Also, with Swing, you can make your app fit in perfectly with the underlying OS

      Swing does not fit in perfectly by any means. Even someone who knows nothing about computers can tell you it looks different and feels different.

      How is integrating your Java app into the system any different than making an InstallShield wizard for your C++ app on windows?

      You don't even need an InstallShield wizard for apps written in C++, all you need is a .zip with the app and the DLLs. You don't even need that if you link statically, all you need in that case is an .exe! There's no comparison with the chore of making sure a JRE is installed, that it is a new enough version, and that your app can find the java vm and all it's libraries.
    17. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

      Recall the definition of a troll. A troll posts something intentionally inflamatory to get a rise out of people. You really think that my post had the sole purpose of making people angry?

      People have watered down the meaning of "troll" to be "something strongly worded that may be controversial." And that's silly.

    18. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if I didn't read /. I wouldn't know what Python is

      Check it out - or you might find Jython useful.

    19. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Dr.+Bent · · Score: 4, Insightful
      In what situation does it offer anything that justifies the pain and inconvience that it incurs?
      Here's three off the top of my head:
      • Enterprise Applications - The vast majority of the performance costs of Java occur at start time, when HotSpot is just starting up. Once you get the app up and running (like, for example, on a server), the difference in performace is usually negligable. This is especially true if you are a decent Java developer and understand what Java does well and what it doesn't.
      • Embedded devices - There are hundreds of millions of Cell Phones, PDA's, and smartcards out there today that are running Java. Each make and model can have a different processor, memory size, display, etc...but your Java application will run on all of them.
      • Web-Deployed applications - The ability to push an application out onto the web via a Java Applet or Webstart application, and have it run on every machine in your company, can save millions of dollars when deploying to a large orginization. Java is able to do this in a way that is reliable and secure.
      Are you going to use Java to write a Windows desktop application? Probably not. But how many new Windows desktop apps are there left to write? That's why there are more developers using Java than any other language.
    20. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by thelexx · · Score: 1

      JSP? Eeek. Check out Velocity and Turbine.

      --
      "Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
    21. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      >this is not a troll......

      Please allow me to translate

      Now that you've spewed your uninformed assessment of my motives, let me tell you what they really are. I think the charge of "troll" is ridiculously overused and abused by people who read something that they strongly disagree with and call it a troll. "Troll" has a specific meaning, with a specific criterion that my post simply does not fit: namely that it is written solely to get a rise out of people. A troll is not a legitimate viewpoint, or it is so inflammatory that it cannot form the basis of a worthwhile discussion.

    22. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by forgetmenot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Given your antipathy towards Java I take it you tried it once perhaps Loooooong ago, didn't like it, and now spew the same antipathy today as if nothing has changed. Not trying to criticize your view or anything but they "were" valid... years ago.

      I've used Java from day one, loved it, and use it everyday in my career. It's changed a lot from when it first came out and my love for it has only increased.

      People like me, who love Java, tend to do so because
      a) We do not have to worry about the underlying OS (mostly) - Great for IT shops supporting many machine architectures.
      b) The richness of the standard libraries means programmer's can concentrate on the "business" logic - so again, it's great for IT.

      As far as classpath and look and feel goes - neither one is an issue. Simply jar everything you need into one file. Make sure the java runtime is in your bin path and away you go. Even the look and feel can be switched to whatever is appropriate for the OS (Windows, Motif..) quite painlessly. Speed being the thing most people seem to bitch about isn't much of an issue anymore either. And as far as the build environment goes NOTHING beats ANT for shear beauty and ease of use. (And I used to be a make/perl zealot before I was pressured into trying ANT. Never looked back).

      So I can't help but feel your views are based upon an impression of the the very early stages of Java when quite frankly it was still learning to walk. And I can't help but notice that your comparisons to C/C++/Python have to be qualified with "depending on" and "as long as".

      Now.. if you had instead stated.. Java is ok but JNI sucks rotten clams. I would be more inclined to agree with you. Java really needs a better way to interact with native dll's and shared .so files.

    23. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    24. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by bytes256 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Swing does not fit in perfectly by any means. Even someone who knows nothing about computers can tell you it looks different and feels different. That's why Swing includes the "Native" look and feel, which does, in fact, look and feel Native. Yes, default Swing doesn't fit in to any system, but Native certainly does. Also, how is that different from the widget set of OpenOffice.org or MS-Office, etc.? You don't even need an InstallShield wizard for apps written in C++, all you need is a .zip with the app and the DLLs. You don't even need that if you link statically, all you need in that case is an .exe! There's no comparison with the chore of making sure a JRE is installed, that it is a new enough version, and that your app can find the java vm and all it's libraries. Well to achieve the same thing with Java you just need to distribute a .jar file and tell your users to install the JRE version x.x from www.java.com Not MUCH harder, now is it? The problem with just packaging your program as just a .zip or an .exe (in the case of C++ programs) is that it doesn't integrate into the system...user's typically expect an installer, uninstaller, menu entries, and posibly even the option to create a desktop shortcut at install time. Manually creating these entries is trivial, but most users don't expect to actually have to do it themselves.

      --

      Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
    25. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by sloppydawg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The justification comes in the form of a rich and robust API that included crypto, disk/network/serial io, collections, graphics, http(servlets), J2EE, database connectivity, and the list goes on. The relatively open JCP makes it highly likely that new technologies that are actually needed on a widescale basis will make their way into the language and API set in decent time. Sure libraries and API's are provided for various other languages and platforms but rarely are those 100% consistant so if you want to develop for more than one platform you are stuck learning each platforms API's, syntax, and system idiosyncrocies. With Java the only time you spend is on learing the ideosyncrocies of each platforms JVM implementation and rarely do you need to use/learn an entirely different API. So as a developer the 2 things I value most are time and flexiblity. Java for me offers the best balance of the 2 for me. Anyone who develops for a living knows that the time spent coding the inital release of a program is small in comparision to that programs evolution over time. If I decide to develop in let's say Python, C++ or C# if the code I write today needs to be ported to say AIX later I'm going to have to rewrite at least some of my code to make that happen. With java I'm only tweaking a few things and then I'm up and running. Also Sun and the JCP are constantly working to make sure JVM implementations improve overtime so if let's say a technology such as hyperthreading comes around I don't need to rewrite my code to take atvantage of that SUN will modify the JVM for that architechture so I get all the perks without any of the time investment.

      The applications written in Java that I use and like are 1 the IDE I use Eclipse which comes with all types of great plugins that let me do everything from debug an opensource J2EE container to work with my RDBMS platforms on the back end. I've also been using Freenet a great P2P app with lots of cool ideas that radically change the way information is distributed and consumed. Jabber a IM client written entirely in java. And think of it from a users perspective. If I'm going to spend time learning to use an application do I really want to have to go looking for a brand new application to fill that ones need everytime I want to purchase a computer that runs a different OS than the one I had before. No it's a waste of time and money. My only hope is either that the vendor of said product is generous and ports their application to both platforms or that they decided to write the application in an OS neutral technology such as Java.

      In repsonse to: Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application? I suppose you think it would be eaiser to port an application written in C,C++ yourself (assuming you even have the source). Of my favorite applications listed above I haven't had to do any of this to get them to run on mutiple platforms (MS 95 - XP, FreeBSD, Linux (many distros)) so don't knock the entire Java platform just because the few applications you've tried this on reqiured a lot of work to get running. You are describing and implementation detail specific to the applications you run.

      And you say: just as portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform. ...provided you even have access to the source what if you are encorporating 3rd party libraries into your code. If they're not Java their is no guaranty this will be possible. You will be left begging the vendor, believe me I know.

      And my last reason to use Java over C++, C is that garbage collection doesn't have to be integrated into my application, buffer overflows aren't an issue (at least at my application level) and just as a programmer of a Windows Application isn't resposible for se

    26. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

      Have you actually tried writing a serious app in Java?

      No, but the reason is that I've never come into contact with anything related to Java that left me with a good feeling. I figure that if no one else can make Java likable, it would be unrealistic to assume that I can.

      I come into contact with Java at work, and I have experimented with small projects in Java in the past.

    27. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by AstroPup · · Score: 1

      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      Easy. Eclipse, Interactive Brokers Trader's Workstation, Gallery Remote and Limewire are a few I've run in the last day or so. Then again, what I really like Java for is running server side applications. There are many on my server.

      Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the competition? Standard C, C++ or Python (depending on your desired level of abstraction) are just as portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform.

      I can think of several. I've done cross platform Java, C++ and C applications. Java beats the other two easily. Write, compile, distribute to every target.

      And programs written in these languages just fit in, they find their libraries without fuss,

      Wow, you've never had to deal with DLL issues in windows or LDPATH problems on *nix?
      they start up rapidly (in comparison) instead of seemingly spawning an OS within an OS.

      I'll give you that one. However there's currently not an application on my desktop that hasn't been running for several days (most of them have been up several weeks). On my server several of my java apps have been up months. Startup time doesn't bother me that much.

    28. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

      Given your antipathy towards Java I take it you tried it once perhaps Loooooong ago, didn't like it, and now spew the same antipathy today as if nothing has changed. Not trying to criticize your view or anything but they "were" valid... years ago.

      Do you deny that it still takes a shell script to start most Java apps on Unix? The latest Ant apparently still does this, for example.

      Do you deny that developing and building Java apps requires that you adjust you CLASSPATH in order for the compiler to find the locations of third-party libraries you are linking against?

      Do you deny that running Java applications still requires you to obtain a JRE from Sun? And that many applications require at minimum a certain version of the JRE?

      So what exactly has changed?

    29. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Richard_Davies · · Score: 1

      > This is not a troll.
      > Why does anyone use Java, ever?

      *snip*

      I'm having real problems reconciling your first two sentences.

    30. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CynicTheHedgehog · · Score: 1

      The thing I like about Java is that it enforces best practices. Looking at the capabilities of the language it seems like the inventor sat down and said, "okay, here's all of the things I need to do. Now what are is the minimum number of keywords and constructs I can implement and still be able to do all of them." Good examples of this would be single inheritance with interfaces; lack of explicit virtual functions (all functions are virtual); the well-defined and supported Bean model of Get and Set methods (as opposed to readonly member variables or properties); and the I/O and collections classes. I don't care what the trolls may say, from Java 1.2 there are very obvious conventions that are easy to follow and understand, and looking at the API you can usually tell exactly how the author intended the class to be used.

      I'm doing C# now (not by choice) and one of the major gripes I have is that C# supports so much in the way of syntax that there is no way to establish and uphold best practices. And although the API is some 8000 classes, basic stuff like I/O and collections were severely neglected. So now I have tons of syntactical variations I can use, but no idea how to use them properly. Meanwhile I'm left writing custom collections classes for just about anything that doesn't fit nicely in a Hashtable or ArrayList. And I still haven't figured out what crack the I/O team was smoking when they designed the file access classes.

      But all languages have their downsides; I do happen to like the concept of object properties even if the C# implementation stinks, and the .NET development environments have Java whooped bigtime. But IMO the breadth of features in .NET is no match for the depth of features in a more mature language like Java or C++. And my only gripe against C++ is that it doesn't manage memory or object references for you, which, depending on your performance needs, is either a blessing or a curse.

    31. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by crazyphilman · · Score: 1

      Well, I know where you're coming from. I used to do Java, and it can be annoying at times. Plus, it is kind of on the slow side, even with the new compiler producing cached native code (it only produces native code when that code gets called, so the first time any function is called it's still slow -- why, oh why did they do THAT? They should have compiled and cached the whole enchilada right away). So, yeah, I can see why you'd ask "why Java?". It's a good question.

      I think a lot of people like Java because it has a very rich API; they gave us just about everything we could possibly want, right in the language itself. Plus, Sun did a great job setting up a class reference, which makes it easy to code in Java without having memorized the whole language. You can look up what you need as you go. A variety of things that are much harder in other languages are no big deal in Java, which is kind of cool. And, it has a nice, C-style syntax.

      Java does have problems: it's slow, different systems will implement the JRE differently (sometimes not so well), the GUI development environments are still a little rough around the edges...

      But, there IS hope, though. Java gets better every year. And, GNU is working on their "classpath" project, which is going to give you a native-code implementation of most of the Java class libraries, usable with a number of OSS JRE-type environments. It ought to run quite a bit faster than the Sun JRE, and because it's Free Software, there won't be any license restrictions (except for the requirements of the GPL of course). Also, since "classpath" is being merged, sort of, with GCJ, you'll have a source-to-binary Java compiler for Linux, FreeBSD, and other OSS O/S'es soon. They're going to be able to handle most of Java's functionality, and it's a nice cleanroom implementation, so it'll be cool to have around.

      I think it'll be worth it to know Java, because sooner or later, it'll be the language it could be. It's just a matter of having faith in the people who are working on it, and giving them time to work out all the problems. Eventually, I think it's inevitable that Java will be as good a language as C++.

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    32. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

      I'm glad that I included the first sentence then, since you would have apparently otherwise assumed that I was, in fact, a troll. For more about why I feel I can truthfully say it was not a troll, see this post and this post.

    33. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      Swing includes the "Native" look and feel, which does, in fact, look and feel Native

      Bullshit. Any novice Windows user can easily pick out Java Swing apps in "native look and feel". They look similar, but not the same.

      tell your users to install the JRE version x.x from www.java.com

      You're joking, right? Please tell me your joking.

    34. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Enthrash · · Score: 1

      Well, I wouldn't defend JAVA for one second for apps which require an extremely high degree of CPU or memory efficiency (3D, CAD, simulation, numerical analysis etc), as C/C++ implementations can clearly do these tasks better.

      However IMHO, when it comes to internet related applications (web services, web apps etc.), or enterprise apps, I feel Java clearly comes out ahead. I doubt the same apps, same features and same stability cannot be programmed (by the AVERAGE developer) in C & C++ in a comparable amount of time.

      In addition, CPU's & memory are far cheaper to buy than developers. Thus given the choice of creating highly efficient apps with more developers or less efficient apps with fewer developers I would expect most companies will chose the latter.

      Rich...

    35. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by bytes256 · · Score: 1

      tell your users to install the JRE version x.x from www.java.com

      You're joking, right? Please tell me your joking.


      No, actually I'm not joking, Installing a JRE is very simple...done it many times. I'm not seeing where the trouble with that is. Odds are good many people already have one on their computer to view Java Applets in their favorite web browser.

      --

      Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
    36. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by crazyphilman · · Score: 1

      Hey, guys, guys, come on -- be cool. You're allowed to redistribute a JRE, you can put that as part of your install, and let the user choose whether to use it or use his own (he might already have it). You don't have to tell someone to go to a website...

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    37. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      That's wonderful. Now walk down the street and ask ten random people what a JRE is. Or why they need one to install a certain application. I'd be surprised if you even found one person in that random sample that knew what it is.

      Most people won't care, when you send them to download that JRE for your application, they'll probably just go and download a native application instead and be done with it.

      Odds are not.

    38. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      Yes you can. But many people don't know if they have one already, or how all the various versions work out. Also, a lot of applications just install it without prompting. I was trying some new applications in Windows a while back, and I had something like 5 JREs installed because they each had to have their own (well, they didn't, I removed them, but they thought they did and didn't ask).

    39. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Dan-DAFC · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. Any novice Windows user can easily pick out Java Swing apps in "native look and feel". They look similar, but not the same

      This used to be the case but there have been massive improvements. Since 1.4, Swing apps are, with only two very minor exceptions, completely indistinguishable from native apps. One thing that betrays them are the default icons in trees (you can replace these with less ugly icons). The other is that title bars on internal frames when running under XP are classic Windows style rather than XP style (fixed in the new XP look-and-feel in 1.4.2).

      If you were running, on Windows, one of the GUIs developed at our company, you wouldn't know they were Java apps unless I told you.

      Now if you are running on Linux, Swing apps look ugly because there is no QT or GTK look-and-feel so you have to use either the Java default or Motif (GTK is coming in 1.4.2). So under Linux they are easily identifiable, but Sun have done a lot of work to make them look native on Windows.

      By all accounts, Apple's look-and-feel for MacOS X is equally good.

      --
      Suck figs.
    40. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by ashultz · · Score: 1


      I've almost never come into contact with any software that leaves me with a good feeling, but I still write software.

      It's true that a lot of Java GUIs, well, suck. If your apps are pretty GUI driven, you'll probably be happier with something platform specific.

      But if you're going to judge the whole language on the likability of its GUI libraries, you should judge C on the likability of UNIX command line utilities. ;)

    41. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Steveftoth · · Score: 1

      Which Unix?
      At least on MacOSX, it's easy as pie to deliver a self-contained jar to someone and have them run it. Same jar that runs on windows works in MacOSX (it just doesn't 'look' like a native osx application without either command line params, or packing it like a Mac App.

    42. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am a java developer so I will answer your questions.

      >Why does anyone use Java, ever? In what situation does it offer anything that justifies the pain and
      >inconvience that it incurs?

      Java is best suited for when the cost and speed of development is an issue. MS Word is a consumer app which means it is written once and used millions of times, a lot of business apps are written once and used for one purpose on one machine. So the economies are different, for the business system the costs of the programmers is much greater than the cost of the hardware so execution speed is much less important than development time.

      >Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      Yes. I use IDEA by Intellij and think it is the best coding environment EVER on ANY platform. It is fast, powerful, reliable and it is absolutely worth running java compared to things like Emacs and Vi. If the IDE requires more RAM then I go buy it, as much as it takes. RAM is so freakin cheap compared to my time that I don't even think about it (currently have machines from 1GB to 3GB that I use daily).

      >Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform
      >you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and
      >shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable"
      >application?

      The issue with Java is you can run it on many platform with no *code* changes. Changing code is thousands of times more expensive because of the complexity and testing that is required. Changing environment variables is trivial. Anyway some applications take *years* to deploy no matter what language they are written in.

      >Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the
      >competition? Standard C, C++ or Python (depending on your desired level of abstraction) are just as
      >portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform

      I cannot actually think of the reverse. In what situation is C more cross platform than Java? you always need to compile C and it is hardly trivial to port C apps from one platform to another. Even C++ does not have anywhere near the same cross-platform libraries that java has, which means for non-trivial apps you end up with different libraries on each platform which increases cost greatly.

      >I've felt this way about Java since the moment I first tried it, and I'm still at a loss. I just
      >don't get why so many people decide that Java is the solution for them

      Because most people are interested in software that helps them run their business. Java is a great language for solving real problems that real businesses have. If you have no exposure to enterprise computing then I could see why you don't understand.

    43. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by pmz · · Score: 1

      Why does anyone use Java, ever?

      1) Perhaps people see in Java some of the reasons they would rather choose Lisp but can't, because Lisp is still fragmented and not widely understood.

      2) From a high-level design point of view, it's better than C but less complex than C++ (although interfaces and the lack of multiple inheritence still nag at me a bit).

      3) It is possible to isolate platform dependencies to configuration files and distribute the same compiled binaries to all platforms (think: compile once, run anyhere--if programmed properly, that is). This one is actually pretty darn good reason.

      4) The immensity of the Java APIs is overwhelming, but the capabilities in there are impressive. A Java programmer that finds themselves writing utility classes for common operations probably missed something.

      5) Although the "null pointer exception" took over where "segmentation fault" left off, there really are classes of bugs that don't occur in Java, such as buffer overflows and random memory corruption. In C, only a good debugger, such as Sun's dbx, can catch some bugs (dbx's run-time checking is very very useful at times).

      6) Java applications are not necessarily more reliable than C programs, but it seems that Java programs are more easily debugged (however, it seems J2EE apps might be harder due to the edit-compile-deploy-test cycle).

      7) Java is stable, from the point of view that the language and APIs don't often change in incompatible ways. Java inherited Sun's conservatism. Compare this to Microsoft's history of API replacements and extensions (and to the volatility present in some OSS projects, such as GNOME).

      8) The Java runtime is, itself, pretty reliable. I don't recall seeing the JVM crash or running into bugs in the APIs. I'm sure they are there, but it appears they are not common.

      8) While it is true that C is much more widely ported than J2SE, kludges like autoconf scripts aren't needed for Java applications, which reflects well on Java's architecture. I swear I waste more time fighting with autoconf, libtool, etc. than any other aspect of managing applications on my systems. I don't even know what purpose libtool serves other than to break builds on Solaris. Libtool sucks. (okay that was a rant)

      9) Java isn't Microsoft. I know this is flame-bait, but the sad thing is that this reason is as big is any other I listed above. Who knows where C#/.NET is going, but, if Microsoft goes down, C#/.NET is going with them. Sun Microsystems is smart enough to realize companies don't like to put all their eggs in one basket. Thus, the JCP, J2EE licensing and certification, etc. Other than J2SE, Sun is actually a small player in the Java market (they are dwarfed by BEA, for example, in the J2EE market). Sun also sets other examples that reinforce that they aren't complete ass holes (OpenOffice.org, for one; Liberty Alliance, for another)

      In general, I think there are a lot of thing that Java does really well, but most people completely take them for granted. It is easy to forget how frustrating memory bugs in C are or how damn complex C++ is, for example.

    44. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By acknowledging there are "exceptions", you just confirmed the parent poster is correct. Similar, but not the same.

    45. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We use Java Servlets for web server logic. Being able to develop on Linux/Win32 and drop the compiled and tested binaries onto a risc box is great. We literally have the exact same compiled files running on 4 operatings systems (Solaris, AIX, various Linux and various Win32s) with 3 different cpu types (intel, sparcs and power pcs). I can think of 5 databases that we are using. This requires the changing of two lines of text in an external configuration file.

      We use Java Swing for our front end programs which are usable either as an applet or an application and must work on both Linux and Windows client boxes. Having this ability lets us have one code base for all our products. Once you have multiple customers demanding your product on multiple systems with multiple configurations, Java becomes the only reasonable choice. The languages you've mentioned are not 'just as portable' as Java. It's not even close.

      The extensive API also helps us add new features very quickly.

      We don't have a problem with the gui look, classpath, slow widgets, shell scripts, environment variables. Perhaps you are thinking of the Java 1.0 days.

      Overall it is a time = money argument. We could provide our products using other technolgy, but it would take too much time, which would make them cost too much, which would put us out of business.

      As always, you need to use the right tool for the right job. There are jobs where Java is the right tool.

    46. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People have watered down the meaning of "troll" to be "something strongly worded that may be controversial."

      Many, many more have practically redefined it as "Something that I disagree with", and in some cases "Unpleasant facts that I prefer not to face".

    47. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      java is the solution for me because i want to spend my time -writing applications-, not fussing about with threads and low-level nonsense -IF I DON'T NEED TO-.
      i like java. i like the syntax, i like the documentation, and i like the portability.


      Sounds to me like you'd be happier with Python. And surprisingly, even though it's called a scripting language, I find it faster than java in most cases (particularly startup time!). Being able to package up the entire app into a standalone EXE (no runtime, no python interpreter required) is a big attraction too. Not sure how this is done on Linux yet though...

    48. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by crazyphilman · · Score: 1

      Well... I think it might be worth it coming up with some kind of small program that checks for the JRE that is installed, and allows the user to choose whether he/she wants to upgrade, or just keep using the one he/she's got. 'Course, this would basically be a compiled binary in another language, which runs a command-line shell and queries the JRE, but you'd only have to build it once.

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    49. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Wraithlyn · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?"

      Sure... Borland JBuilder, versions 3 through 9. Awesome IDE.

      "Do you deny that it still takes a shell script to start most Java apps on Unix?"

      Yes. Package it in an executable JAR. Runs on any Java system. Hell, with JBuilder 8 Enterprise I can easily build native executable wrappers for Win32, Mac, Linux and Solaris.

      "Do you deny that developing and building Java apps requires that you adjust you CLASSPATH in order for the compiler to find the locations of third-party libraries you are linking against?"

      Yes. See previous point. Or, do what we did, write our own dynamic ClassLoader bootstrap which searches out required libraries and loads them automatically.

      This is really the heart of your pet peeve against Java, isn't it? You struggled with some annoying CLASSPATH crap, it frustrated you, and you decided you hated the entire language? I do understand... that stuff is tedious when you're trying to get into it.

      "Do you deny that running Java applications still requires you to obtain a JRE from Sun?"

      You don't have to go to Sun. There are plenty of third party JREs.

      "And that many applications require at minimum a certain version of the JRE?"

      All software has system requirements, what's your point?

      Got some more questions?

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
    50. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This doesn't work!
      <coder> You need to install the JRE
      <customer> What's that?
      <coder> It's a runtime environment for bla bla bla
      <customer> (eyes glazing over) Yeah, ok, where do I get it?
      <coder> Oh, it's easy! Just go to java.sun.com
      <customer> That's all? Sweet! Someone showed me yesterday how to type in a URL directly instead of typing it into google... j a v a . s u n . c o m.... uhh... do I need "J2EE", "J2SE", or "J2ME"?
      <coder> Oh, no, you want to click on "Java VM" under popular downloads in that little box on the right.
      <customer> I thought you said it was a JRE?
      <coder> It is... they give it different names to make my life difficult, and your job next to impossible, all in the name of "portable" code.
      <customer> (eyes glazing over again) Yeah, ok, whatever. OK, this took me to a new site. I'm not a complete noob, so I clicked on "get it now", and clicked on the Microsoft link, because I run Microsoft on my computer. WHOA! 8MB? I need to spend 20 minutes downloading this pap just to make your program work? And I need to install this on all my computers?
      <coder> It's a small price to pay, and besides, it wouldn't take 20 minutes if you'd get a real internet connection.
      <customer> Hmmm. Yes. I think I'll go talk to that guy who wanted to sell me the C++ solution. At least I don't have time to grab a cup of coffee while that starts up.
      <coder> Really? All my java friends tell me C++ sucks because you have to understand what you're doing. Maybe there's something to it after all...

      Another victory for light and truth.

    51. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by UnanimousCoward · · Score: 1

      I work for a big company that makes mostly Windows-based products, but we have two versions of a browser client: one that is ActiveX-based and one that is Java applet-based.

      We have a real business case that supports the need for the applet-based client regardless of what you've heard of IE dominance in the marketplace.

      --
      Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
    52. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Qbertino · · Score: 1

      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      Actually, yes. Jedit.
      And yes.
      And yes.
      And so on.

      I like Python too, and choose it over Java if it's really applicable. But not understanding 'the allure of Java' is a little overinflated don't you think? The apps above are good reasons to use Java, and they're not even Javas prime homeground. Maybe you haven't done any serious server side programming or tight client-server stuff, but be ashured that there are very good reasons to use Java. Especially with a big team and an emphasis on solid OOAD.

      --
      We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    53. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by smagruder · · Score: 1

      ...when you send them to download that JRE for your application, they'll probably just go and download a native application instead and be done with it.

      Seems to me that in this situation, the step of installing a JRE (click and open... done) is far simpler than hunting around for an appropriate alternative application, native or not. Most users I run into have no problem installing a JRE if they're pointed to where the JRE can be downloaded from, or esp. if the JRE is included in the install.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    54. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by smagruder · · Score: 1

      By acknowledging there are "exceptions", you just confirmed the parent poster is correct. Similar, but not the same.

      "Mostly the same" is good enough for the non-anal. Why is this such an issue anyway?

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    55. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how many new Windows desktop apps are there left to write?

      I don't know. How much time can you afford to save that is currently wasted jumping hoops with existing software?

    56. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Arslan+ibn+Da'ud · · Score: 1
      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      Uuhhhh...errr....(should I mention this....oh ok) Limewire

      Java has Gnutella to thank for bringing us Limewire!

      --

      Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.

    57. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Rothron+the+Wise · · Score: 1

      The thing I like about Java is that it enforces best practices.

      I agree whole-heartedly. One of my favorite things about Java is that it gives me the ability to write APIs which pretty much force you to use them correctly. Not just through hints in the documentation or naming convetions, but enforced through the language itself.

      In C or C++ you have virtually no control over the ways a programmer can abuse or pervert your code.

      --
      A witty .sig proves nothing
    58. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by forgetmenot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you deny that it still takes a shell script to start most Java apps on Unix? The latest Ant apparently still does this, for example.

      uh... yeah? But even if you do, so what? Last I looked shell scripts weren't that big of a deal. Hell, if you can write the app I'm sure you're more than capable of writing a little itty bitty shell script to launch nicely with your favorite settings and perhaps even change your background to a nice picture of Lucy Liu while you're at. who cares.

      Do you deny that developing and building Java apps requires that you adjust you CLASSPATH in order for the compiler to find the locations of third-party libraries you are linking against?

      ANT solves this for you during compile time, and runtime really isn't an issue anymore. In fact, if you find yourself setting the classpath in your environment you're probably doing something wrong or using the wrong tools.

      Do you deny that running Java applications still requires you to obtain a JRE from Sun? And that many applications require at minimum a certain version of the JRE?

      Nothing requires you to use Sun's JRE if that's what you're opposed to. But again, so what? If it's the requirement for a JRE in general you don't like, then again I ask.. so what? Smalltalk apps only run through a Smalltalk interpreter. .NET apps need the .NET runtime. VB apps need that massive dll linked or available on the system... Pretty petty point to base a dislike for a language on. And for IT users.. it's especially moot.

    59. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do people use Java ?
      Stupidity?

    60. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by tolan-b · · Score: 1

      chek out eclipse, it's a good example of java working on the desktop (although i wouldn't particularly advocate java for desktop apps, it's perfectly capable)

      http://www.eclipse.org

    61. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by ebuck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The "allure" of JAVA really has very little to do with JAVA itself.

      A big part of the "allure" of JAVA has to do with the history of your average programmer.

      The typical programmer used to go to collage where they learned C / FORTRAN / COBOL or if they were lucky, mabye PASCAL. Then they went into industry where they solved a problem, wrote an app, and all was well. That is, until the bugs came rolling in. Somewhere between fixing the bugs, including new features, interfacing with the new library x.so (or x.dll) techniques to deal with code complexity were cobbled together. Some were better than others, and those currently stand as best pratices.

      JAVA is revolutionary (and has allure) because for once, a commonly used language offered a new paradigm (object oriented programming) and enforced (no backwards compatibility) all of the "rules". This means that in JAVA I really do feel comfortable not paying attention to the guts of class X because I know that class X cannot mess up my bit of code unless I allow it to do so.

      My only gripe with C++ is not that it cannot do what JAVA has done, it is that it allows the rules to be broken via backwards compatibility with C. So to have the same level of confidence modifying a C++ program as I have in JAVA, I need to read the whole thing to make sure it is Object Oriented (TM) and not just touched up C.

    62. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I think it's more a matter of psychology than of whether Java is any good or not.
      People tend to take things personally, even things like programming languages.
      If you say that the Java language is a not too particularly wonderful language you are not really saying what you think you are saying (even though you may think you are).
      You are saying that the person who chose to program in Java sucks, and that they have no form of intelligence, etc. , etc.
      When people are criticized, they are automatically put on the defence and automatically try to justify themselves -- even if they know that they're wrong!
      People ain't very rational...just read most of the replies to this article! :-)

    63. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about complex server applications with uptimes in month and years, being developed in a few months and having tens of thousand lines of code. Is that robust enough. As for scalability, you can go from the low end windows/linux machine up to a cluster or big irons and on most architectures you will find a good VM :-)

    64. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Manic+Ken · · Score: 1

      Do you mean the jabber client named Jabber at jabber.com? Jabber Messenger is supported on Windows 98 2nd Edition, ME, 2000, and XP.
      Is that a java app? Then why is it restricted to M$ OS's? Thats odd.

    65. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      Think download.com.

    66. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      I'm sure such a thing exists already. But we were discussing his comment that he could just give them a JAR file. Obviously that's just not feasible for the average user.

    67. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by smallpaul · · Score: 1

      If I decide to develop in let's say Python, C++ or C# if the code I write today needs to be ported to say AIX later I'm going to have to rewrite at least some of my code to make that happen.

      I'm sorry. That's just incorrect. It depends on how you write your code, just as it does in Java. C/C++/Python allow you to write non-portable code and it is admittedly easier than it is in Java, but that's a feature, not a bug. Writing portable code is also easy if you use portable libraries. Please consider this post.

    68. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by PierceLabs · · Score: 1

      Actually it sounds to me that you either are a complete Java novice or have succumb to an extreme amount of FUD. Java Desktop Applications that I like include: Limewire, JPhoto, Most J2ME development Tools, IntelliJ, IBM MPEG4 player, a couple of MAME applets, and a small colleciton of Java games using LWJGL. Hell there is a device that plugs into a gameboy advance that allows me to write midlets for that platform. If you're even touching the classpath you simply don't have any idea of the advancements in java over some 3-4 years. Java has installers that make Java applications install like native applications, there are compilers that can make it compile to executable files for most platforms, and with JavaWebStart many applications are launchable from a web page URL. When you get any of these other solutions to the point where I can develop applications that reside on a phone without having to use Brew for reasonable portability - then I might even consider what you have to say as coming from someone who didn't look at Java1.1.8 and assume that the java world froze in time while you continued to learn other things. There is a reason why the vast majority of jobs out there require Java - and its not so we have something to chat about during lunch. So while I don't think you're a troll, I think you are certainly either blind to the truth or unwilling to accept it. Java has gotten a boatload better over the years and is here to stay.

    69. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by mibus · · Score: 1
      Why does anyone use Java, ever? In what situation does it offer anything that justifies the pain and inconvience that it incurs?

      I use it a fair bit for apps that I write to run on my laptop (PPC OS X) and desktop (x86 Linux). With a GUI. No hassle.

      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

      Absolutely. jEdit. I use it all of the time for my 2nd job (PHP coding). Under OSX it's totally native(-looking). It takes a decent amount of time to start, but still not as much as DreamWeaver. (It's f*cking fast on my desktop but not as pretty :).

    70. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by crazyphilman · · Score: 1

      Ah... I understand. But you know, that isn't a hit against Java per se, it's more against a programmer who fails to create a proper install setup. You can't blame a language for a programmer who doesn't want to go all the way. What if a VB programmer didn't want to use Visual Studio Installer, and instead just handed his users a diskette with an executable and ten system dlls that had to be installed, and just said to them, "Here ya go, you're all set." That would be just as bad. This is kind of a language-neutral thing.

      As far as Java and JAR files go, JAR files are cool; you can bundle everything you need up in one. It's just that you still have to give the user some kind of setup script! ;)

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    71. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      But then it's lost it's "write once, run anywhere" capability. If your installer is compiled for a certain platform, then you might as well compile the app specifically for that platform.

      Yeah JAR files are especially cool when someone comes along and decompiles your app (don't bother mentioning obfuscation, it doesn't work).

    72. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SUN is the only one pushing Java on the client - it doesn't belong there (for now).

      However, on the server-side, Java is a very tough competitor.

      I've written both server and client side code on enterprise-scale distributed systems in C, C++ and Java and Java can easily hold it's own.

      That being said, .NET and the various languages (notably C#) are gaining ground VERY quickly. It's only a matter of time before one or the other will begin feeling the pressure. Since I can't predict the winner at this point, I'm making sure I stay current on both technologies.

    73. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Java will not let you escape working with threads - any non-trivial program uses multiple threads... and Java's threading model has some very nasty gotchas.

    74. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So tell me why non-explict VIRTUAL FUNCTIONS are a good thing? This is one of the reasons java is slow. Every call method has to determine at run-time.

      Now tell me how many virtual functions do you really need in a program. A lot of objects don't need them.

      As for the syntax it's almost identical to Java and that which java lacks (foreach, properties, attributes) are being added to Java 1.5

      What did you do in Java to implement a collection of custom objects you have created?
      How is it different than C#?

      Now I guess I don't get the IO issues you are having? What class do you need that hasn't been written into the .NET Framework.

      I REALLY like Java. It's a great language and got the ball rolling. SUN dropped that ball when by holding on to Swing instead of using IBM's SWT.

      C# might go far if MS doesn't squash Mono. People are implementing native bindings for GUI interfaces which is the RIGHT way to do it.

      What if you could run a C# appliation on Windows, spend a couple of weeks porting over to GTK# on Linux and have a linux application. Isn't this better than having a semi-usable Java Swing interface that takes days to finalize on another platform?

    75. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whew, glad my Windows distribution includes all of those libraries and an unzipper that I understand how to use.

      Oh wait, it doesn't. Installing a JRE is like installing a new version of IE, any other web browser, or even your favorite media player.

    76. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by crazyphilman · · Score: 1

      Well... Ok, you win on those two points. Just about all java is automatically "open source" in that reading the source code for anything is trivial. And, yeah, you do end up doing all kinds of set-up for individual O/S'es, because you don't want to just hand your users a jar file.

      Two slightly mitigating factors, though:

      1. If you're into OSS, you don't care if people read your code; you've probably supplied it as part of your install media.

      2. Although you've had to create an installer of some kind for your naiive users, the software itself hasn't changed, so it IS still write once, run anywhere (after setup, that is). If your users are more advanced, you might be able to just hand them a jar file after all. It depends. So this might not be so bad.

      Still. Good points. I wish I could stick with C++, myself, but my grad school leans pretty heavily towards Java in all their software engineering courses, so I'm more or less stuck.

      All that aside, though, you have to admit: Java is kind of interesting as languages go. And, I think a lot of these problems are going to fade as the GNU folks make more progress in their "classpath" project and GCJ.

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    77. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be so kind! :-P

    78. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmmm.... what is...a paid Java evangelist?

    79. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      Yeah Java is nice language. I do like it. However, a lot of what people claim as benefits of the Java platform simply don't exist. That said, I hope it sticks around for a long time. And I think GCJ will go a long way towards making that happen.

    80. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Phouk · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Java is good at many things - huge standardized thoroughly documented libraries, lots and lots of commercial and oss tools and projects, availability of and demand for Java programmers etc. etc. But there's one kind of problem that you can only solve in a reasonable way with Java, AFAIK: huge "enterprise" apps. These apps require a technology that, among others...
      • is cluster-capable
      • can scale to big iron (dozens of cpus upwards)
      • can interface with mainframe apps
      • supports transactions where a single transaction can span several databases and/or mainframe apps and/or message queues
      • supports web services, web front ends and GUI clients
      What other technology can support this? Correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK, with C++/Corba, you have to build a lot of that yourself, or integrate several non-standard solutions to do it. With .NET, you are limited to Windows (Mono is not there yet), and Windows doesn't run on big iron.
      --
      Stupidity is mis-underestimated.
    81. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      b/c java sucks... deliver or stop! experiment over... isn't there some other nice language you can learn to love. fucking go back to lisp!

    82. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FTFJF.

      ESR can't be my linguist.

    83. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >You struggled with some annoying CLASSPATH crap, it frustrated you, and you decided you hated the entire language? I do understand... that stuff is tedious when you're trying to get into it.

      he wansn't trying to get into anything, he wanted to run a fscking program! come on!

    84. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's possible to pervert your code, that's put so emotionally, and of course it'll be used as intended unless it's so screwed up I have to reverse engineer it to get things to work, something C++ would let me do.

      You can learn best practices. The language doesn't have to know them.

      --

      -pyrrho

    85. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Trinition · · Score: 1
      A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH

      If you don't like dealing with the classpath, you can revert to the same mess that Windows uses. Just stick every .jar you'll ever need under lib/ext under the JVM, and it will be found. Its just that then you can never sort out what belongs to what, easily mix versions, etc.

      The CLASSPATH is an optional "pain" that makes your life easier. It just so happens the majority thinks its a better idea and prefers to use it.

    86. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by kelzer · · Score: 1

      Recall the definition of a troll. A troll posts something intentionally inflamatory to get a rise out of people. You really think that my post had the sole purpose of making people angry?

      Pretty much, yeah. But your definition is a bit off. Look up the word "troll" in the dictionary. One of the definitions has to do with fishing - pulling a lure through the water to attract and hook fish. A troll is a post that's fishing for lots of responses, and that's exactly what your post did. It didn't state facts - it stated inflamatory and subjective opinion (often not based on fact).

      And I'd say that, since your post elicited dozens of responses (hell, half the topic was filled by your thread), that it was indeed an effective troll.

      People have watered down the meaning of "troll" to be "something strongly worded that may be controversial." And that's silly.

      Maybe they have, but I haven't. I don't mind strongly worded or controversial, it's the inaccurate that bothers me.

      And thanks to the guy who modded me down as "overrated" because he was too chicken to get meta-moderated.

      --

      ---------------------------------------------
      SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    87. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by smagruder · · Score: 1

      Think download.com.

      I am thinking of that. And from my experience, it takes time to search through the listings, find decent app candidates, download them, evaluate them... I'm sure you know the score.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    88. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by kelzer · · Score: 1

      I'm glad that I included the first sentence then . . .

      Yeah, that proves it wasn't a troll, just like all the spam that starts with "This is not spam" proves it isn't spam.

      --

      ---------------------------------------------
      SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    89. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He didn't invent the lexicon; he just documents it. Remain ignorant of jargon useage at your own peril.

    90. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

      You really think that my post had the sole purpose of making people angry?

      Pretty much, yeah.

      Then you're categorically wrong. I am the only one who can authoritatively assess my motives, and unless you are going to accuse me of lying also, my defense of not being intentionally inflammatory stands.

      I've expressed exactly the same opinion to friends in person. Do you think I am trying to make them mad also?

      I do consider my post effective since I got several reasonable replies explaining to me exactly what circumstances make Java a good choice.

      But thank you for putting a face on the faceless masses of shitty moderators who moderate any controversial post colloquially stated as "troll." I am glad to know you can't tell the difference between "Java is complete shit, and the people who use it are wankers" and "I just don't get why so many people decide that Java is the solution for them."

      And thanks to the guy who modded me down as "overrated" because he was too chicken to get meta-moderated.

      Somehow it's hard to feel sympathetic when you're so willing to dish out unreasonable moderation. Perhaps the people you mod "troll" feel similarly slighted.

    91. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      Someone wants a widget player. They search for "widget player" and 20 results come up. Click to download first one in list, it downloads, and the install window pops up: "To use this software, please download JRE 1.4.1 from java.sun.com." User clicks cancel, and starts downloading second one in list.

    92. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by kelzer · · Score: 1

      Several reasonable replies? You got friggin' 35 replies. Maybe you weren't intentionally trolling, but that post was one of the most effective trolls I've seen in a long time.

      Somehow it's hard to feel sympathetic when you're so willing to dish out unreasonable moderation. Perhaps the people you mod "troll" feel similarly slighted.

      Oh, I rarely waste mod points modding stuff down. I usually try to be positive, and use all my points to mod good posts up. But it's hard to be positive about a post that's so negative.

      And I still question your opening line - even you knew the post was coming across as a troll, or else you wouldn't have stated it.

      --

      ---------------------------------------------
      SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    93. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by sloppydawg · · Score: 1

      Sorry Jabber is only the protocol / architecture of the IM and the jabber.com site does only offer win versions. There are many open source Java clients written which implement the jabber protocol such as Swagger which I'm currently using. You can check it out here

    94. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      even you knew the post was coming across as a troll, or else you wouldn't have stated it.

      Or perhaps he knew about the "Java-warrior" moderators lurking around out there, just burning with desire to mod down anything that might suggest Java didn't slide out of God's sphincter?

    95. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does anyone use Java, ever?

      I....l..i..k..e....J..a..v..a....b..e..c..a..u.. s. .e....i..t..'..s....s..o....f..a..s..t.

    96. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by mofochickamo · · Score: 1
      That's why there are more developers using Java than any other language.

      Are you sure about that? I heard somewhere that there are more VB programmers than anything, that is, if you consider VB a programming language ;). I tried to find more info on the web about the most widely used language, but nothing authoritative turned up.

      --
      Honk if you're horny.
    97. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java by Blitzshlag · · Score: 1

      Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like? IBM WebSphere Application Developer. Written entirely. in. Java.

  19. The report on ASP? by TenDimensions · · Score: 2, Funny

    I find it interesting that the published report is via ASP...

  20. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Sheetrock · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Well right, I mean implementation, but I haven't met an implementation yet that felt smooth.

    What I'm getting at is that a little goes a long way with display updates. Having a 'silken mouse' under Windows NT+ meant that even under heavy load the interface felt smooth and responsive (well, until you tried to open a window or do something requiring CPU) -- with Win9X/ME the mouse would jerk around under even mediocre load. X-Windows also felt like it was sluggish until I discovered you could 'nice -n -10' it. On the AS/400, heavy priority is given to interactive applications but batch jobs (which only run in the background) and compiles are typically executed at a lower priority.

    My point is that they need to optimize the speed with which displays and user interface updates are performed to achieve the effect where the user feels like the application is crisp -- even if it impacts performance in other areas. It's a subtle user interface trick that they've missed out on, although I'll admit that Java 2 is making things a little better.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  21. Status What? by semanticgap · · Score: 1

    Public school education at work...

  22. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by elmegil · · Score: 1

    Nope, because it's wrong.

    --
    7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
  23. Re: professional trolls... by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Banning them is not enough.

    Blocking them is not enough.

    Post their IP addresses and let all of us gently show them the error of their ways :)

  24. The IDE's baby by glenist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe Iâ(TM)m ignorant, but I donâ(TM)t think there is an IDE for java that comes close to Visual Studio. While VS.NET might have its problems, it is integrated very tight. As a developer I donâ(TM)t want my time taken up with simple tasks, Iâ(TM)d rather work on the interesting bits.

    1. Re:The IDE's baby by MojoMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

      www.eclipse.net

      --

      ----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
    2. Re:The IDE's baby by durdur · · Score: 3, Informative

      IntelliJ is an excellent Java IDE.

    3. Re:The IDE's baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Eclipse does not even come close.

    4. Re:The IDE's baby by Drakonian · · Score: 1

      Nope,wrong site. Try Eclipse - it's VERY nice. Once you try refactoring, you'll like it better than VS.NET. It's written in Java but it doesn't feel like a typical slow Java app because it uses SWT, a fast widget toolkit that uses a 100% Java API with the widget implemented natively. It's CVS integration is top notch too.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
    5. Re:The IDE's baby by zeno_lee · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've used Visual Studio, Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA

      Eclipse www.eclipse.org is excellent and is backed by the industrial strength of IBM. It's open source and it's completely free.

      IntelliJ IDEA www.intellij.com is also excellent, but it's not free.

      Never tried Borland Jbuilder.

      In my opinion as far as IDE's go Visual Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, and eclipse are on the same level.

    6. Re:The IDE's baby by killmeplease · · Score: 0

      JBuilder is the bomb and it is FREE. The problem I have with Visual Studio is the code it generates is ugly as hell. Try going through GUI applications in VS and read the auto generated code and figure out what it does. You get variables like TR_09q34098_984 and functions that are a pain in the ass to cross reference. JBuilder makes clean code and it is so much easier to read Java code that sift through C++ object definitions and polymmorphism relationships with multiple inheiritance many levels deep. Java is easier to understand, especially for non-Senior developers.

      --
      - Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
    7. Re:The IDE's baby by Richard_Davies · · Score: 1

      Java has some very good IDEs, even compared to Visual Studio. Have a look at Eclipse and Netbeans for two good open source IDEs and IntelliJ for an excellent (and not that expensive) commercial IDE.

    8. Re:The IDE's baby by lokedhs · · Score: 2, Informative
      Like others have stated, take a look at IDEA.

      I doubt there is a single feature in the .NET IDE that IDEA doesn't do better (except for GUI builder, of course, since IDEA doesn't have one. It's a tool for developers, after all[1]. :-) ).

      Check out this review. Or this one.

      [1] Actually, a GUI builder is coming in the next version, but it's still in alpha state.

    9. Re:The IDE's baby by tshak · · Score: 1

      When I mention VS.NET everyone, and I mean every java developer mentions Eclipse. I've used it, and I think it is a very good IDE, and it's probably the fastest pure java app that I've ever used on the desktop. This being said, I think that VS.NET has an edge Eclipse - and I hated Visual Studio 6.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    10. Re:The IDE's baby by faaaz · · Score: 2, Informative

      jEdit would be the tool for you. Plain and simple at first glance, install some plugins and it will blow you away.

      --
      we come in peace / shoot to kill
    11. Re:The IDE's baby by mkozlows · · Score: 1

      VS.Net is great for interface work, I'll grant you; but for serious code-wrangling, VS.Net is just frustrating. Where's the refactoring support that's built into Eclipse or IDEA, for instance?

    12. Re:The IDE's baby by PierceLabs · · Score: 1

      IntelliJ spanks Visual Studio in many many ways. JBuilder Enterprise does as well, but suffers from some feature bloat issues.

    13. Re:The IDE's baby by EigenHombre · · Score: 1

      Been using Idea for a few months and am generally quite impressed. But I used Visual C++ about two years ago and loved how easy it was to lay out GUI components in a WYSIWIG manner. I don't think you can do that in Idea; I think you can in JBuilder. Can you in Eclipse?

      --
      EOT
  25. Question by Tenebrous · · Score: 1

    Which Evangelist led the opening prayer?

    1. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that's funny!

      What the computing world needs is fewer technology 'evangelists' and more applications that actually do what they are supposed to do.

  26. Who ARE these guys ? by agslashdot · · Score: 0, Troll

    Butch Cassidy ( Robert Redford ) keeps going "Who ARE these guys?" & that's exactly what struck me when I read this piece.

    Where's Gosling ? Where's Ken Arnold ? Where are the IBM developers ? Instead, you have some "chief software evangelist", a whole bunch of suits, and these are the "luminaries" ? Gimme a break. Hamilton came into the Java scene at such a late stage, I doubt the relevance of his take on the industry.

    Look at the overly simplistic opinions they voice - "Unix is complicated, it won the server, Windows is simple, it won desktop". Jesus.

    JCP will make Java stronger ?! Ha ha ha. Do you know how much you have to pay to become a part of JCP ? What exactly did Kodak's participation in the JCP get them ? Their powerful imaging API is still not part of the standard JDK. log4j never made it into the JDK. The regex libraries were booted out too. In both cases, Sun simply issued a JSR & reinvented the wheel, instead of accomodating valuable work done in an open-source environment.

    The only sure thing I got out of this discussion -"Microsoft .NET is maturing and will be a ferocious competitor to Java...companies putting Java projects on hold pending their evaluation of their .NET projects." - I work for one of them companies. Despite the deep experience in Java & Swing ( we designed grids & calendar widgets when things like JTable were unknown ), we've decided to go the C# route for our finance apps. Java's fine on the server, but windows clients need a C#, no two ways about it. Same story with Linux once Mono's a done deal - just you wait.

    1. Re:Who ARE these guys ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      troll...

    2. Re:Who ARE these guys ? by bartash · · Score: 1

      If you have met Graham Hamilton you will know he has a brain the size of a planet. He may not have been involved in Java for 7 years but he has done a lot. Anyone who can be spec lead for jsr 59 and jsr 47 at the same time must know a few things.

      --
      Read Epic the first RPG novel.
    3. Re:Who ARE these guys ? by fantastic · · Score: 1

      The fact you have no idea who Hamilton is and yet identify Gosling and Arnold is like asking why the windows 95 folks aren't showing up at a windows 2003 event.

  27. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by elmegil · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    nor any Malfoy.

    Damn.

    --
    7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
  28. A juicier Java One wrapup is on TSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TheServerSide.com published a juicier writeup from the developers perspective here:

    http://www.theserverside.com/resources/article.j sp ?l=JavaOneDayOne_03

    They have lots of side discussions with spec leads and political stuff people were saying about Java.

    1. Re:A juicier Java One wrapup is on TSS by rushfan · · Score: 1

      http://www.theserverside.com/resources/article.jsp ?l=JavaOneDayOne_03

      Here's the URL w/o the extra space so that it works.

  29. eh!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm an industry leader and I have not discussed this. This story is rubbish.

  30. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by FroMan · · Score: 1

    Unobtainuim is a pretty rare substance, Sun would have to charge a mint for the chips.

    Seriously, though. You are simply playing a semantics game here. JRE's are slow (relatively). There area few things that get done to help performance, but that does not change the fact. Because all of the JRE's (by nature) are slow, Java is slow.

    Also, if you figure that creating a Java chip to do MM is going to increase the complexity of the chip far beyond the anything we know today.

    --
    Norris/Palin 2012
    Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
  31. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by gbjbaanb · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    it was that red-shirt security guard, wasn't it?

  32. RedHat is talking to Sun about open sourcing Java by mandreiana · · Score: 1
    Red Hat Plans Open Source Java, Prepares Linux Desktop

    Login required. Main Sun's reason for open sourcing is competition with .NET

  33. MOD PARENT UP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    +5: Informative!!!!

  34. #1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anymore by *weasel · · Score: 0, Flamebait


    java was created to be a write once, run anywhere solution. because of corporate politics and competition, it just doesn't pull it off.

    depending on your install base, it can sometimes get by, but more often than not, platform specific code, design, and testing is required - and that puts the kabosh on the development gains.

    and that's even ignoring the cost of supporting the various platforms VMs and the VM distribution problem on windows machines of late.

    (sun won its suit against microsoft that it was unfairly squeezing out the java vm - then promptly sued microsoft for posting the microsoft jvm on windowsupdate.com because the license from sun didn't explicitly allow that. they won the suit and for some time windows users just couldn't get their hands on a vm. and if that doesn't decimate any gains from using java, i don't know what does)

    nice idea, solid effort on the technological end -but it's going the way of betamax and solaris.

    --
    // "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
  35. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Octagon+Most · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "... dies in the latest novel"

    Stop with the spoilers and fake spoilers, evil trolls! Not listening ... la la la la la la la la la

  36. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Knight2K · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At the risk of publishing a 'me too', I agree with the above post. Java is slow if you write a slow program that doesn't respect the platform and language's unique features and quirks, just like any other language (consider the uneven implementations of STL in C++).

    Many programs do use Swing and do it with acceptable performance; JBuilder is one example that comes to mind. Writing a responsive Swing app is possible, it just requires knowledge of the UI toolkit and how to appropriately use it... you can write crap code in QT as well. Eclipse is also written in Java; if the backend was written poorly, it wouldn't matter how fast SWT was, but as it stands the user experience is generally quite good.

    I would also like to 'me too' the parent's comment about Sun's JVM. The recent changes in JDK1.4 (concurrent garbage collection, etc.) should help somewhat, but JRockit and Jikes show it is possible to write faster JVMs. Sun just hasn't done it yet.

    Sun seems good at the theory, but crappy at implementations. The first time I tried NetBeans (a Swing-based app) it was horribly unresponsive and the second time, it had a terrible look and feel... they relied too heavily on JavaBeans and generic layout heuristics so that every dialog was not appropriately laid out or sized.

    Anyway my $.02.

    --
    ======
    In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
  37. Multilanguage support would be nice by ShatteredDream · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be very helpful if there was an analog to VB.NET for Java. Java is a language and a bytecode/runtime standard. I don't see why Sun hasn't worked hard to make the Java platform support other languages like Basic, Python and others. They really should have taken Jython to a new level: a Python compiler that generates Java bytecodes from Python source code. Or it could be Ruby for all I care. I just find Python to be an easier language to do stuff quickly in.

    Java is too hard for many people to understand, something like Python or BASIC as an alternative language that targets the same runtime would help them fend off .NET. Not that I really see much of a difference, it's sort of like being asked to root for either the Soviet Union or NAZI Germany during the Battle of Stalingrad. Sun's only more OSS friendly than Microsoft because they want a big stick to beat MS with. If Sun had no competition, they'd be the same tyrants that Microsoft are.

    I will say that in regard to .NET and J2EE I think Mono is safe because Microsoft is in a damned if you, damned if you don't situation. If they go after Mono, they reduce their claim that .NET is open and cross platform to steaming pile of rubble a la the WTC. If they don't, they have a potentially serious competitor that makes much of Windows' advantages disappear. Microsoft has to play catch up with Sun here and they're SOL if they don't let Mono grow. By the time Mono is truly mature, Microsoft will probably be a shadow of their former selves. Germany is already moving away from buying their products and the USDoD is quietly opening up to OSS. If Microsoft loses the USDoD then it's over for them in the US Government because the USDoD accounts for the majority of the federal work force

    1. Re:Multilanguage support would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative


      Convert VB to Java
      http://www.diamondedge.com/
      http://www.blac kdirt.com/

      JRuby
      http://jruby.sourceforge.net/

      Jython
      http://www.jython.org/
      http://today.jav a.net/pub/a/today/2003/06/10/jytho n.html

      ack

    2. Re:Multilanguage support would be nice by borkbork · · Score: 1

      At the moment the multi-language features for .NET are mostly a parlor trick - everything is more or less identical to C#.

      Take VB.NET: it hardly resembles earlier versions of VB. Except for a few minor differences the translations between C# and VB.NET are word for word. It's definately more of a C# dialect than a different language. Have you ever looked at the documentation for .NET? They usually give identical side-by-side implementations in both languages. I have only used C#, but I've yet to come across sample in VB.NET that I couldn't copy and paste into my code, convert the line endings, etc., and have it work.

      Granted there might be more of a potential for [fundamentally] different languages running on the CLR (F#, Perl, whatever) but the status quo is C# and other languages that taste almost exactly like C#.

      --
      ---- There is a fine line between sayings that make sense.
    3. Re:Multilanguage support would be nice by The+Bungi · · Score: 1
      That's pretty impressive. You managed to mention nazis, SOVIET RUSSIA, the terrorists attacks on the world trade center, did the obligatory "Microsoft is dying" gig and bashed the US government in one seemingly lucid post about a programming language that you apparently don't even like.

      Only on Slashdot.

  38. Obligatory Slashdot comment on Java by oops · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Dude! Java sucks! Like, I downloaded Java in 1997 and my 133 Pentium ground to a halt. And it's not even open-source! PHP roolz!

    [just to save everyone else doing it]

    1. Re:Obligatory Slashdot comment on Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man you are so GHEY! I dunloded it on my Pentiyum 100 on a 28k modem and dun Java 3D. It was so slow I had to make coffe while it rendered. My 2 meg grphics card was so 133t. Microsoft will KICK YOR ASS!

  39. Re:I still don't get the allure of Java- I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it sucks and that's it.

  40. Re:RedHat is talking to Sun about open sourcing Ja by jas79 · · Score: 1

    Slashdot reported that storyyesterday

  41. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by EpsCylonB · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying that everybody needs to stop contributing their pet projects to the communal good, but maybe the deal doesn't need to be made sweeter for these scummy companies that are building cheap foreign and selling expensive domestic. I'm starting to think that (L)GPLv3 should involve a clause invokable by the author of a project so covered that it not be used in any commercial application whether source is included or not.

    This of course would play straight into the hands of the M$ and their negative marketing of open source as viral. Imagine an open source project that makes use of "Non-Commercial" code without realising and then all the companies that were using it suddenly have to stop.

    Plus there are enough licences out there already we don't need to start some new GPL branches just to confuse things further.

  42. DON'T READ PARENT POST - HARRY POTTER SPOILER by Drakonian · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    You asshole!! Somebody mod that down. Seriously. What a thing to do. I can't beleive you told that. God damnit.

    BTW: Maybe it's just Swing that slow. Try SWT, it feels *much* faster.

    --
    Random is the New Order.
    1. Re:DON'T READ PARENT POST - HARRY POTTER SPOILER by Drakonian · · Score: 1

      Offtopic? There is a reason that got modded down to -1.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
  43. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by 73939133 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Java isn't slow; Java is a language.

    No, Java is a platform with multiple implementations of the compiler/JIT and (effectively) a single implementation of the libraries.

    Java compilers/JITs achieve very good performance, having little overhead compared to analogous C code.

    But the Java platform falls short in several areas.

    First, the VM has an enormous memory footprint, and it starts up very slowly. VM sharing is supposed to address this, but it hasn't materialized. .NET addresses this by letting you pre-compile CLR code into binaries; that doesn't make the code run faster, but it makes programs start up faster.

    Second, Java's native code interface (JNI) is inefficient and Java cannot efficiently access native data structures. That makes it difficult to reuse existing, mature C/C++ libraries, and to interface efficiently with operating system facilities.

    Third, Java's libraries are not designed for speed: their APIs impose a lot of overhead, and the actual implementations aren't very good either. Also, Java's libraries are designed for generality first, and speed and high-quality cross-platform support distant seconds (things like Java2D just don't run very well on all platforms).

    Sun JRE is slow. The JVM runs as another layer on top of the OS, so of course it will be slower than if it were native to the OS. All Sun has to do is make a JM (Java Machine) chip that can be put into motherboards to do the processing at the hardware level, not hardware-os-software level.

    Raw CPU performance is not the issue. Java code runs very fast in Sun's current implementation. A Java native chip would not help at all (and would be impossible to make succeed in the marketplace anyway). The problems with Sun Java performance are platform design problems. In a sense, Sun's focus on CPU performance has distracted them from addressing the real performance problems.

  44. Re:java is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PHP? Right. Put down the crack pipe, buddy. I'm no fan of Java, but PHP is complete shite too.

  45. Hardware acceleration by agslashdot · · Score: 2, Informative

    javachip was prototyped, but never marketed - yet another execution failure at Sun. At on point, Sun declared "Java implemented right was not slow". It then hired coders to implement a "Java compiler in Java". Result ? The Java compiler in Java was 20 TIMES SLOWER than the Java compiler written in C! These were never widely published, but just do a search on Technical Abstracts on sun.com, you'll find them.

    1. Re:Hardware acceleration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surely you mean the java 'JIT' being 20 times slower than the HotSpot C++-written JIT, not the compiler. Javac has always been written in Java. Jikes, a Java compiler written in C++ is 3 to 4 times faster than javac when compiling the same Java files to .class files.

    2. Re:Hardware acceleration by Kombat · · Score: 2, Informative

      First of all, the Java chip was and is marketed. It is present in thousands of mobile devices and dumb terminals.

      Secondly, you clearly demonstrated your total and utter ignorance when you said:

      [Sun] then hired coders to implement a "Java compiler in Java". Result ? The Java compiler in Java was 20 TIMES SLOWER than the Java compiler written in C!

      Why would Sun "then" hire Java programmers, when they already employed the very creators of the language? Who knew Java better than those that already worked for Sun and who had created it? Why would they then go out and hire some more Java programmers to re-write the Java compiler?

      Finally, also picking on your last, ludicrous statement, the Java compiler was always already written in Java. Its in the com.sun.tools.java.Main class. The Java compiler is a circular-recursive parser, but I wouldn't expect you to know what that means, so let me break it down for you. It means that the language's compiler is written in the language itself.

      The Java INTERPRETER is the one that's written in C. You know, that little java.dll file - that's the Java interpreter. It's written in C. When you run "javac" to compile some Java files, all javac.exe is is a native bootstrapper which loads and executes the Java compiler from the tools.jar file. How do you think they ensure that the Java compiler behaves exactly the same on every platform? Because it's the same compiler - the exact same code - written in Java!

      Either you're an incredibly ignorant moron who knows just enough about Java to cause some damage, or I've just been successfully trolled.

      --
      Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
    3. Re:Hardware acceleration by Kombat · · Score: 2, Informative

      One final slap in your face: on my system, almost all of the .EXE tools in my jdk/bin folder are within a few hundred bytes of each other in size (they're all about 29 KB). Don't you think that's pretty amazing? First of all, to fit an entire compiler in just 29 KB of executable, but also, for 20 different tools and utilities, which perform dramatically different tasks, to all be almost the exact same size???

      Do you think maybe it's because they're all just native bootstrappers for different Java programs, and thus, are all almost the exact same, identical C source code (just calling different Java classes)?

      How could you make such an ignorant post and not know this stuff?

      --
      Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
  46. Java is not just client apps. by niola · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I see a lot of the usual anti-Java posts on here. "It's slow", "The screen flickers", "The widgets suck."

    Just like any other technology, implementation is more key to the quality than the technology itself. I have seen some REALLY bad Java client side applications, but then there are some that are awesome. The GUI installer for Oracle is Java Swing. It looks identical on every OS you install it on (aside from options that may or may not be available to install on a given platform), and it works really well. Another example is Veritas' VMSA software. It is Java Swing, allows you to run it on multiple platforms, and you use it to manage your Veritas volumes on multiple hosts, networks etc. If an organization spends a $100k+ on a storage system, you can bet your ass that they would be mighty pissed if they had some "slow shitty client software" messing things up.

    And don't even dis Java on the server side either. Java on the server side does not have to be slow like everyone thinks. One example is the application server Orion. You want to have some fun, go to http://www.orionserver.com, download it, and install it. Then do some apache bench comparisons between it and even a tuned Apache and Orion will serve static HTML pages faster. For even more fun, whip up a JSP with a database call to Postgres or Oracle, and bench that against Apache still serving static content. Orion will actually serve dynamic DB-generated content as fast or faster than Apache can handle static HTML.

    I guess the point I am trying to make is don't just make blanket statements and put down a technology because of a bad experience. It is all about the implementation. Best technology with a shitty implementation will suck no matter what.

    --Jon

    1. Re:Java is not just client apps. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One thing you miss is how much memory/cpu is Orion eating. Great shit, apache use only 1mb to server 10k clients while Orion uses more than 10mb.
      Orion caches all in memory.
      If you do the same with apache, apache will server ANY content faster. Apache has much MORE features than orion. Learn once and for all, the same thing made in C and in Java, the java one will NEVER be as fast as C in the same conditions. So shut dah fuck up beforing writing bullshit.

    2. Re:Java is not just client apps. by TheShadow · · Score: 1

      Well, what the hell else are you going to use the 4GB of memory in your server for?

      --

      --
      "What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
    3. Re:Java is not just client apps. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From the orionserver website:

      Any plans to offer your source under a Linux-style license?

      No, there are currently no such plans.

      In fact, if we did, Sun might sue us since they see any implementation of the J2EE specification as their intellectual property that we can not show to anyone.

      I think I prefer the Apache licence...and come to think of it, I'm not so sure Java is as "open-source" as Sun would have us believe.

    4. Re:Java is not just client apps. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >The GUI installer for Oracle is Java Swing. It >looks identical on every OS you install it on

      IF, and I repeat IF it works... I spent many hours fighting to install Oracle 8i on my machine, I kept thinking that something was horribly wrong with ME... Must be stupid or something...

      Yeah, well - turns out that "write once, run anywhere" may be fine, except if you package your Java-based installer with a JIT that doesn't WORK ON A PENTIUM 4..............

      Write once, run nowhere?

    5. Re:Java is not just client apps. by Dan-DAFC · · Score: 1

      I'm a Java developer with a lot of experience with Swing, and I have to say the Oracle Java-based tools are some of the slowest, ugliest Swing apps I've seen.

      For much better examples have a look at JGoodies or some of the apps on Swing Sightings (it's a mixed bag but some of them are very good).

      --
      Suck figs.
  47. You can make a portable C++ app. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You just need to do a good bit of planning before implementation.

    Windows: MFC front end, C++ back end
    Linux: gtk front end, same C++ back end
    OS X: obj c front end, same C++ back end

    It's more work but every platform has nuances that users like. Unless it's a true native app your users will generally not like it. As my boss says "Make it pretty first, that's what sells. Make it work next." Unbelieveable but true.

    1. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by gunix · · Score: 1

      Indeed, but what tools are there to make the GUI part more easily maintained. A macro language that is translatable into MFC/gtk/qt/tk/whatever GUI code, would that be a possibility?
      Is there such tools today?

      But I sure agree, make better backends!!!!

      --
      Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
    2. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

      That's a LOT more work! However, what your boss says is very true. It's sad but graphic designers DO provide more "selling" power than the quality of the underlying code. People are absolute suckers for buttons and pretty graphics.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    3. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by pmz · · Score: 1

      Windows: MFC front end, C++ back end
      Linux: gtk front end, same C++ back end
      OS X: obj c front end, same C++ back end


      Perhaps

      Windows: Qt front end, C++ back end
      Linux: Qt front end, C++ back end
      OS X: Qt front end, C++ back end

      might be a more acceptable work load?

    4. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by ebuck · · Score: 1

      I agree, but it's not nearly as portable as you imply.

      To get the level of portability that JAVA presents straight out of the box, you either have to...

      1. Create or use a framework to generalize all of the variant parts on each of your target platforms.

      2. Make sure that the same collections framework is available for all the above said platforms, or be prepared to write (and debug) your own collection framework.

      3. Make sure that the compilers on all of the target platforms have options which result in like functioning code (easy) which performs similarly on the different platforms (hard). If the performance isn't similar, then you'll eventually optimize youself into Hell with #ifdef OS_XXX.

      In the end you'll find that only in the best of circumstances and with a great amount of foresight will a typical project manage to produce portable C++ code. Even then, odds are the portability will come at the cost of readability.

      If you really want a portable C++ app, don't try to wrap the variant bits yourself, save your coding time and look to a project like wxWindows (or any other with similar goals) as they all have been trying to crack this nut for a long, long time.

    5. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by __past__ · · Score: 3, Informative
      Macro? Crossplatform? GUI? Better Backends? Did I hear lispworks?

      Oh, it's about static languages. Never mind.

    6. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by sbrown123 · · Score: 1

      If you use Qt you have to pay the Trolltech:

      $ 4190 per developer for the three OS's mentioned

      So, for 5 developers its

      $ 20,950

      Writing Java apps with SWT:

      $ 0 per developer for bunches of OS's.

      It should also be mentioned that SWT uses native widgets on the platform: not emulation. This means SWT apps render quicker than Qt based apps and behave correctly.

      The last time I used a Qt based app on Windows it kept redrawing itself incorrectly. A coworker thought I was running X in a terminal session.

    7. Re:You can make a portable C++ app. by ralatalo · · Score: 1
      How about wxwindows
      What is wxWindows
      wxWindows gives you a single, easy-to-use API for writing GUI applications on multiple platforms. Link with the appropriate library for your platform (Windows/Unix/Mac, others coming shortly) and compiler (almost any popular C++ compiler), and your application will adopt the look and feel appropriate to that platform. On top of great GUI functionality, wxWindows gives you: online help, network programming, streams, clipboard and drag and drop, multithreading, image loading and saving in a variety of popular formats, database support, HTML viewing and printing, and much much more.

  48. Status Quo is a Good Thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If "things" ever reach Status Quo we have one or two things to consider.

    #1 - "Thing" has reached end of life (if ever existed).

    #2 - "Thing" has stabilized.

    If we have #2 here, then it's a good thing.

    Why is C popular when C++ isn't still that very popular?

    Common ground and very little changes. Who want's to (can) work with an environment that is constantly chaning?

    Status Quo can lead to greater things than expected. If it ain't broken, why fix it?

  49. What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by expro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have developed lots of significant things in Java, but have repeatedly been confronted with bad / stupid limitations of the environment and implementations. Even expending considerable resources and being a full Java licensee, it has never been possible to get simple issues resolved within a reasonable time frame. Occasionally I see something being addressed 5 years or more after the corresponding project gave up on Java because of the lack of a reasonable response. Other issues are never addressed. As such, I do not trust the Java base to deliver the necessary tools, fixes, etc. I see release after release that fixes some things and breaks a number of others and there is no real recourse.

    Swing is far worse for many applications than some of the toolkits it displaced. There need to be some larger set of viable competing UI toolkits, not just relying on Sun because they control the environment.

    Another big problem is lack of a more efficient incremental class loader. I gave a presentation at Sun many years ago explaining how this could revolutionize web applications. I helped create prototypes that never made you wait and incrementally downloaded as needed, but there was never the ability to integrate the solution into the environment as would be possible in a GPL environment. As a result, you have the dilema that on the one hand, you would like to only load what a particular user will execute, but on the other hand, loading it class by class using the default class loader and http is completely unacceptable for complex applications, so you wind up with a jar file, and you may as well have had an executable file, as far as modular download goes. This is part of what makes it, for example, prohibitive to use your own UI library instead of Swing, because it cannot be incrementally downloaded.

    Sun wants to control things, but does not innovate nearly as quickly as an open community would solving their own real-world problems.

    If Sun would GPL Java, I would come back to it in a major way. But often the sorts of things I might add are the same sorts of things Sun protested when Microsoft tried, such as tight XPCOM support in Mozilla so that it has equal browser integration to Javascript, Python, etc. Sun clearly wants to suppress this sort of thing.

    As such, what can be done with Java is largely limited to Sun's imagination, rather than that of the community. JCP does not seem realisticly useful or credible. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me and many I know of, for whom that perception is everything. I could go on and discuss a thousand issues. The wait time for required innovations is just too long from Sun.

    I know I have been out of Java for some time. If this is suddenly different now, then I hope to hear about it. Any GPL effort started now from scratch should define a new open standard unless Sun is willing to work with a standards body to standardize its offering, IMO.

    1. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh ... Finally a decent comment. Java sucks at the moment, not the language, but the things Sun want it to be.

      It's about once in a lifetime that one can expect to experience such, pardon the language, plain crap as the Swing classes.

      I've never, ever, seen so much crap in one place. Microsoft are masters if ever compared to Swing, XYZ, ZYX, ZZZ or whatever technology presented.

      Yeah, I know I sound like a really big ugly troll - but I've been so disappointed with the things Sun have done to Java. Yes, I've paid the ugly $2,000 several times for their tech-briefs, but what to we get? Some crap about Swing rulin' the world ...

      Money talks, bullshit walks.

    2. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

      Note that for the Java classes the source is available and this is one of the major reasons so many bugs get fixed and the Sun Java libraries are so high quality. I suppose you want the same thing for the JVM. I don't think its Java you want GPLed but the sun JVM. Their are other JVMs out their you can work on if you have a strong desire. Nevertheless, I can not disagree that opening the JVM would make it instantly much better than it is, and its quite good now.

      To the A.C.
      Good God from zion. Did you suggest that MFC was better architected than Swing??? You are a troll. The Swing classes are absolutely beautiful. Period. If you want a lesson in object oriented programming, dive into the *source* sometime which is freely available.

      Note, Swing is slow because its build on top of AWT which is build on top of the native toolkit. Its not slow because its bad code! Today its quite respectable. But it could use some improvement. The biggest problem with Swing is the difficulty in handling multiple resolutions and multiple fonts, on multiple platforms. The Swing layout manager implementations could use some serious work!

      If you can come up with a superior layout manager, you will probably be rich.

    3. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Microsoft are masters if ever compared to Swing, XYZ, ZYX, ZZZ or whatever technology presented.


      I would suggest reading the source code for Swing and IBM's SWT. The code has a lot of comments about ugly hacks to make the widgets render correctly. The only programmers I know that have worked with microsoft's UI toolkits in MFC hate it and think Java has a better design. They also bitch that C++ is faster, but hey it's not like MFC didn't have several years head start. I don't count windows forms, which is ugly as all hell and is only useful if all you want is windows forms looking UI. If you want a custom UI that looks great, you're gonna have to deal with the ugly pieces of MFC.


      let's face the facts here. No language or toolkit that is useful is pure and completely elegant. There's going to be ugly compromises that make you say "what were they thinking?" Developers should remember what is important. In case you're a young programmer or have completely lost your soul, it's about learning how solve problems with what ever tools the boss says is the choice of the month. That's not to say you should rollover and go along. A developers job is to work together with the rest of the company to find a good balance. Not to say ".NET sucks and Java sucks, so i won't do it." It's to find a middle ground where programs can be built and a business can make money.


      If it's not that, then write your own damn software on your own time. share it or not, no one else is gonna care. quit your yapping and get back to work.

    4. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by ClosedSource · · Score: 1

      Reading your post some may get the impression that using C++ on Windows requires using MFC. This is not the case. For many applications MFC offers little advantage over calling the Windows API directly from C++. So if you "want a custom UI that looks great", you don't need to know anything about MFC.

    5. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by triskaidekaphile · · Score: 1

      Where did you get this idea that Sun had to do this?

      GCC for your JVM

      GNU Classpath for the core APIs

      Is there some reason a BSD license is insufficient for your work? Or any other OSS license?

      Your argument really is that Sun should relinquish Java to a standards body. This is an ongoing debate with interesting points on both sides. Simply put, though, Sun cannot be forced to do this, so if you hope to convince them you need to present a case that it would be in Sun's best interest to do so. You have not yet done this.

      --
      @HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
    6. Re:What Java needs is GPL and experimentation by expro · · Score: 1

      I have worked with GCJ. It works somewhat, but in my informal tests, is 1/3 as fast in completely-compiled mode as Sun's Jit, and has generally the same limitations of Sun's implementation because it attempts to copy it. It has the same problems as OS/2's windows interpretation or Wine. It generally goes no further than what it emulates, and people look at Sun for the Java standard. If Sun wants Java to succeed, Sun needs to do this or convince me how I can begin to get necessary support to make using Java more generally successful. I have long since done my duty presenting the case to Sun and then abandoning Java when they repeatedly did not listen to major licensees. All I hear from them is paranoia that someone else might be empowered by it, be it Microsoft, IBM, or others. Standardization has never been a real ongoing debate. Sun has not listened. If Sun will not open the standard or otherwise make it so people can help themselves and distribute modified environments, then, as I said before, the open way is clearly to create a different language standard, not try to muddle through with one that Sun is trying to control and has been causing to stagnate for so many years. The current framework or status quo is of limited value, and Sun has had plenty of feedback along those lines. It would probably be easier to convince Microsoft to open their stuff up more than Sun.

  50. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by peterdaly · · Score: 2, Informative

    Two Points:
    1. I believe Java is great for applications that do not have a fat client GUI. "Server-Side" components, and web applications, etc. seem to perform just fine.

    2. Java is used the most by in house development teams. Many times in this evironment, the advantages of developing in Java outway the speed problem experienced by the users of a FAT GUI.

    As a side note, I use IDEA for Java development, which is an IDE written in Java. The UI seems very responsive on my 1ghz linux laptop. Not sure what they do different than everyone else.

    -Pete

  51. Missed opportunities - Poor Focus by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    When Java was first announced, it was to be the language for everything cell phones, appliances, games, databases and web access. Over time, Java has become a much more focused application development tool.

    But, Microsoft has not looked at tools that could be used by everything in a processor in it - instead it just focused on the Java's core market, while Java was trying to figure out what it was.

    It seems like both Java and C#, (.NET) have all been developed over the same period. It's just that Java has done it publicly, while C# and .NET did it in the bowels of Redmond outside of the public eye.

    myke

  52. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You idiot. Troll doesn't refer to the little green guys under the bridge. It refers to a type of fishing where you trail a baited line behind a moving boat.

  53. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by andcal · · Score: 1

    I looked, expecting your post to have been moderated as "Funny", but it wasn't so I am taking it seriously for a second. What makes you think that the SEC would approve any of those purchases?

    Also, why would Microsoft want to own a big, dying company like Sun? Big doesn't equal financially healthy. When .Net is doing just fine competing against Java, why would Microsoft feel threatened enough to have to buy Sun?

    Orin Hatch and Big Media might want file sharing to be illegal, but I never saw anything that made me think that Microsoft wants file sharing outlawed. In fact, I heard something about Microsoft releasing a Windows XP Peer-to-Peer SDK soon. I guess we will have to wait and see.

    --
    --something witty
  54. Java 1.5 by Sanity · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I am a long-time Java user, and over the past year have done some C# work. While I was obviously very familiar indeed with Java, its language, and its API, I must say that I was quickly seduced by C# convenience features like the "foreach" loop and auto-boxing (where you don't have to worry about converting between an "int" and an "Integer").

    Turns out that Java 1.5 will have these features and more - one thing I am really looking forward to is generics.

    The final advantage of C# over Java was that a C# program looked like it belongs on Windows - same widget set, same "feel". This is a bigger deal than most people realize. Windows users grow accustomed to doing things a certain way, and they don't like it when you try to impose something different on them. Swing just doesn't cut it in this regard.

    1. Re:Java 1.5 by Captain+Bumpsickle · · Score: 4, Informative

      You could always use SWT instead of Swing - it looks like it belongs on Windows (or it blends in with GTK, if you're under Linux).

    2. Re:Java 1.5 by Sanity · · Score: 1
      You could always use SWT instead of Swing
      True, but I am more concerned with what can be achieved with the platform itself - not extensions designed to solve particular problems.
    3. Re:Java 1.5 by lfourrier · · Score: 1
      The final advantage of C# over Java was that a C# program looked like it belongs on Windows

      I certainly does not want some program looking like it belongs to windows on my mac, neither on my linux box

    4. Re:Java 1.5 by Sanity · · Score: 1
      I certainly does not want some program looking like it belongs to windows on my mac, neither on my linux box
      Duh. It should look like it belongs on the platform on which it is running.
    5. Re:Java 1.5 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What about operator overloading? Please give me that. If java gets generics and operator overloading my main annoyments with java will go away.

    6. Re:Java 1.5 by PierceLabs · · Score: 1

      JDK1.4.2 goes a long way to solving these problems by actually proving a native platform L&F and not the nasty mess that has become MetalL&F. Sun has apparently been listening over the years and now many of the 'I don't want it to look different' issues are being dealt with. There are actually a surprising number of OSX applications that were done in Java. I just didn't realize it until I started updating them.

  55. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by maraist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Java is slow if you write a slow program that doesn't respect the platform and language's unique features and quirks, just like any other language (consider the uneven implementations of STL in C++).

    See the issue is not really with the JVM, but with the tradeoffs of the language. While it's possible to write somewhat snappy engines like jrocket, or integrate OS features like the windows version, there are certain fundamental issues which can not be handled transparently.

    Firstly, hands-off memory management. It's difficult to heuristically discover deterministic memory patterns which would allow inner-loop optimizations. (I'm not even aware of anyone even trying this). The lack of explicit deletions/frees (even if only advisory) is bad in my opinion. It has fostered enormously wasteful memory utilization in enterprise level applications. And when your building blocks aren't efficient, how can you hope to build efficient apps. I use the java-based idea editor, and scrolling or doing a screen refresh requires one or more garbage collections, and I've already given the VM most of the memory on my system.

    To a lesser role, the default virtualization of methods is a slow-down. To some degree a JIT can heuristically generate deterministic call-trees to remove the virtualization (e.x. if no subclasses are used/found), but this can be really nasty in the general case. This is much worsened when interfaces are used (method/variable lookups are non-constant in time, to say nothing of the overhead). And lastly, there is a growing trend in using reflection for general processing. This just about throws all optimizations out the window.

    While I definately see the value in multiple inheritance (or at least java's interface version), and a language definately needs to dynamically map itself somehow, Sun's particular decisions do not lend themselves to high performance inner-loops; even if hardware accelerated.

    Thus the only way to write performant / memory-safe programs is to make all your inner-loops use static/final, and to re-invent the standard libraries where-needed. And this is to say nothing of the libraries that can not be reverse-engineered (GUI, OS-interacting, etc). Though theoretically you could write material using jni, what's the point?

    If you need jni to make something usable (in the common case), then the language isn't practical.. jni is for porting or special cases.

    See, I agree with you basic point which is that java is a language, and this has little to do with the mapping to the machine-code. Ideally, java can be treated just like c, and written directly to assembly (gjc). However, due to the points above, even gjc has to use wrapper functions for these java-specific idioms, and thus the inner loops are no faster than in a nicely optimized jit.

    And as I said above, none of this matters, if the APIs of the language encourage practices which do not scale. SUN learned this about their GUI in 1.0, and I'm seeing more and more performance friendly topics arising. However, much core can't be changed.

    I am not completely familiar with .NET's VM, but suspect that they excluded many of the going-forward limitations of java.

    I think java is a wonderful language to program in, but all too often, modern software requires a scale that java just can't seem to comfortably live in. And thus I have my doubts about it's future.

    --
    -Michael
  56. desktop apps is not the only software development by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Why does anyone use Java, ever?

    then, to justify...

    Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?

    You're assuming that desktop applications is the only applications being developed. You are incorrect.

    Java is a powerful server side development language. Ever heard of J2EE? This is an entire framework, complete with a component protocol, called JavaBeans. Other protocols provided or supported by J2EE allow the J2EE server components ( called containers ) to provide services to the web applications it runs. Or maybe you're heard of JSP, aka Java Server Pages? Which is much like PHP on steriods. An HTML embedded scripting language

    J2EE standard has been honored reasonabley well in the industry, with much of the J2EE components built easily moved from one application server to the other.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
  57. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by mark-t · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You are aware that leaves only one possible choice. You may as well have said who it was.

  58. As Sybase Neil McGovern said... by Quatzalcoatl · · Score: 2, Funny

    Java is for elite-programmer. Is that a niche market?

  59. That makes sense. by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

    Thank you. I can begin to relate to this line of reasoning.

    1. Re:That makes sense. by tolan-b · · Score: 1

      also stability, extensibility, reliability.

      one of the biggest strengths of java in my experience is that OO model is 'purer' than most alternatives (c++ particularly, i don't really know about python). garbage collection can be relied on, the lack of pointers, while impacting performance (less and less these days though) makes for more reliable code.

      a well built java app can be relied upon.

      also as the grandparent mentioned, the range of available, high quality, free and _standardised_ apis is astounding. check out apache's jakarta project: http://jakarta.apache.org

  60. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by lokedhs · · Score: 2, Interesting
    As a side note, I use IDEA for Java development, which is an IDE written in Java. The UI seems very responsive on my 1ghz linux laptop. Not sure what they do different than everyone else.
    IntelliJ know how to program, that's why. Swing makes it so damn easy to develope GUI application that anyone and his one-eyed limp dog on a bad-hair day could write one up.

    The problem is that while it's easy to make a user interface, it's a lot harder to make one well. I guess you could say that Swing is the victim of its own success.

  61. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Ribo99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (sun won its suit against microsoft that it was unfairly squeezing out the java vm - then promptly sued microsoft for posting the microsoft jvm on windowsupdate.com because the license from sun didn't explicitly allow that. they won the suit and for some time windows users just couldn't get their hands on a vm. and if that doesn't decimate any gains from using java, i don't know what does)

    What are you talking about? Windows users have always been able to get their hands on a JVM, just not the Microsoft one because of the lawsuit. Nothing stopping users from downloading one of the many other implementations of the JVM on Windows.

    --
    I wear pants.
  62. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "but it's going the way of betamax and solaris."

    In your mind/part of the dev world perhaps. In mine, six of the worlds largest auto manufacturers are cooperating to create a web services based infrastructure for loan application processing using Java. This is not management speak bullshit. I'm currently writing the piece for my company (GM sub-sub-subsidiary finance co) to interface with it.

  63. .net interoperability issues -- bigtime... by kremvax · · Score: 3, Informative
    Now that MS is dropping IE support for Mac entirely, and has never offered anything workable for linux, .net component interoperability issues for non-windows systems should be a glaring problem for enterprise deployment.


    I mean, if you're using .net for what .net does best (prebuilt rapid deploy compenents), there are *lots* of .net components that just won't work without ie.


    Java isn't a perfect language, but at least it supports linux, mac, solaris, atari, commodore, ti-99, etc.

    --
    --- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
  64. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Glock27 · · Score: 1
    and for some time windows users just couldn't get their hands on a vm.

    Er, you mean "couldn't get their hands on Microsoft's broken VM".

    Sun and IBM's vastly superior VMs were available throughout...

    Your post should be modded "Flamebait" rather than "Interesting". ;-/

    --
    Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
    Score: -1 100% Flamebait
  65. Amen! by Lysol · · Score: 1

    This is it!

    I've written stuff for a lot of big projects - where sometimes billions o' bucks are at stake - and here are a few things I've learned while building email services, travel portals, procurement systems, and various other web-based apps.

    Big complicated systems are crazy things to work on. There's no way I'd try to do any of the same stuff in any other language. Regardless of how I think of Sun, Java is here to stay. Remember, there is a bigger company that has a lot invested in Java as well as Linux - hint, starts with a I, a B, and an M.

    Perl, C, Python, Php, VB, ASP (shudders), C# - I've used them all as well. I think C is great and I like Perl too. I have some friends that do some amazing stuff with Perl. But these same friends also worked with me on big projects - mosthave compsci degrees - and we all agree that the Java route was the best bang for the buck.

    Try working with millions of transactions, that *must* work, in C or Perl or god forbid, VB. It's just too much of a pain in the ass and I dunno if I'd put my paycheck on the line for that. For other things, like small online stores, Php can be cool. I have one for my mom and I'm quite pleased with it.

    I guess it just comes down to your experience and I've always been interested in computer languages and stick with the ones I like and stay away from the ones that burned me.

  66. Call me when you write REAL software... by FatSean · · Score: 1

    Two words: Server Side.

    --
    Blar.
    1. Re:Call me when you write REAL software... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One word: C++.

    2. Re:Call me when you write REAL software... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's four words on a 64 bit machine

  67. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Richard_Davies · · Score: 1

    > It's a subtle user interface trick that they've
    > missed out on, although I'll admit that Java 2 is
    > making things a little better.

    I think you're making the right point for the wrong reasons. Java itself is not slow. The VM is highly evolved - have a look at the hotspot whitepapers if you don't believe me. Even the GUI performance is quite good if implemented correctly. The main problems are that correct implementation of a Java GUI takes experience. Have a look at IntelliJ for an example of a well implemented Java GUI. Sun could help by improving the defaults and more importantly supplying "best practices" for building GUIs which they are doing. The main "implementation" problem is that memory consumption is still quite high and that can have an impact of performance. Again, Sun is working in a number of areas to alleviate this. Hopefully, the "shared VM" will be available in 1.5 some time later this year.

  68. To my knowledge, by hummassa · · Score: 1

    Robust means "something that does not bork under wrong input, unexpected load or any reasonable condition", with many many nuances of what reasonable means.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  69. Java is the new COBOL by The+Famous+Brett+Wat · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well, it got modded up to 5 last time, but it looks like it needs saying again. Here's the cut-and-paste of it.

    Slightly off-topic, but I'm in the process of perusing the job ads again, and based on the proliferation of J2EE/EJB and other Java stuff I'm seeing, I think that Java is the new COBOL. Not that the languages bear any similarity whatsoever, but Java seems to have found a niche as the new lingua franca of business apps. It has competition, to be sure, but based on the history of COBOL, I would be so bold as to put my pundit hat on and say, "Java programming will be a safe bet for long-term employment in the computing industry." The jobs aren't necessarily all that interesting, but they look a whole lot more secure than the bleeding edge tech jobs which come and go in a flash.

    The whole C# and .Net thing is a potential competitor in the same arena, but I don't think that Microsoft's inclusion (or not) of Java is going to matter much. I always figured that Java was intended to allow cross-platform desktop app programming, but the niche it seems to be filling is a back-end role. Personally, I had expected Perl to fill this role as the new COBOL, but demand for Perl seems to be way down, except as one of those "we also expect you to know Perl" type things, which never actually turns out to be important in the job.

    --
    proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
  70. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by Dalcius · · Score: 1

    I heard a suggestion that I'd be much happier with.

    Include a clause that says that any user of the software who issues a lawsuit against OSS automatically loses the license to use all software with the same clause in their license.

    To illustrate this, if this clause were in the LGPL, any company suing an OSS project would be unable to use any LGPL'ed software.

    Archaic? Draconian? Too risky you say?
    Read your EULA lately?

    --
    ~Dalcius
    Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
  71. WTF? - Chappell is a .NET supporter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is Chappell in the mix? He's an ardent Microsoft supporter. Although not a Microsoft employee, AFAIK most of his income arises from presenting seminars for Microsoft. IOW he is a Microsoft contractor.

    1. Re:WTF? - Chappell is a .NET supporter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have the same question about Neil McGovern and Sybase. Sybase fired or drove out almost all its Java programmers three years ago (many of whom went to BEA) to focus on VB development. When McGovern took over the team I was in, he was so opposed to object oriented programming that he tried forcing us to change our C++ apps to procedural C. Two of our lead developers had to spend a few days in San Francisco trying to explain OO to him and why we should continue using it. He disagreed with them, but ultimately we managed to keep our apps in C++ while the new development in San Francisco was done in C.

      If a company as hostile to Java as Sybase is invited to a Java roundtable, and a man as hostile to OO as McGovern is invited, I fear for Java's future.

  72. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by tshak · · Score: 1

    java was created to be a write once, run anywhere solution. because of corporate politics and competition, it just doesn't pull it off.

    Thank you for articulating this. I don't have a whole lot of experience with Java (I'm a C# guy myself), but it seems that most every experience that I've had with Java is not cross platform. I've had applet's work on Windows and break on Mac's, Servlet's with proprietary code that only works with a certain "App Server" (eg: JRun), or VM problems as you mentioned. Java is hardly more write once than C# - esp. since I've gotten a lot of my C# to compile flawlessly on Linux (Mono). Furthermore, if you ignore Microsoft's proprietary "windows forms" implementation in .NET, and go with GTK#, you have almost the same cross-platform advantage (the obvious advantage to Java being it's cross-platform maturity). And if you really care about being open, you can write Perl/Tk and get just as much - if not better - cross platform support as Java.

    --

    There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
  73. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Richard_Davies · · Score: 1

    > java was created to be a write once, run anywhere
    > solution. because of corporate politics and
    > competition, it just doesn't pull it off.

    Rather just re-iterating this myth, could you give some practical examples of where you have found the cross platform ability lacking?

    > the VM distribution problem on windows machines
    > of late

    Hadn't you heard that Dell and HP are going to be putting Java on all windows machines soon? Or that the latest version on java in beta (1.4.2) can auto update itself?
    Or that J2ME is by far and away the major platform for mobile phones will millions of VMs already in peoples hands?

    > nice idea, solid effort on the technological end
    > -but it's going the way of betamax and solaris.

    Oh I don't know. Java still seems to be pretty popular according to scans of Google.

  74. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by *weasel · · Score: 1

    java is a solid technical option that's being managed into the ground by Sun, much like the rest of its other assets.

    java is absolutely fantastic for a good number of applications. however, its number 1 design goal was write once, run anywhere. and that doesn't happen.

    maybe 'betamax' was going a bit far - i perhaps should have compared it to laserdisc. still superior in a niche, and loved by the hard core, but not a solution for the mass market - for distributing to a disparate client base.

    interestingly enough, it has been surmised that laserdiscs failure was due in large part to Sony's tight control over what content they would allow on their media. so perhaps it really is the better analogy to good technology managed into the ground.

    --
    // "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
  75. Java mobile to server by theolein · · Score: 1

    Java is, despite it's large and unavoidable negative sides, a very adaptable language. The fact that it is used in server side J2EE applications and on tiny symbian phones, means adaptability to me. I severely doubt that Microsoft's .Net will ever fit on Smartcards or be considered as reliable and secure by the industry.

    Java has been sorely neglected by Sun over the past few years on the Desktop, which is to be frank, the only thing that most computer users ever see or think about. The comments about Swing not fitting in with .Net forms on windows is true but, that is mainly because very few Java developers have ever used the Windows look and feel in Swing, not because it doesn't exist. And the speed disadvantages of Java are becoming less and less relevant with time as computers become ever faster.

    But the duscussion had a good point. Java needs a set of entry level standard IDE's and tools to enable VB coders and beginners to easiyl develop GUIs and other simple classes.

  76. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 1

    You're assuming that desktop applications is the only applications being developed. You are incorrect.

    You are assuming that one prong of my critique is representative of the whole. You are incorrect.

    Specifically I will refer you another part of my post:

    Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the competition?

    I believe server-side development can handily qualify as a "problem domain."

    Now that we're done with pedantic snottiness, I can see why a server-side component framework is a useful thing to have, and this justifies Java-the-platform. It still remains that Java-the-language and Java-the-VM are a big pain. At the very least Java implementations could do a better job of being convienent to use and develop for.

    Consequently I wish the MusicXML link in your sig were up, I'm really interested in MusicXML and its potential.

  77. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by jhunsake · · Score: 1

    I would say around 90% of the errors I encounter on websites are JSP errors. Maybe 9% are VBscript? errors. Less than 1% are PHP errors.

  78. desktop java apps by asciiRider · · Score: 1

    an example of a particularly well written java desktop application is the Citrix Management Console that ships with Metaframe XPE -

    I just hate when I right-click on something and it doesn't appear to be selected, not sure if that is a Java thing or not...

  79. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by bobdylan · · Score: 1

    Sun and IBM's vastly superior VMs

    I think you meant to type 'slower' instead of 'superior'.

  80. Re:java is old by thecloud · · Score: 0

    PHP is complete shit you say? What do you program with VB.Net?

  81. Two more important improvements for L/GPL v. 3 by FreeUser · · Score: 1

    To illustrate this, if this clause were in the LGPL, any company suing an OSS project would be unable to use any LGPL'ed software.

    I like that. I would further tweak both the GPL and LGPL to include something like:

    "by using this code you agree to license, in perpetuity and at no cost, your entire patent portfolio as it relates to software to any and all (L)GPLed code."

    Let the GPL's innoculative qualities extend preemtively to software, business model, and mathematical patents (which, as we know when they are normalized, are all one and the same). That, plus an 'in perpetuity' clause to cover those regions that require such to prevent retroactive license revokation, would IMHO be excellent additions to GPL v. 3 and (L)GPL v. 3. Hell, even FreeBSD might want to consider the in perpetuity, no lawsuit, and perhaps even the patent innoculation addendums (though the latter might in fact conflict with their philosophy of maximum first generation developer freedom in similiar ways to the GPL's other protections and innoculations from abuse, but that is a debate for another day, and another forum).

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  82. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by el-spectre · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I know. Technically, that kinda ship is a _trawler_, actually. It's a common usage on the net though, and most folks got it.

    Sorry you didn't.

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  83. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by easter1916 · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you should upgrade your 14.4K modem.

  84. Re:java is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It depends on what I'm doing, but for "higher level" work I use python, common lisp, and perl, while for "lower level" I use c, and occasionally ARM, 80x86, and H8 assembly. PHP sucks the toiletpaper crusties off my ass.

  85. They probably didn't mention me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a full-time VB programmer too. Unlike yourself, though, I didn't learn VB in college because it didn't exist then. We learned a bit of FORTRAN, a bit of Pascal, but mostly C, usually running on a Unix variant.

    After college I continued programming in C, on SunOS. Eventually I fell into VB because one big political project we did required a desktop front-end, so we all had to learn VB4. After a while they stuck me totally on the VB side of the project, since I understood it the best -- another example of corporate policy of punishing you for success. When that company started sinking, I found out that other companies will only hire you to do what you've been doing lately, and spending the last 2 years coding VB made you a "VB programmer", regardless of the 7+ years before that coding C. I've been doing VB ever since (the sole exception was a contract that was cancelled two weeks in, due to that company firing all contractors).

    I mention all this only to show I'm not a brain-washed Microsoft drone. (Not that anyone will read this at its soon to be -1 moderation level.)

    Recently I was doing the same as you, looking for a path out of Microsoft's orbit. I too had settled on Java. There are tutorials all over the place online for it, incredible community support, etc. Looked good, so I started to invest my time in it.

    Until I found out about Sun's recent employment practices of firing Americans and hiring Indians for the same jobs, at their work places in America. Which is a different thing entirely from outsourcing work to India. (Not that it matters which other country they hire; I'd feel the same if they were shipping in Canadians or Scots.) There are more important issues than programming languages, or open source, and for me this is one of those issues.

    Sun can rot in hell. I won't work in Java because to do so is an indirect way of supporting Sun. Yes, even if that means .NET is my career path, or even if it means I end up being a plumber or something. I hope Sun dies a nasty corporate death, and I wouldn't mind a bit if they took Java into their grave.

    Now all the H1B visa holders and non-Americans can have fun calling me names and modding the post into the ground. Won't change a thing.

    1. Re:They probably didn't mention me by christophersaul · · Score: 1

      Nice to see such a balanced, well thought out post. Sun's share price will probably crash tonight with the news you won't be using Java in the future. Good luck with your plumbing career.

  86. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Glock27 · · Score: 1
    I think you meant to type 'slower' instead of 'superior'.

    Nope. Sun and IBM's are both faster, and very competitive with C# and the CLR on Windows.

    --
    Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
    Score: -1 100% Flamebait
  87. Open Source Java-like language? by pjack76 · · Score: 1
    Is there a preferrably GPL'd open-source Java-like language out there? I mean, I know Java is modified via the JCP and all, but I'd much rather use a language that isn't owned by someone. Since Java and C# are apparently quite popular, doesn't it make sense to invent an open source language/runtime environment for cross-platformish, imperative, garbage collected, object-oriented yet C-like programming?

    Or does such a beast already exist?

    --

    Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor

    1. Re:Open Source Java-like language? by bonniot · · Score: 1

      You might want to look at the Nice language. It is similar to Java, but with many extensions, and the compiler is GPL, with an open design process.

    2. Re:Open Source Java-like language? by expro · · Score: 1

      Preferably with a clean VM and library implementation.

    3. Re:Open Source Java-like language? by wolverine1999 · · Score: 1

      I'd like something based on Pascal, or a nice combination of Pascal and C.

      That would be ideal...

  88. Re:java is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PHP is ok for embedding in simple low-traffic webpages, but as a language it sucks. Then again, it's designed for complete idiots so you should feel right at home.

  89. You're an asshole, and that's that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So there...

  90. IBM by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

    Your point about IBM is well taken. I thought it not mildly funny, and indeed propaganda that this "conference" had some feer about IBMs plans w.r.t. Java.

    To me its obvious. IBM always thought software would be free, and the value is in the hardware. They paid for that thinking with M$ capatilazing. They have held out and are beginning to realize their dream.

    IBM is certainly a friend of Java if you ask me. But yes, and enemy of *Sun*. ;)

  91. AMEN by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

    Hehe, I also thought it telling that they said .NET would be a fierce competitor to Java when in fact .NET competes with J2EE...

  92. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by Razor+Blades+are+Not · · Score: 1

    1/ Are you sure you know the difference between Javascript and JSP ? (just checking, you never know)
    2/ Is that representative of the number of webpages using JSP vs VBScript vs PHP, rather than representative of the capabilities of the language ?
    3/ So you're factoring in the ability of programmers when assessing the usefulness of the language. That's like saying the number 5 brush is useless because all the paintings I produce with it are crap. Might it be because I'm a sucky artiste ?
    4/ Anecdotal evidence isn't very convincing.
    eg. 100% of the errors I see are JSP errors (because I'm a JSP developer and I don't surf the web outside work) ... Not exactly a great argument.

    Thanks for playing.

  93. Isn't OSS supposed to be about freedom. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Way to continue the "OSS Zealots are fucking clueless fuckjobs" sterotype.

  94. IntelliJ IDEA all the way by zapp · · Score: 1

    Like others said, IntelliJ is EXCELLENT (though very much not free - $99 for student license, much much more for commercial).

    It fits like a good pair of underwear... supports you in all the right places, but still gives you plenty of room to do what you want :)

    --
    no comment
  95. So what you're telling me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's slow and ungainly, but I can modify it easily. So it's kind of like fantasizing about a supermodel while jerking off into your sock?

  96. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

    I have never written a java application on the desktop that wasn't smooth. I have been writing them for about 5 years now.

    Slow GUIs are the fault of their programmers, not Sun.

    Admittidly Sun made a huge blunder in using DirectDraw. For some reason on NT oses you need to disable that to get good performance. Many application developers deploy their apps without doing that. (this underneath it all is the fault of Sun, they need to fix that)

  97. jsp+??? is way away from asp.net+VisualStudio.net by nbdy · · Score: 1

    In terms of development speed and easiness, jsp+(netbeans/eclipse/???) is way away from asp.net+VisualStudio.net.

  98. BTW, why Java? Why not Python? by axxackall · · Score: 1
    Now we use linux and open source tools.

    Java seems the simplest way to be able to work cross platform and have access to sufficient resources without having to shell out big bucks.

    Comparing to Python Java is certainly *NOT* the simplest way. Neither it's cheap.

    I've finally opted to go with Java.

    I very wander, if Python was considered, then why Java was prefered to Python?

    --

    Less is more !
    1. Re:BTW, why Java? Why not Python? by atallah · · Score: 1

      I am a Python fan, i've used it for quite a few projects including some supporting projects for work.

      The problem with Python is that it just doesn't offer a complete framework like J2EE to run an enterprise application - i know that i'm going to get ppl saying "What about Zope?" and stuff like that, but there honestly isn't a competitive server framework.

      For standalone applications, i would certainly consider Python / wxWindows over Swing, but not for a enterprise level server application.

    2. Re:BTW, why Java? Why not Python? by axxackall · · Score: 1
      The problem with Python is that it just doesn't offer a complete framework like J2EE to run an enterprise application - i know that i'm going to get ppl saying "What about Zope?" and stuff like that, but there honestly isn't a competitive server framework.

      Well, if you say so then why J2EE is more competetive than Zope? Personally I disagree with you. I've tried both J2EE and Zope in several projects and I see many problems with J2EE. One of them is that it's overkilling by resource to be really distributed, while it doesn really help to automate many tasks leaving a lot of dirty work on shoulders of programmers. I agree that if you have to write with Java then it's better with J2EE than without. In some cases. In many other cases it's better with XSL and XML-RPC then with RMI. So, basically I don't see J2EE as a universal magic thing for all enterprises. Moreover, in many cases J2EE is not the way to go.

      Agree that Zope may still need some features, and that is easy to see when you use Zope already. But even taking it as it is now it's a very good met-framework (it's a perfect framework to create frameworks, like CMF or Plone). It has much better ROI in areas of application management and content management. It's easily integrated with XSL and XML-RPC. And it's much better in terms of resources for being widely distributed across an enterprise.

      That's what I am thinking. But without any intend to start any flame I am looking for opinions of other people. Especially when they know both Java and Python - in that case it's less chance of getting biassed flames.

      So, if you'd be so kind to give your opinion about Zope vs J2EE I would very appreciate it.

      --

      Less is more !
  99. Not really. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 1

    You still have to test everything on all platforms. 99% of our apps are the back end anyway. The UI just makes it pretty for the end user. If it weren't necessary they would be all command line apps!

    1. Re:Not really. by pmz · · Score: 1

      You still have to test everything on all platforms.

      However, significantly less redundancy is a big win for long-term maintainence. Also, not having to learn three GUI toolkits is very important.

      99% of our apps are the back end anyway.

      This is significant. I would guess if you were writing IDEs, for example, the multiple front ends would become a burden.

  100. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by jhunsake · · Score: 1

    1. Yes, fuck off.

    2. Possibly. Still not a ringing endorsement. (Saying PHP is equally shitty doesn't justify JSP being shitty.)

    3. Programmers don't live in a vacuum.

    4. It is when I'm saying I think it's shitty. I didn't say it is shitty. It may very well be great.

    Put those razor blades to use on your arms.

  101. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by Knight2K · · Score: 1

    I think you perhaps stretched the quote from my comment a little bit... I was mostly making a point that every language has its own semantics and different rules of thumbs for getting the most out of it. I think it is a bit of stretch to say Java's flaws ultimately doom it any more than saying C++ is dead because of its losing object system.

    I also am not really comfortable with some of your assertions. The IDEA problem you mentioned could stem from any number of reasons unrelated to the context you mentioned it in; I've seen similar problems in some Swing apps and none in others. The latest SunONE studio struck me as being well-behaved in that regard. The unevenness of Java GUI apps says more to me about the implementation of the program rather than the language.

    I'm also not sure about your contention that Java doesn't scale to modern software. EBay switched from a C (I believe, may have been C++) codebase to J2EE for reasons of maintainability and their site seems to scale very well.

    It also seems to me that some of the problems you raise in the limitations of JIT implementations may also be a general problem that applies to .Net and others. I seem to recall that someone implemented a JVM on .Net and found Java performed better than Sun's implementation. Unfortunately I couldn't track the story down, so I guess I'm stuck with proof by vigorous assertion. :-) I have also heard that JDK 1.4.2 has made significant gains in reflection performance that may ease those concerns.

    That said, the points you raise are interesting and definitely gave me some new things to think about. I hope you are wrong about Java going by the wayside if only to keep the market competitive against .Net, but we are still early in the game and anything can happen.

    --
    ======
    In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
  102. About Xerox by ebuck · · Score: 1

    Sorry to call your (obovious) bluff, but Xerox has contributed scores of insight and work in creating the 2D API. And if you have ever had to really get into the guts of rendering to screen, you could ask for a better API, but I doubt you will get it.

    Your deep experience may be dated. It may be fresh. But if you were designing grids when JTable was unknown, you were developing in JDK 1.1 which is embarassingly old.

    Arguments about the lack of ABS in the FORD Model T do not support the idea that modern cars cannot brake.

  103. How can I subscribe...? by Chad+E+Dirks · · Score: 1

    Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

  104. ...and let's not forget the best Swing App Ever... by jmorse · · Score: 1

    IntelliJIDEA!

    --

    "You done taken a wrong turn."
    -Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
  105. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by Rothron+the+Wise · · Score: 1

    I think you meant to type 'slower' instead of 'superior'.

    It's been years since they were slower. Now Microsofts VM is left in the dust.

    --
    A witty .sig proves nothing
  106. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 0, Troll

    Isn't it more a case of the world creating superior goods for the good of the community, and scummy american companies trying to exploit and destroy?

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  107. Realized opportunities - Poor References by ebuck · · Score: 1

    When JAVA was first announced, it was to be the language for everything.

    Cell Phones: Motorola, Samsung, Mitsubishi and many others http://www.microjava.com/devices

    Appliances: Advanced PDAs / Set-top boxes, and others, but then again, appliances haven't really lived up to their hype either.

    Games: Most of the yahoo games are JAVA and other exist (if you look for them)

    Databases: hsqldb a fully (100%) relational database written in (you guessed it) JAVA.

    Web Access: JSP / Servlets are common (even if they don't proudly display their .jsp extension) and there's even a java applets offering terminal / telnet / ssh.

    So I think all of this has come to pass. What SUN marketed was a revolution in the industry. Well, your revolution may be my garbage pickup, but I can't believe that every general programming language should be drafted with the aid of a clear marketing / focus study.

  108. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by tolan-b · · Score: 1

    i mostly notice vb runtime errors and mysql_connect() errors from php.

    (i work with php and java, i believe java to be vastly superior unless you're a hobbyist)

  109. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by tolan-b · · Score: 1

    java the language is wonderful, it's so clean and easy to work with.

    i agree about the vm though, it's a pain, and i wish sun would provide support for native compilation, or even just release the source for some of the classes that are slowing down the gcj effort.

  110. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1
    I can see why a server-side component framework is a useful thing to have, and this justifies Java-the-platform. It still remains that Java-the-language and Java-the-VM are a big pain. At the very least Java implementations could do a better job of being convienent to use and develop for.

    Java's not perfect, I agree. Far for from it. But it does do some things well. Java having only a single language frontend, decreasing programmer choice, but lowers the cost of software development for Java programmers in the long run. At least that's the argument. I'm guessing the market will decide soon enough.

    .NETs entry into the market is a good thing for Java developers, because it means competition. The JCP will have to address the issue of features of .NET that the market ( software developers) may desire. For instance JCP never had a strong reason for separating the Java ByteCode spec from the Java language spec, but market research may force their hand if it concludes that .NET independent CIL ( their intermediate language ) and the resultant language frontend independence is a big selling point.

    Consequently I wish the MusicXML link in your sig were up, I'm really interested in MusicXML and its potential.

    It's strange, it's usually up. The main MusicXML site is http://recordare.com/xml.html. There you can find a list of commercial and open source MusicXML programs. The day OLGA converts all they tab files to MusicXML and we have a stable OS program to 'render' those files to MIDI and Notation eg. like GuitarPro, I'll be a very very happy amateur guitarist. I'll probably still sound like crap though... :)

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
  111. QT isn't native by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps you haven't noticed, but QT doesn't make native-looking applications. It merely fakes the native look and feel on Windows which DOESN'T feel right.

  112. What's with this legacy Java crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shouldn't we be focusing more of our time on educating slashdot readers on how to move legacy Java applications to C#?

  113. Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym by MikeApp · · Score: 1

    Here is the example I usually give to people who claim that server-side Java is somehow not cross-platform: I run an IDE on my Windows box, the project files are mounted from a Samba share on a Solaris server. My Windows box compiles the code, the Solaris box runs the development server. We often take the resulting web app and deploy it straight to a Linux box without a recompile. It just works.

    Go look at the enormous library of code available from the Apache Jakarta folks. Notice that you won't see "this file is for PC, this one is for Linux, this one is for Solaris" in their download section.

    Servlet and JSP code is especially portable. Take the app server you mentioned (JRun): if you develop a J2EE app (JSPs, Servlets, EJBs) using Sun's J2EE reference implementation, you can deploy the file directly to JRun. The *same* application file, no recompile needed. This is true for cross-platform deployment as well.

    If you take advantage of server-specific features, it is most likely done through XML config files.

    As for Applets breaking on Macs, Apple stopped developing their Java VM after 1.1, so their browsers were hopelessly out of date. They have caught up to Java 1.4 in OSX.

  114. OMG, Mod Parent UP -- Funny by Spameroni · · Score: 1

    Clearly the mod who read this didn't get the joke at all. Obviously the poster is parodying common complaints of other users regarding Java. The first bit is about how users tend to complain about experiences half a decade ago. The second bit is parodying the common complaint regarding Sun's ownership of Java, and spoofing it by advocating another closed source language. (PHP owned by Zend Technologies)

    Come on...it's hilarious!

    1. Re:OMG, Mod Parent UP -- Funny by oops · · Score: 1

      Thanks. I was worried that everyone had had a humour bypass...

  115. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by ClosedSource · · Score: 1

    I think the JM chip has been something Sun has always wanted to do and the real reason they were pissed at MS since J++ made such a chip unnecessary (at least for Windows).

    Of course this flies in the face of the stated goal of Java: Write_Once-Run-Anywhere. If good performance required special proprietary hardware Java would offer little portability advantage over other languages (assuming it has it now).

  116. Or more simply by xenocide2 · · Score: 1

    Use wxWindows (originally designed for windows and X11 guis). I'm too lazy to promte their website, but its basically what you mentioned, available as a library. Whether its more work designing a system like this and using it, than learning a system like this and using it is debatable though. But it really does work. I've compiled a small application for it under a 2000+ winXP machine and a 500 mhz debian box. The debian version uses gtk1.2 right now, but I hear theres a gtk2 version of wxWindows.

    And indeed many pretty programs are available using wx

    --
    I Browse at +4 Flamebait

    Open Source Sysadmin

  117. Future post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Post on Slashdot in 10 years:

    "Dude! Java sucks! Like, I downloaded Java in 2003 and my 2GHz Pentium IV ground to a halt. And it's not even open-source! PHP roolz!"

    Hey, it's still funny in 2013!

  118. Re:Down Down .... Deeper and Down! by BigBadBri · · Score: 1
    Yep - I'm off to see them in Liverpool next month.

    Looking forward to it, but then I am old...

    --
    oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  119. DON'T BUY CRAPPY PRODUCTS FROM SUN OR SYBASE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After reading the article, I'm pretty pissed off with a few of the double faced son of bitches at this round table. In particular, how the guy from Sun called open-source projects abandon-ware. I would actually call Solaris abandon-ware. Although stable, the OS as a whole is a piss of shit that hasn't seen a decent upgrade in years. Unlike HP-UX, which has had great tools like SAM for several years now, Solaris has this crappy Admintool that is worthless. If it wasn't for gcc, and many other "abandon-ware" software, most people wouldn't be able to use Solaris for anything usefull.

    As a consultant, I would never recommend any product from Sun as long as I'm alive with the exception of Java, and I'm still considering that. Mono looks pretty good. And I prefer Bill any day instead of Scott. I personally cannot deal with people that one day act one way and the next completely the opposite.

    I don't know if people have figured it out by now, but it is pretty obvious that Sun made a deal with SCO, just like M$ did, to fuck Linux.

    Did you think that it was coincidence that SUN happen to stop their new Linux distro pretty much at the same time that SCO started a case against IBM/Linux?

    I also cannot believe that other people like the asshole from Sybase followed Sun's comments. These guys should be fired. These companies are pretty desperate, and they are going to be dead-meat pretty soon. I recommend MySQL any day, instead of crappy Sybase. Who the fuck uses Sybase that you know of? I've worked with the Federal for many years now, and I've personally never seen it used. It is normally Oracle what you see everywhere.

    Talking about Oracle, from what I read, the only guy that truly seemed to get it was the rep from Oracle. No wonder we are going to keep recommending Oracle.

    These folks seemed to be scared of Linux, even the guy from Borland seemed double-faced. I don't know who will buy from Borland after reading this; not me!

  120. No offense, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    People with a background like the one you mentioned have been the source of years of frustration on my part.

    Some programmers utterly lack a solid foundation in computer science, and it's these people that cause problems for the rest of us.

    By problems I mean things like: sitting down and writing code without actually thinking about the problem, not using a version control system, not documenting, screwing up data structures, misusing a relational database (eg. putting multiple delimited values in a single column), not handling invalid input, trusting what the client sends, fscking with things on a production system, etc.

    Apparently people have figured out that a lot of companies are looking for Java developers. They go out, buy a book on Java, write some code and then claim that they are software developers.

    Now, that's not too much of a problem in and of itself. The problem occurs when these programmers are included in a team of competent/skilled/experienced programmers. The talented guys then spend a bunch of time cleaning up the mess that the crappy developers create.

    Just Say No! to poseur programmers.

  121. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by j-pimp · · Score: 1

    I'm starting to think that (L)GPLv3 should involve a clause invokable by the author of a project so covered that it not be used in any commercial application whether source is included or not.

    The whole point of the LGPL was to be used for "cloned libraries" and allow them to be placed into closed source systems until RMS achieves his Free software utopian fantasy. Also with that clause how is it different from the GPL?

    --
    --- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
  122. Moderation by The+Famous+Brett+Wat · · Score: 1
    The funniest thing about re-posting that comment is the "moderation war" which has ensued on it. Insightful! Redundant. Informative! Insightful! Overrated. I wonder how many mod points get burned on this kind of thing. I also wonder whether the moderation would have been any different if I'd not disclosed up front that it was a dupe.

    I thought it was relevant. It's not like I need the karma.

    --
    proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
  123. IntelliJ by JohnA · · Score: 1

    Oh my God... I get a woody just thinking about it.

    IntelliJ's refactoring functionality is the absolute best I've ever seen, bar none.

    It's not free (USD 499 for a commercial license), but if you bill for your work, the amount of time and headache you save because of it is worth SOO much more than that.

    As for JBuilder, at $3,199 per seat for the Enterprise version, it's just not worth it. I used it exclusively at my last company, and it is crap compared to IntelliJ.

    Interesting side note: Borland's response to the new IntelliJ/Eclipse.org/Netbeans onslaught? Raise the price by $200.

    Disclaimer: I don't work for IntelliJ, I just use their IDE. :-)

  124. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by PierceLabs · · Score: 1

    First off I'm curious to know how you can tell that its a JSP error since most sites don't host their .jsp extension. Secondly I'm curious to know how you possibly measured that. Sounds like an out-of-my-ass statistic to me.

  125. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by larryleung · · Score: 1

    Too Draconian. If you understand the law as the mechanism to enforce parties from doing bad things, then depriving them of this right is wrong. And if your business depends on free software, this is like saying if you want to sue me you have to stop breathing.

    Instead, make them take it to arbitration to avoid the huge legal fees.

  126. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by larryleung · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please stop perpetuating the american companies are evil FUD. Most american companies actually care about their customers. Yes, they want to make money but every company needs to to survive. Thats just how the economy works. Most american companies are fairly ethical due to the critical public. You should criticize but don't make pointless generalizations like this. Its really unproductive.

    Besides, its not like companies in other countries don't use the same scummy tactics as american companies. But apparently youre too blind to see this. Go get yourself a dose of reality: go try doing business in a third world country. You'll quickly find out that ethics quickly goes out the window due to even less accountability. The little guy gets *royally* screwed by the local warlord/ corrupt politican/dictator.

  127. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by jhunsake · · Score: 1

    It says JSP right on the error page.

  128. Why is this trolled? by irritating+environme · · Score: 2

    Very good points, and I'm a diehard java fan. I was thinking the same thing when I read this article. LIttle quick on the troll bomb there, mods.

    --


    Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
  129. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by karlm · · Score: 1
    Microsoft needs to stop the GPL, before it ruins the whole US economy, if we could just outlaw the GPL Microsoft wouldnt need to hire Indian programmers anymore.

    Nice troll.

    MS doesn't need to use Indian programmers. MS would use Indian programers in the absence of OSS. You have a poor understanding of economics.

    --
    Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
  130. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    well, both meanings sort of fit, that's the beauty.

    --

    -pyrrho

  131. so then... by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    ... it should be modded up.

    --

    -pyrrho

  132. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    J2EE a standard? Nope!
    Corba Component Model a standard? Yup!
    It's great that Douglas Schmidt and many other's work on ACE and TAO, and now CIAO are providing us with a better platform to work on than J2EE.
    Faster than Java/J2EE and available on more platforms than Java/J2EE.

  133. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    it's not that easy to make a VM on a chip that'll be any faster. There are design issues. The Virtual Machine is not like a Real Machine. Software engineers know what a machine should be like! Those pesky hardware engineers have to deal with the laws of physics, imagine the indignity!

    --

    -pyrrho

  134. Platonism by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    Java is like Platonism. It's perfect in the ideal sphere, but in the real world we can have only imperfect copies.

    --

    -pyrrho

  135. what you said by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    absolutely.

    The create and destroy (new/delete, malloc/free) are important events, programming is all about placing them. It's analagous to opening and closing a context. Would there be a movement to obliterate the ending brace? Remember where you open and close, where you create and destroy, is fundamental, that is, you WANT to think about that in order to get the implimentation right.

    Similarly bad moves seem to have been made about synchronization. I cannot think of a single other thing harder to generically solve that optimized synchronization. Hiding that in objects and letting that be entirely under the covers is not good. I want synchronization methods besides mutex, essentially. And if someone would like to point me at the other methods, I'll thank them and merely say, well there, that's my point, they're needed.

    I think it's as if two thing collided when it comes to Java performance. (1) it's as if they thought Moore's Law would just come to the rescue. (2) they relied to heavily on that old canard of always optimize last.

    (1) someone need to do the math, "When will machines run this design fast if computers double their capacities every 18 months?" scribble scribble "Five Thousand Years".

    (2) You can't optimize design decisions. You have to anticipate what you will want to optimize.

    I'm not believing that .NET is any better until I see it. VM software works for limited domains, why? Because the VM is the program. A virtual machine to run Quake C in Quake can be high speed, because Quake does all the work. Sierra's old SCI language was fast enough to do then-intensive graphics and sound because it too understood the domain the "scripts" were to work in. Java as an applet language IS fast enough. Little applets, run fine. It makes sense to program devices like the proverbial digital fridge and toaster, so that developers are learning one language to program all these devices. Java is overgrown as a general purpose idea.

    Compiled languages: if you have a problem with them, fix them, they are the real languages. The VM -is- the only program, you are configuring that program. You configure the VM to do what you want. That's why it's hard to make a VM that can perform, it has to anticipate every possible desire. With a compiled language the program is in fact constructed directly to the domain, you get exactly what you put into the program and use.

    hmmm, I wonder if that sounded like a rant?

    --

    -pyrrho

  136. well.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    -I- get it. +1 Funny!

  137. Interfaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, I learned this also long ago. The delay between when the user presses and the button goes down, and the click sounds must be zero... the time between that and when the action -starts- is almost not important. When the action completes is important again, but less so if it's not modal, that is, if the user can initiate other actions while they wait for completion.

  138. Say Who!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For goodness sake... say who! Why should it be a secret?

  139. It allows you to use cheaper bonehead programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone you wouldn't put anywhere near a C/C++ source tree, you can put them in java tree, and while the code may not be pretty, and may hurt your mind to read, it will run and do what you paid the Bonehead to do.

    And since he's a Bonehead, and probably knows it, he won't ask for a raise, and he'll probably put up with your asshole personality. Nothing like putting your foot on the neck of marginally competent workers to gratify your insecure personality as a middle manager. You are indeed the top dog!

    Unfortunately, you must ultimately blame Moore's Law for the infection and spread of Java. When everyone has a mainframe on their desk, you can tolerate more levels of - inefficiency than you used to.

    At some point, I suppose they'll come up with something even more stupid and dumbed down than Java, and then night will fall over the computer industry in general, and it will become like minimum wage job done by third world workers in the shantytowns.

  140. C++ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is great, I havn't seen so many people out against Java ever, where have you all been, I've been waiting for you.

    But on the applications that just unzip... fscking hell yes! screw InstallShield! hello... copy better work to move it too!

  141. I used to think this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... but now I hate it on the server too. First, of course I hate it as a stand alone server, but as a servlet, well then it's just grand, until you find out that imperative languages are the wrong paradigm for that sort of work!

  142. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by HanzoSan · · Score: 1

    if Iraq had disarmed and destroyed their WMD we wouldnt have had to do it for them.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  143. fountain of best practices by pyrrho · · Score: 1

    It does not and cannot enforce best practices!

    In fact, I think that it's likely no language can -enforce- best practices. JNI proves that even attempts at censorship break down.

    --

    -pyrrho

  144. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In australia at least, any copyright holder of GPL'ed software can revoke any license at will, because, in Australian law (possibly others), the GPL does not constitute a contract; hence, there is nothing to stop the copyright holder retracting the license.

  145. Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET by dkf · · Score: 1
    If you need jni to make something usable (in the common case), then the language isn't practical.. jni is for porting or special cases.
    However it is possible to do an awful lot without any native methods. I'm working here on a Grid system written in Java, and no JNI code is required in it (except for some experimental low-level platform stuff where it is used to get access to the setuid() syscall. But that code is not normally used; we prefer a little bit of Perl instead, as that's marginally easier to port to some of the more bizarre supercomputer architectures.)

    The big advantage of Java (over C++ especially) is that it is far easier to trust the security of Java. And I don't want to think about porting C#.NET to the places we're using Java!

    --
    "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
  146. Incompatibilities with recent JAVA SDK by wolverine1999 · · Score: 1

    The most recent JAVA (binary) SDK has problems with older versions of Solaris, and I discovered that a number of countries including Malta are not allowed to download the source code for the SDK (because recompilation would fix the incompatibilities with libraries).

    I also would have similar problems with the Linux version on the Linux systems I'm running - since I don't happen to have the same version of the libraries their binary sdk uses!

    The problem is that Sun should have a statically linked version, but they don't care!

    I wrote to them and they told me to look at the list of countries. Thank you - as if I had not seen it before.

  147. Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i didn't realize that we had disarmed or destroyed anything, much less found or verified the existence if WMD.
    -atallah

  148. Re:desktop apps is not the only software developme by Razor+Blades+are+Not · · Score: 1

    1) Touchy aren't we ? I was just checking.

    2) Since your original statement suggested that JSP was *more* shitty, I was merely pointing out a possible explanation that you weren't taking into account. That is to say, your observations are not causally linked to any inherent shitti-ness in the language.

    3) Exactly. So don't forget to factor in the rash of morons who slapped "Web Developer" on their resume straight out of high school. Sure the downturn has eliminated many of them from the geek-pool but their legacy remains. Besides - it's hard to live in a vacuum. *gasp* Need Air! *gasp*

    4) Oh - don't get me wrong .. JSP *is* shitty. But it's just your argument that wasn't convincing. :)

  149. American companies are evil by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 0

    The fact that there are worse countries does not make your country better... there are much better countries than the Imperial American States.

    You must have your head in the fucking clouds or something... Americas economy is in the toilet in large part because investors have woken up to the fact that fraud is RAMPANT in American companies and are pulling their money out.

    That, and the fact that your country engages in criminal aggressive war. You should have stuck with the pervert... at least he wasn't a blood-thirsty fucking retard.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  150. Re:Microsoft should just buy Sun. by trons · · Score: 1

    My God, what an idiot. In case you didn't realise it yet, open source is a *good thing*, Microsoft is the Bad Thing(TM) ;) Oh, and uh, Java has been around since years before they even had .NET plans, and you're wondering whether it's Java that's in .NET's leage? Too funny, today's crack monkeys :D

  151. "Who ARE these guys?" Well, where was IBM? by Stefan+of+Orange · · Score: 2, Informative
    I wrote this piece for Java Pro magazine and had no role in the selection of the panelists. As a reporter, I wanted to add a couple comments of my own.

    Here's the link again for those who are curious:
    http://www.ftponline.com/reports/javaone/2003/roun dtable/

    1. I have heard that Gosling says he works so much on forward-thinking projects at Sun that he'd prefer others to comment on the real-world use of Java today in industry.

    2. As for why IBM developers weren't there, all I can say is that they were invited (as they were last year, when they participated in the roundtable discussion). However, they refused to come, and indeed boycotted JavaOne entirely.

    The person who began this thread should've read further down the first page of the article: "Moderator Simon Phipps began by welcoming some new faces at the table and arching his eyebrows in surprise at the one big no-show this year: IBM's apparent boycott of JavaOne. Despite IBM's absence, they were not ignored in the ensuing conversation."

    Later during the Java Technology Achievement Awards, cosponsored by Sun and Java Pro magazine, Mark Bauhaus, vice-president of Java Web services at Sun, commented on IBM's no-show at this year's JavaOne, despite their wins at the event. Although this line didn't make it in the final report online, I heard him say, "All of the other J2EE players are here with enthusiasm: BEA, Oracle, Borland, you name it. It is too bad that one of our important partners evidently chose not to participate."

    The report on that event is here:
    http://www.ftponline.com/reports/javaone/2003/awar ds/