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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."
Java Script, Java Beans, Java Swing, Java Status Quo!? Enough!
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.
import music.blues.12bars;
public void static main(){
and.I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It);
Here(We).go(o);
Rocking.all.over.the.(World);
}
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...
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.
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?
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.
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..."
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
I find it interesting that the published report is via ASP...
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.
Public school education at work...
grisha.org
Nope, because it's wrong.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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.
Which Evangelist led the opening prayer?
I'm an industry leader and I have not discussed this. This story is rubbish.
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.
Login required. Main Sun's reason for open sourcing is competition with .NET
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!
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.
.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.
.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
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
I will say that in regard to
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Slashdot reported that storyyesterday
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.
Java isn't slow; Java is a language.
.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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Soccer Goal Plans
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.
.NET did it in the bowels of Redmond outside of the public eye.
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
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
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?
.Net is doing just fine competing against Java, why would Microsoft feel threatened enough to have to buy Sun?
Also, why would Microsoft want to own a big, dying company like Sun? Big doesn't equal financially healthy. When
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
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.
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++).
.NET's VM, but suspect that they excluded many of the going-forward limitations of java.
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
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
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
Java is for elite-programmer. Is that a niche market?
Thank you. I can begin to relate to this line of reasoning.
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.
(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.
I mean, if you're using
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
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
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.
Two words: Server Side.
Blar.
> 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.
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
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
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.
java was created to be a write once, run anywhere solution. because of corporate politics and competition, it just doesn't pull it off.
.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.
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
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
> 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.
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?"
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.
.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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
Sun and IBM's vastly superior VMs
I think you meant to type 'slower' instead of 'superior'.
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
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.
Perhaps you should upgrade your 14.4K modem.
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
Or does such a beast already exist?
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
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.
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*.
Hehe, I also thought it telling that they said .NET would be a fierce competitor to Java when in fact .NET competes with J2EE...
1/ Are you sure you know the difference between Javascript and JSP ? (just checking, you never know) ... Not exactly a great argument.
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)
Thanks for playing.
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
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)
In terms of development speed and easiness, jsp+(netbeans/eclipse/???) is way away from asp.net+VisualStudio.net.
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 !
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. 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.
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.
.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.
.Net, but we are still early in the game and anything can happen.
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
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
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
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.
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
IntelliJIDEA!
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
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.
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
When JAVA was first announced, it was to be the language for everything.
.jsp extension) and there's even a java applets offering terminal / telnet / ssh.
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
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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!
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).
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
Offtopic? There is a reason that got modded down to -1.
Random is the New Order.
Looking forward to it, but then I am old...
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
http://www.theserverside.com/resources/article.jsp ?l=JavaOneDayOne_03
Here's the URL w/o the extra space so that it works.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It says JSP right on the error page.
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.
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.
well, both meanings sort of fit, that's the beauty.
-pyrrho
... it should be modded up.
-pyrrho
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
Java is like Platonism. It's perfect in the ideal sphere, but in the real world we can have only imperfect copies.
-pyrrho
absolutely.
.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.
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
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
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
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
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'!"
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.
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
1) Touchy aren't we ? I was just checking.
.. JSP *is* shitty. But it's just your argument that wasn't convincing. :)
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
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
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.
Here's the link again for those who are curious:n dtable/
http://www.ftponline.com/reports/javaone/2003/rou
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:r ds/
http://www.ftponline.com/reports/javaone/2003/awa