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Oracle and Sun Team Up to Provide .NET Alternative

Posted by Zonk on from the other-white-meat dept.

segphault writes "Ars Technica has an article about the new partnership between Sun and Oracle, designed to provide an alternative to .NET." From the article: "According to Ellison and McNealy, their mutual goal is the production of a complete Java-centric enterprise datacenter architecture that leverages Solaris 10 and Oracle's Fusion middleware. Designed specifically as an alternative to Microsoft's .NET technology stack, the new platform is competitively priced and based on robust frameworks."

12 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Pricing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "the new platform is competitively priced"

    What!? I remember when Oracle and Sun charging was based on how much money fell out your pockets when they turned you upside down and shook you.

    Seriously though, an alternative is nice, but isn't that alternative already here and called Java? I suppose a nice end-to-end branding a-la .NET wouldn't go amiss, but what's the point? Sufficient technologies already exist out there to do what they're trumpeting as new...

    1. Re:Pricing... by Debiant · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think It's not just about technology, but about user end and development support.

      If I compare Java and .NET, I must say I think it's right now much easier to do things with .NET .

      I'm not talking about being platform independent, robustness or things directly related to merits of some programming language or enviroment, but more about how many potential people have access .NET technology.

      For example, VB programmer may with some training be able to move his old VB code's business logic to .NET server. Same goes to C++ programmers. Even Java developers may find C# much more intresting than Java, because it pretty close but still diffrent(and not with a negative way). In a way .NET is a culmination of many programming languages, and that way looking far ahead of Java where you can only 'plug in' with Java only.

      Besides Microsoft with it's traditional method, is trying to support .NET much as it is possible.

      So I can understand why Ellison is trying to do what he is. as he sees that .NET has much synergy. More I look .Net, more I've started to wonder why it has been so overlooked.

      It's coming fast, where I'm looking at it.

      --
      Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows has the trouble seen me, even I sometimes wonder why I write these line
    2. Re:Pricing... by Decaff · · Score: 4, Informative

      For example, VB programmer may with some training be able to move his old VB code's business logic to .NET server.

      It is not just a matter of training - VB.NET has many differences from VB.

      and that way looking far ahead of Java where you can only 'plug in' with Java only.

      I really don't know how people come up with statements like this. The facts could not be more different. There are more than 200 different languages than run on the JVM. A large proportion of them integrate well with Java, and can used Java classes and libraries. There are implementations of LISP, Ruby, Python, Basic, Modula, Pascal, Fortran and even COBOL. There are currently far more languages implemented on the JVM than on .NET.

    3. Re:Pricing... by Decaff · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Urrm... having trouble reading, are you?From the message you just replied to: ".net's CLI/CLR may have its flaws, but it fixes much of the brain damage of the original JVM design."

      The problem with this statement is that it assumes that the JVM design was 'brain damaged'. It wasn't. There were very specific design considerations which it met well: To be easily JITted/translated to native code, to be a compact code and the well suit procedural/OOP language Java.

      The .NET/CLR is very similar. It may have a few more features that better suit other languages, but they are few. Although there have been successful implementations of dynamic languages on the CLR (IronPython), many dynamic languages (like Smalltalk) have struggled to make use of the CLR, and have had to make compromises.

      The idea that the JVM is 'brain damaged' is just ranting. The sheer number of languages successfully implemented on the JVM provide the clearest possible evidence against this statement. Things could certainly be better, and it is likely that new opcodes will be added to future versions to make implementation of dynamic languages easier.

      But anyway, one developer's 'brain damage' is another developer's sensible choice, so using such terms is meaningless.

  2. That's funny... by ltwally · · Score: 5, Funny
    "...the new partnership between Sun and Oracle, designed to provide an alternative to .NET. ... Designed specifically as an alternative to Microsoft's .NET technology stack..."
    That's kinda funny, 'cause here I was thinking that .NET (which is only a couple of years old) was the alternative to Java (which is 10+ years old).
    --



    /dev/random
  3. Proprietary by trollable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "According to Ellison, this is all about providing users and developers with technology based on standards. But what standards is he talking about, and are those the standards that consumers care about? The availability of an open source .NET implementation based on ECMA standards certainly makes Java look more proprietary."

    The whole JDK1.5 API is public and totaly available to be implemented by anyone (www.jcp.org). Also there is already a 98%-complete implementation of it (www.classpath.org). OTOH, only a small part of .NET has been proposed to the ECMA, which is not even a standard organization. Mono provides only a small subset of .NET.

    (that said, the most used Java Platform (Sun) is still proprietary)

    --
    Million Dollar Screenshot
  4. As a sysadmin... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a sysadmin, I work with a plethora of applications, systems, integrators and vendors. We run everything: AS400, PHP, J2EE, linux, windows, perl, oracle, db2, postgres, mysql...I could go on, and on. Windows bashing aside, Java is the only technology that's "advanced" enough to break itself. I can literally run some of my perl scripts over and over until the cows come home...or leave my cisco routers up for 700 days...or reboot linux til I'm blue in the face and it's always predictable. When they fail, there's some reason: Disk space, upgraded software, user error, low memory, gamma rays, etc. Java is not that way - java has a mind of its own doesn't need an excuse to not work 1/1000 times.

    My point here is that I feel for the people who will be administering this system - all of those sleepless nights troubleshooting transient failures with no fixes or even causes. Oh well, they made their bed, I suppose.

  5. imitation... by Swamii · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...is the sincerest form of flattery.

    Rather than teaming with Larry Elliscum, a better move for Sun would be to open Java up to the ECMA/ISO for standardization.

    --
    Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
  6. fix java or give it up to the community by slashk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i for one am sick of dealing with classpaths and 250 jars inside of jar files inside of war files inside of ear files - catch my drift.

    i'm also sick of J2EE containers with class loaders schemes that are more complicated than my senior year algebraic structures course.

    build a linker into java just like .net has, and something like a GAC.
    than allow versioning of libraries.

    then get rid of checked exceptions so i don't have to do try/catch/wrap/rethrows(or do nothing) in 90% of my J2EE code.

    then get rid of stateful, local session beans - how redudant is that???

    then find a way to get rid of the 14 million defines i need in my server.xml to specify which implementation of each 'open, standard' interface i need

    so, java as a language - it's ok
    java as a platform - SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    left java for .net after 6 years of dealing with Sun's bullcrap and i have never looked back.

  7. read my mind by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Funny

    Y'know, I was just saying to myself, "Self," I said to myself, "you really need an enterprise datacenter architecture that leverages middleware based on robust frameworks." Wow, they must have been reading my mind!

    --
    Find free books.
  8. What, like Office 12 XML? by WebMink · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Rather than teaming with Larry Elliscum, a better move for Sun would be to open Java up to the ECMA/ISO for standardization.

    Why exactly would that help? Right now the Java standards are open to input from a wide range of voices, from individual developers through open source communities like Apache to corporations like Oracle and IBM. No voice has overall control, no-one can force through self-serving capabilities and everyone gets to use the specifications royalty free. All of them know their contributions can be implemented as open source yet that the market in which they operate can't be monopolised by any single company.

    Sun started ECMA standardisation and then realised half-way through the process that it was going to produce the worst of all worlds; a rubber-stamp for the work Sun had done, with no input from any communities and a freezing of the specs by the ECMA dinosaur, combined with a loss of the ability to enforce the Java trademark and an inevitable embrace-and-extend by companies like Microsoft and IBM. Sun should have worked this out before starting with ECMA but fortunately realised in time and pulled out of the process. The result was the creation of the JCP and the most open, competitive software market the computer industry has yet seen.

    Microsoft fully understands the PR value of ECMA and is cynically using it to rubber stamp it's Office 12 XML format to undermine the openness of OpenDocument. That action has done us the good service of showing us just how intellectually bankrupt ECMA actually is. What the Java platform needs is not the destruction ECMA would bring, but rather the further evolution of the JCP, which is working better than pretty much any standards body before it and is only hampered by the public perception of Sun control.

  9. It's the developers! (Re:As a sysadmin... ) by MisterP · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm in the same boat. I look after everything under the sun. Everything from shitty little 2 server ASP websites to 20 server clusters with TB's of backend disk.

    I have java servlets used by over 2000 people 24x7. When was the last time I had to restart the JVM? Dec 2002. I also have 8 java (jsp) web applications used by 200,000 ISP customers 24x7. JVM uptimes range from 2 years to several months. On the flipside, i have applications that need to be restarted every week.

    The difference? The developers.