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Sun's Phipps Slams App Engine's Java Support

Posted by samzenpus on from the you're-both-pretty dept.

narramissic writes "Sun Microsystems' chief open source officer, Simon Phipps, said in an April 11 blog post that Google committed a major transgression by only including support for a subset of Java classes in its App Engine development platform. 'Whether you agree with Sun policing it or not, Java compatibility has served us all very well for over a decade,' Phipps wrote. 'That includes being sure as a developer that all core classes are present on all platforms. Creating subsets of the core classes in the Java platform was forbidden for a really good reason, and it's wanton and irresponsible to casually flaunt the rules.' Phipps characterized his remarks as non-official, saying: 'This isn't something I could comment on on Sun's behalf. My personal comments come purely from my long association with Java topics.'"

3 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I think Sun is jealous by seifried · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think Sun is jealous, they have been pushing grid computing for ages and it's been a flop for them. Google is most likely going succeed here, especially with a "good enough" solution which no doubt pisses of Sun/Sun employees (who have a tendency to go for the engineering "ideal" solution which often results in a very nice and extremely pricey product). Witness the container computing stuff, Sun is making a big deal about seismic tests, and Google is quietly deploying hundreds of these things in their data centers. Sun seismic test vs. Google data center tour. I bet for most of us Google's Java AppEngine implementation will be "good enough".

  2. Re:do their own then... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I agree that google is not Mr. Friendly, I'd be surprised if this particular move is about lock-in. Not because of any belief in google's virtue; but for basic technical reasons.

    If you want lock-in, you create a superset of the competitor's platform, or a variant of the platform that behaves differently, then push people to use your proprietary features. Implementing a subset of the competitor's platform just raises the cost of porting to your implementation, and creates no barrier to moving from your implementation to others' implementations.

    The java-subset thing seems like a bad idea; and I'd be curious to know why they did it; but I don't see how a platform subset is a good basis for a lock-in strategy.

  3. Re:do their own then... by Fastolfe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google's way:

    1. Developer tries to port code
    2. javac throws classNotFound exceptions
    3. Dev:"WTF! java.lang.System is integral!"
    4. Dev is VERY confused since java.lang.System is essential for a basic hello world.

    Citation needed, please. Here's what Google's documentation about java.lang.System says:

    Features of the java.lang.System class that do not apply to App Engine are disabled.

    The following System methods do nothing in App Engine: exit(), gc(), runFinalization(), runFinalizersOnExit()

    The following System methods return null: inheritedChannel(), console()

    An app cannot provide or directly invoke any native JNI code. The following System methods raise a java.lang.SecurityException: load(), loadLibrary(), setSecurityManager()

    What about this is unreasonable? Where does it say that apps will get ClassNotFoundExceptions? Please stop spreading unsubstantiated FUD.