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Will Linux have the same fate as Java?
geophile writes "This Boston Globe article starts out talking about Java's failure to take over the world, and then questions whether Linux will suffer the same fate. " Interesting question, and perhaps I'm being partial, but I feel as though Java promised that it was going to change the world-right then and there. Linux has been building for quite sometime, and continues to develop.
As soon as I saw the word "Lesson's" in the title, I decided not to read the article. Did I miss anything useful? ;-)
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
This article was strangely biased. The whole article was an "interview" about a competing product with a Microsoft product manager. Oh, that's a great way to get an opinion about a subject.
So the Boston Globe expects us to rely on Microsoft to determine how well we are doing? That's like asking the Democratic candidate for President if the Republican candidate could win the election.
Some people die kicking...
-Brent--
I just sent my $2 to mr. bray and the boston globe. Here is mr. bray's info if anyone else cares to let him know just how we all apreciated the laughs. The second best laugh since I found out Gore invented the Internet. --Mr. G.
The assumption by the article that Java has failed is pretty insulting. People are using Java in their browsers and desktops without even realizing. According to every indication out there, Java will be the premier language for consumer devices.
Because of companies like Microsoft we are led to believe that you have to totally dominate and destroy everything else to be successful. Java is a success and it has changed the world already.
In the same way, Linux doesn't have to dominate the corporate arena to be considered valid. Dominiation doesn't equate to validity or success.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
> They told me that by getting my MCSE I'd makes "lots" of money
You may have misunderstood poor Microsoft. They may have actually said "Get your MCSE. There's lots of money to be made." Which was true.
This guy is notorious in the Mac side of the world for spreading doom and gloom about Apple's prospects. It would appear that with Apple setting all-time highs in their stock price, he can't play that game anymore, so it's on to Linux-bashing.
I wouldn't count on straightening him out. He's the perfect MicroSquish propaganda echo.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I just sent my $2 to mr. bray and the boston globe. Here is mr. bray's info if anyone else cares to let him know just how we all apreciated the laughs. The second best laugh since I found out Gore invented the Internet. Bray, Hiawatha Computers/Hi-Tech / Financial (617) 929-3115 h_bray@globe.com --Mr. G.
Sure, java is a language, but its not the language that had everyone hot and bothered; it was the VM. What has collapsed is not the language, but the business case for java everywhere, which rested on the VM.
What was the business case?
1) Idependence from Microsoft.
2) Access to non-microsoft desktops.
3) Low deployment costs to pure thin clients.
4) Powerful language has most important semantic capabilities of C++ without the most troublesome features.
What are the realities?
Idependence from Microsoft: Most PHBs aren't going to see dependence on Microsoft as a problem, because it occurs in a intellectual realm orthagonal to their daily experience. Also, if everyone is in the same boat, it's not a _competitive_ issue. Finally, the key MS monopoly is not in OS, but in office applications. Without destroying this, essentially everyone is going to have to have a copy of Windows around (leaving aside people who can happily live on the fringe and don't go blank when they hear words like "XML").
2) Access to non-microsoft desktops. The two significant segments are Mac and Unix. The Java VM isn't going to deliver the Mac users the native user experience they prize, so scratch the Mac.
3) Pure thin clients as a solution to deployment costs. Most internal MIS shops will find the retraining costs orders of magnitude higher than deployment costs. The download bandwidth requirements for non-trivial applications make java impractical in the applications where pure thin clients are the most desirable.
4) Powerful language has most important semantic capabilities of C++ without the most troublesome features. IMO, the strongest argument for java, and alas the least persuasive to any non-technical businessman.
Now, what is the business case for Linux?
1) It is free (beer).
2) It makes surplus hardware useful.
3) Service based business model.
4) Stable and faster on common hardware.
5) Open/free source.
What are the realities?
1) It is free (beer).
The usual response to an acquisition cost differential is to appeal to TCO. The biggest cost is going to be retraining existing staffs (who are often barely competent to begin with). On the other hand, the scalability problems, and increasing complexity of MS offerings may somewhat negate this. For many shops, TCO is going to be lower sticking with the status quo, but if they have a few people who know Unix and have a role in which Linux can play, it's going to be hard to say no except out of pure intransigence. Overall, this argument is a mixed bag.
2) It makes surplus hardware useful.
If you need a intranet discussion and web server, can buy a new NT box with the appropriate license packs etc., or you can press that 486 in the basement into service. This is pretty much a no-brainer, because most of the cost is going to be content related; you can always give MS your bucks later.
3) Service based business model. This is the strongest case to put to management. Microsoft's revenues are primarily from controlling the copying of their software, not service. Third parties have stepped into the breach, but only have the vaguest idea of how things really work internally, and so are limited in effectiveness. Everybody has been burned by this. On the other hand Linux and BSD are freely copyable by all, so that the only feasible source of revenue is to provide service. This is practical, because every internal detail of how things work is public knowledge. This has already produced a situation where the _free_ support of Linux is far superior than almost any commercial support you can buy for Windows, so the bar is high indeed for companies like Red Hat who intend to make money in the Linux service arena.
4) Stable and faster on common hardware.
Strong case for server software, weak for desktop use. The most important factor in desktop use is to provide an adequate suite of end-user tools. Again a place where the MS application suite monopoly is key. Users hate BSOD, but they would hate even more not getting fidelity in printed output or scaling fonts, or not being able to cut and paste between two apps they use. Koffice, where are you?
5) Open/free source.
Again, truly a strong case, but with little or no appeal to management.
Overall, the case for Linux is much stronger than the case for java. While it holds great promise, the most serious problem for Java is the issue of ownership. If java fails to meet the business goals of Sun, or at some future point undermines them, you can be sure that java will be no more. Linux boxes do many useful things well today, and will continue to do them forever no matter the fate or strategy of any one company, so long as even one person has the desire to keep it going.
This last point is critical for developers. Apple developers have been burned by about faces on Lisa Pascal, Open Transport, Open Doc, and Applescript. MS has been incomparably better, but far from perfect. They've done things like restrict the screen resolution of WinCE, which naturally is a result of the difference between their users' interests and their own.
In the free software model, the user's insterest always wins.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Now, I know most Linux hackers are C programmers or scripters, but Java is far from being dead, as is far from having failed. There are 1.7 million Java programmers, according to the Boston Globe artical, and 399,000 Linux hosts on the net, according to the April RIPE host count. You can double the Linux count and halve the Java count and still ask whether, if Java is dead, what is Linux? Java wasn't intended to kill Windows; it still needs an OS to run on top of. As a result, it provides as much advantage to Windows as it does to any other OS. The hope was that Java would provide a mechanism for software houses to produce software that would run on any platform, and thereby give other OSes a chance to fight on a level playing field. It isn't up to Java to defeat MS; it is up to other OSes. Whether the Java language itself is better than any other language is a mostly matter of taste and is an issue of debate for computer theorists; however, many of the features of Java, which are lacking in C or C++, and many of the features that are lacking in Java which are present in C and C++, make developing Java applications easier. Maybe Java isn't as popular among Linux users because we have the slowest virtual machines of any platform. At our development we use several Java applications in our development suite, and on the Windows NT machines these applications are scarcely slower than native apps. Most importantly, I can use the same apps on my Linux development machine; if it weren't for Java, I'd have to run Windows to be consistent with the other non-Linux developers, so I, for one, am grateful to Java for allowing me to use the OS of my own choice. It is a mistake to claim that Java has failed or is dead, and a disservice to fail to recognize what opportunities the Java platform has provided anybody who wants freedom to choose their OS.
As some swoon over W2K, others recall the hype over Java.
To judge by Microsoft Corp's red-hot stock price and press clipppings, one might conclude that software giant RedHat Software Inc. is in for trouble.
Microsoft is the gargantuan Redmond company that has run up a massive market capitilization by peddling a version of 'windows', the decreasingly popular high-cost computer operating system.
But mention Microsoft and Windows to Linus Torvalds, kernel manager for the upcoming Linix kernel, and he'd probably seem almost on the verge of stifling a yawn. He'd likely say something like, "when you look at the hype versus the reality today, there's a big disconnect, besides it doesn't really affect me"
Maybe he would be whistling in the dark. But then, Linux has been here before.
Remember Java? That was the radical new technoligy of four years ago, an upstart product that threatened to smash operating system dependance once and for all.
Born in the labs of Sun Microsystems Inc. and intended at first to run cable TV controller boxes... this reporter has just realized that Java and Linux and W2K are very different both in form, feature and implementation making the Java comparison utterly useless.
Java basically died for original purposes.
Talk to Linux developers and they'll tell you that a similar fate awaits W2K. Kevin Way, director of FUD at ThereIsNoLinux Inc., says that W2K hype has already peaked. "Cold hard reality is coming to bear," he says.
Kevin points to the desperation of almost laughable articles which make claims like W2K being ready for heavy-duty tasks even when industry groups like the gartner group are recommending against adoption for several years. Also, W2K is notoriously complex, expensive and unstable, making it a poor choice for anybody but the most overfunded and masochistic users.
"There certainly are categories where W2K is a strong competitor," Way admits. For example he says it makes a good gaming platform. But Kevin says W2K still isn't ready for heavy-duty tasks that Linux, *BSD and other such open-source projects are designed to perform.
"They're probably a toddler now, instead of an adolescent," Way says.
Still, the java experience is utterly unrelated, yet somehow suggests that it's too early to say what W2K will do assuming it ever grows up.
Linux has the benefit of having evolved into its current state. Developers had specific itches to scratch and Linux grew accordingly. The result isn't always pretty, but it's always functional because no coder would develop Linux away from being functional.
Java, on the other hand, was designed too quickly in the wrong directions before developers could tell Sun where the problems were. It has a lot of nice features, but a lot of painful drawbacks that have hindered its growth.
- the AWT mess
- the applet nightmare
- the distribution method
I've used Java a lot. I like Java, especially for cross-platform GUIs, networking and database access. But it has a variety of little annoyances that Linux simply doesn't have - because Linux is written by Linux users who generally know what features work and what don't before the general public sees them.Sun decided that getting a cross-platform GUI functional wasn't working, so they gutted the AWT down to only a few classes to implement on each platform and build Swing on top of those. Not a bad idea (somewhat RISCy), but they could've spotted that earlier on in the testing phase.
Applets should've been handled in a browser plugin to begin with. Now Java has advanced so far and gone through so many revisions that writing Java1.0 applets (to be compatible with older Netscapes) is painful. If only they'd been thinking of how to upgrade, but at the time new browsers were coming a lot faster than they are now.
Sun spent very little time deciding just how to get Java apps on a platform sanely. Jar files were a start, but then one still has to type a long command to get the app going. Surely they could've come up with a cross-platform tool in the JRE to launch an app in a Jar file without the CLASSPATH nightmare.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
For me, it was
that marked the start of the FUD, and
which merely continued it.
Die, evil micro%loth scum, and all that
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Now, I know most Linux hackers are C programmers or scripters, but Java is far from being dead, as is far from having failed. There are 1.7 million Java programmers, according to the Boston Globe artical, and 399,000 Linux hosts on the net, according to the April RIPE host count. You can double the Linux count and halve the Java count and still ask whether, if Java is dead, what is Linux?
Java wasn't intended to kill Windows; it still needs an OS to run on top of. As a result, it provides as much advantage to Windows as it does to any other OS. The hope was that Java would provide a mechanism for software houses to produce software that would run on any platform, and thereby give other OSes a chance to fight on a level playing field. It isn't up to Java to defeat MS; it is up to other OSes. Whether the Java language itself is better than any other language is a mostly matter of taste and is an issue of debate for computer theorists; however, many of the features of Java, which are lacking in C or C++, and many of the features that are lacking in Java which are present in C and C++, make developing Java applications easier.
Maybe Java isn't as popular among Linux users because we have the slowest virtual machines of any platform. At our development we use several Java applications in our development suite, and on the Windows NT machines these applications are scarcely slower than native apps. Most importantly, I can use the same apps on my Linux development machine; if it weren't for Java, I'd have to run Windows to be consistent with the other non-Linux developers, so I, for one, am grateful to Java for allowing me to use the OS of my own choice.
It is a mistake to claim that Java has failed or is dead, and a disservice to fail to recognize what opportunities the Java platform has provided anybody who wants freedom to choose their OS.
The only way to answer all the questioning articles like this one is for our tame kernel hackers to beaver away until Linux outperforms all other NOSes on all possible hardware configurations, while supporting all known harware addons and running every piece of software written since 1943.
:-)
Get to it people!
anybody have the reporters email? I don't want to flame just clear up some inconsistencies. Also going to an executive for information about their competitor is just plain bad reporting. It was a poorly writting article that falls (because of it's quality) squarely under FUD.
Did anyone read the words open-source, free, or stable anywhere in the article? Or perhaps the comparison of a corporate product (Java) to a community one (Linux), which BTW hasn't really existed before (at lest on this scale). This reporter needs a reprimand for shoddy work, with media competition going through the roof credibility is King, the Boston Globe has lost it with me. (if not for the article, for the fact that I couldn't find a quick and easy e-mail address for gosh sakes!, c'mon folks "Interactive Media" sheesh)
+&x
Dude, the problem is that (at least with SUN's VM) Java is so slow that it's painful to even use a Java *chat* program, not to mention anything that takes any actual computing power.
You can't just ignore performance, if performance is too bad, people just won't use your app. I've seen 3 or four sweet java apps which were awesome, except for being so upsettingly slow that they were unusable. If you want an example, here's one: WebRPG.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
While Java is closed-source and tightly controlled by Sun, Linux is GPL and everybody is free to enhance it. 'nuff said.
--Coke
This paragraph from the article is telling:
Plainly there's no need to mourn for Java's fate. But its success as a sort of welding tool for computer networks is a long way from the early visions of Java partisans.
Java's use as a 'welding' tool was the death sentence for Microsoft's plans for taking over the world. For most companies, it's MUCH easier to operate an all-Windows network than a mixed network or all-anything-else network. The only thing that's probably keeping many companies from going 100% Windows is Java + Javascript + HTML interfaces to legacy systems. That is why IBM has thousands of Java programmers and is giving away Visual Age for Java for Linux. If everyone were programming in Visual Basic, IBM and Linux would be in very deep doo-doo.
Oh, and support Mozilla, too. It will probably be essential in a few years.
>> No, because C++ is a hybrid language, whereas Java is a pure OO language.
>Exactly. And the world just isn't pure OO.
You can write procedural code in Java -- just use static fields and methods. Then all the O/O becomes a namespace resolution tool, and a damn better one than C++, for that matter.
(On the badness of manditory GC in Java)
>Try writing a guidance system for a missile.
>And try sleeping for two seconds while waiting for the GC to do it's job.
First built-in GC is, in all but the most trivial real world cases, considerably faster than doing it by hand. Second, the vast number of bugs introduced by dangling pointers and the like means I'd personally feel safer with a Java control chip than a C++ one.
Another point that people are missing is this: if linux fails miserably in the corporate market, it doesnt matter (The Rock style inflection). People will still use linux. At least I will. And I'm willing to bet others will as well. The model of opensource is inherently longterm. The only thing to really stop development is if everyone in the world looses intrest in programming.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I've been in the biz for nearly 20 years now, I've used every language from assembler to FORTH, to C++, and I love Java. I've used it to deploy commercial financial services applications faster and more reliably than I could have in C++.
While the JVM will always be a performance issue, (I would never use Java for number crunching or high transaction rates), it's good enough for many business applications and the Java language is a huge improvement over C++.
People forget that C was around a long time before it began to make inroads against FORTRAN and COBOL. Sooner or later, Java will do the same to C.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Oh, and by the way; arbitrary precision floating point numbers is in a "library" (Java has packages of different classes, and I guess you could call that a library). The Java "language" is like the syntax: for, while, etc. That's just like C++ with some keywords added, some keywords removed, and some things mixed around. All of the really great functionality is provided in the Java API (libraries I suppose). Therefore, it doesn't have threading and sockets built into the language per-se, but they are in the "libraries". The arbitrarily large and precice integers and floating point numbers are in the java.math "library".
Theoretically, you could write C++ like code by making one large class with a bunch of static methods. That way from main you can just call static functions of the class without using the class name, although I don't really see why you'd want to do that.
I've come for the woman, and your head.
Accipiter has a point. I should have mentioned the fact that SMP support for Linux does exist, but is regarded as still pretty shaky.
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
It is not object oriented like C++, where you can choose to use object orientation when it fits the task at hand. You are _forced_ to use object orientation, always, everywhere.
Um, the only real difference is that there is no global scope. What is problematic about that?
You can easily communicate datastructures over the network. But you cannot (AFAIK) communicate the code.
CORBA and RMI are well suited for the task, and class files have been loaded across the network for ages.
You have garbage collection always, everywhere. Not just when it's a benefit, but again you're locked into it.
This is bad how? You mean manual memory allocation and deallocation is better? No thanks, I would rather model the _application_ I am writing than having to think on the machine's premises.
To quote Bjarne Stroustrup:
Don't. As comp.lang.java.* discovered long ago: Bjarne is scared of Java. He's spreading the same level of FUD about it as Micros~1, SCO etc. are about Linux.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are rapidly developing applications in a far more elegant language than Stroustrup's hideous hybrid will ever hope to aspire to lick the shoes of.
Nothing is meant to last forever and 'take over the world'. I think the long-term effect of Linux will be to prove the validity of the open source model to the broader software community.
I took a JAVA course in college (we made a web server in JAVA). I have a lot of respect for this language and I would hate to see it die merely because of PHB's.
Personally I think JAVA will make a comeback. A lot of languages wax and wane as time goes by (C++ for instance) and I think that one day in the not too distant future JAVA will come back in a big way.
LINUX will be around for good, I think. (Even though I don't have it, nor do I want it). But don't believe for a second that it can't be shut down by big business. Public support can only go so far.
crazy dynamite monkey
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
A less than compelling article. The author draws many false conclusions. This sounds like some people i know that use metaphors completely out of context in an argument to sway the feeble minded. Like many people have said in this forum before: It's the PR, not how the actual product works :). For almost a year now I have been hearing that Linux is going to replace the windows desktop -- and anyone who has actually used it knows that Windows definitely knows it is the better desktop system currently.
----------
The people working on the GNU(/Linux) environment are striving to create a complete Free operating system. Whether it is a commercial success (and to some degree whether it is better than the non-free systems) is not really important.
Well, Bray ususally isn't too bad, if you remember that his audience is general readers. Certainly, this was one of his lazier efforts, consisting of unsubstantiated (and sometimes disingenuous) quotes, stale news and practically no critical thinking.
At least he isn't _Simson_. Somebody otta whack that boy with a clue-stick.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The difference is that Java was the effort of one company: Sun. It only takes one Sun exec to bring the whole project to failure.
Linux, on the other hand, is the effort of many many programmers all over the world, all with different wants and needs. Nobody can really kill Linux. Even if Linus were to be hit by a bus (pray it never happens), Linux would continue.
I'm not sure about all this talk of world domination anyway. Even if we don't take over the world, it isn't the end of the world. I use Linux because it works. Taking over the world is all nice and all, but if we fail, we at least still have a decent OS made better by the attempt.
This sig is false.
Sun controlling Java has both positive and negative aspects. The positive aspect is that Java can't be forked. The negative aspect is that Java can't be forked. If Sun controls wisely, being unforkable is positive. If Sun goes down the wrong path Java dies instead of being forked.
The threat of forking is a powerful motivator to keep projects open to outside ideas, and to merge well written developer patches.
There is one other large difference between control by Sun vs. control by Linus. Linus is not legally bound to make maximum profit for his shareholders as Sun is. He can base his decisions on how much he likes the code.
Thanks for using mine, too.
Spend it wisely. Take some Java classes.
(snicker)
My $0.02Cdn...
I knew the article would dive into standard FUD and "misinformation" when I saw the first quote was from a Microsoft exec. Talk about your biased sources! It's like asking Lenin his opinion of capitalism. You can pretty much guess the kind of quote you're going to get.
I suppose we should apply the lessons we learned from the Bob Metcalfe/Win2K endorsement fiasco, though:
- Avoid flaming reactions
- Don't worry about articles like this; for every journalist who actually believes M$ press releases, there's another one who has a clue as to what's really going on.
- If you absolutely must reply to the author/editorial board, write an intelligent rebuttal; point-by-point analyses and calm language show you know what you're talking about.
- Just remember; for the second Mindcraft test, the Linux community sent programmers, while M$ sent marketers (is this just an urban legend? It still spells out the differences between the BorGates and the OS Federation)
Stay calm, concentrate on making one of the best operating systems even better, not on "beating Microsoft". Cooler heads shall prevail:)Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The specs are there for all to implement at their leisure. Why would you want Sun's particular and buggy implementation? Get Kaffe and participate to your heart's content.
incompatible C/C++ libraries would disable the product-- preventing users from being able to use other binaries.
They don't even need to provide a compiler!
the gpl has never been legally tested
even if you could win, would you want to fight a legal battle with MS?
the idea is that you don't want/need OS community support--- you don't even have to distribute the (correct) source!
MS has plenty of money... a free CD in every trade magizine is likely to get a lot of people to try it... and get burned!
if you want to be really tricky, make it so that the only thing you can install on top of it is win2k!
Point being... if MS wants to... they could try something interesting.
MS doesnt need to have the people who use linux because they dont like microsoft in order to kill linux. Nor do they need any of the existing linux users. (by killing linux I mean to neutralize it in their eyes. . . Java is still around but Microsoft can sit tight knowing that massive numbers of people use J++ every day) All MS needs to do is neutralize the linux FUD should the linux community become big enough that they see a use in capitalizing on it. All they have to do to do that is create software that is attractive to people who want everything people say is so great about linux and add a sugar coating on top.
it's not just 1.2 that I need -- it's a perfect copy of 1.2.2... compiler class, ya know :)
(Note, though, that "competing" VMs on Win32 are strangely absent, including Microsoft's fast and well-patched one based on 1.1.4, IBM's etc.)
Java is frequently compiled to native code. Where's the problem?
Also, a GUI application waiting for user input or for network information waits just as fast running on a VM or running natively on top of some C++ API on top of another API etc. The difference being the user with the Java application has been using the software for the three months the Java programmers didn't waste looking for the source of wild pointers and memory leaks. :-)
Hardly. If Microsoft tries to include even one major incompatability or serious bug, it will kill "L++"
the same way it killed MSIE and Microsoft's ripoff of javascript during the IE3.0 days?
Caterpillar. Cargill. Tennessee Valley Authority. American Airlines. Sabre. Tricon Restaurants (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC). These are not "mom 'n' pop" operations, they are huge corporations collectively dumping hundreds of millions into the Java industry. There are many, many more.
Good point. I'll look for one or maybe take a stab at one.
IBM did no such thing. Not only does IBM still sell and support OS/2, but it's sales are exceeding projections. OS/2 may serve as an example of a market failure, but it also serves as an example of how IBM does not abandon its customers.
What you didn't mention is the companies aligned against Java - Microsoft and HP to name two. Both are pushing HP's Chai.
This statement is really proof that you are way too ignorant to be criticizing Java. Chai can hardly be called anti-Java. Chai is a Java Virtual Machine. Chai supports Java, albeit not necessarily Sun's strict definition. And I did mention HP -- it's another company investing in Java technology (you did read my post, right?).
Beta is dead, and I'm sure Sony can't be too pleased to see DAT relegated to a tiny market of recording enthusiasts.
ROTFLMAO. Anyone who could dismiss ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, HBO, BBC, CBC, Univision and who knows how many global networks both broadcast and cable as a "tiny market of recording enthusiasts" is irretreivably stupid. I challenge you to find a broadcast production facility (among thousands) in the civilized world that does not feature a Beta SP deck and a DAT.
Java exists to attack Microsoft. Everybody knows this. Java is a top-down marketing strategy to hit 'em where it hurts. In a way, Java is just another closed product that claims to fit needs that Microsoft has missed. Java is essentially fighting fire with fire.
People think that Linux is just Anything But Microsoft, but it's not really. It's an organic, bottom-up movement. Linux grows into what people need and want, in a direction that provides a stable, useful tool.
This is exactly the opposite of the direction that Microsoft products take. Microsoft products grow in a direction that increases your hunger for more Microsoft products and new releases of the old ones.
Linux and GPL in general being so completely different than the MS-wares makes people believe that it's a directed attack on MS, but it's not. Linux users generally just have work to get done and Linux does it for them. I won't deny that some Linux users ALSO enjoy the Anything But Microsoft aspect of Linux, but this isn't the raison d'etre for Linux as it is for Java. Linux is like fighting fire with water.
Linux being completely different than Microsoft products, gives Microsoft little leverage to try and defeat it. The Holloween Memos show that they don't know what to do, and the "Labor Day Memo" pokes fun at the possibility of their using their standard tactics.
It should go without saying that they never support this product, fail to mention it on most of their web pages, remove all references to it from their Knowledge Base, charge exorbitant prices for it (while also distributing it free in computer books) and include the 49.7 day bug.
The obvious problem with L++ is that there would be no community support for it. If MS didn't support it heavily (as you suggest), and the Linux community wouldn't touch it (as I would guess) then it would be stillborn. Anyone who tried to make it work would give up on it almost immediately when they found they couldn't get any support for their problems.
Then, after dividing the market, there's no way Linux could sue them.
Dividing the market just isn't a problem with Linux the way it would be with Java. Java only works at all if it works exactly the same everywhere. Something called Linux works if it works anywhere. People who were interested in getting work done with a stable platform that has rich functionality (love those MS buzzwords!) in Internet applications just use some version of Linux. It doesn't hurt Linux that there are branches. If somebody sees things from two different branches that could productively brought together into one, this can be done fairly easily.
Once you've used Linux somewhere for an application it's just dirt cheap to clone that success N times. The incremental costs are often near 0 as you can use old computers that have long since been amortized down to nothing and just happen to be laying around. As MS knows from their experience of marginalizing Netscape, you just can't compete with free.
"Java has at best a limited market, aimed at those who write programs. ... Everyone must use an OS."
So your contention is that Linux -- one OS with a
very small share of that market -- is more widespread
than Java, a language that spans practically every
OS, and is used by both the developers, and the
people that run the Java programs?
In short, HUH?
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
Industry chatterboxes, including the media, are fixated on the idea of a winner take all, head to head battle between M$ and some imagined direct competitor. These folks are without a clue. These folks are actively failing to see the internet -- failing to see how significant it is that M$ is a marginal force in the web.
Java may not be fulfilling its promise as a Windows killer. It may not have augured in the anticipated network computer. But Java is playing an integral, pivotal role in the maturation of the web. It is healthy and it is maturing nicely. Pity the fools that can't see or understand this.
I suppose I wrote this story as much for my own edification as anybody else's. I'm worried that people like myself are getting a little too eager to see Linux as our liberation from a Microsoft-dominated world. I found myself remembering how we'd heard the same predictions about Java, and it got me to thinking--how are Linux and Java similar, and how are they different? And will Linux succeed where Java has so far failed? Should we even expect this of Linux?
So I took a stab at answering these questions. While the result may not have been entirely satisfactory, it sure set you guys to thinking, and I'm enjoying the heck out of your responses.
By the way, you can track me down at bray@globe.com. I may not be able to respond to all messages, but I'll do what I can...
Java has been spectacularly successful. Its most important use is probably server side development. Java's run-time safety, reflection, and dynamic loading are crucial features, and its libraries have become more complete and comfortable than those of OpenStep and other applications development platforms. Of course, Java isn't without warts, but it's a lot better than any other widely used platform out there. Java 2 also has made lots of progress on the client side, and apparently will be included with an upcoming browser release by AOL.
I'd expect that Linux, just like Java, will fall from media favor sooner or later. We'll get articles about how Windows 2000 is the best thing since sliced bread and how it will wipe every other operating system from the face of the earth, or about the rebirth of OS/2, or about BeOS or whatever. Just like Java, Linux will continue to be enormously successful.
Now, if we could only get a complete, working Java 2 implementation on Linux; the Blackdown port is so close, yet not quite ready for production use.
I just have to comment on this. I have win2k pro RC1 running on a dual PIII Xeon, and it runs very nicely indeed. Isn't too shabby on on a P133 with 32 MB of RAM either.
Just for the record, I run linux (debian) at home, with NT running in vmware. Linux crashes more often than NT.
The biggest seller of PCs in Britain selling machines with Linux and SO pre-installed, eh?
Well, now isn't THIS interesting.
Maybe this is yet an additional motivation for Sun to purchase Star Division?
Think about it. You work in a Solaris shop. All the technical staff are sold that Unix is the way and Windows is not to blight the desktops. Even the secretaries and non-technical management types must use Unix so as to be supportable. And, it's not just all bigotry really. For people to really work in that environment, they need solid X-Windows, NFS, SMTP/IMAP support that's not a toy, etc. etc.
Now, the computer store down the street is selling desktops with Linux and SO pre-installed for under $1,000. You've always bought $4,000-$5,000 Solaris workstations before. You've played with Solaris/X86 too, but it's quite a bit more expensive than Linux. Always requires someone to sit down and install and configure it Solaris and Star Office, too. A pre-installed Linux system sure starts to look attractive. A lot of the technical staff use it at home, and some of them have started using it at work for the odd job, so there's no fear of the unknown.
What does this do to Solaris desktop sales? And if the desktops all go to Linux, how long until they start to look at it for low-end servers and then...
The test will be if PCs with Linux/SO pre-installed will continue to be available, at the same prices, as before Sun purchased Star Division.
This discussion has drifted into how MS is going to kill Linux, like it did Java. Which despite people saying, no it won't happen because it's open source, it can happen and there isn't a thing the open source community can do about it.
MS will use open source against itself and do what it has always done, embrace and extend.
If MS put in the functionality to run linux binaries ala RPMS and made it easy for MS to compile sources or SRPMS, then it would use the open source software without needing the open source OS. It could then easily extend the libraries to 'enhance functionality'. A lot of developers will of course try and make it so that it only compiles on specific platforms, but because it's open source it won't belong before someone creates an MSRPM of the software.
They won't compete directly but allow windows to do the same things, although they will have a problem with multi-user stuff.
Who did the reporter misunderstand to write this nonsense: "For example, Java was originally designed to prevent users from saving files to a computer's hard drive - a good security precaution, but worse than useless for word processing." He's talking about a default security policy for a class that implements the Applet interface. The policy can be changed. Most Java classes do not implement Applet or need to run in a browser, where security is vital. Java was designed to have a fine-grained security policy--unlike ActiveX where you must choose to trust everything, or nothing. This factoid had the strongest smell of FUD for me.
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
"If Microsoft is not recording monopoly profits, who is? In its latest quarter, the software giant recorded $2.0 billion in net income on $4.9 billion in revenue. That's a return of 40.2 cents on every dollar of sales. After expenses. After taxes. By way of comparison, the average return on revenue for all the companies in the 1998 Fortune 500 was 4.9 cents on the dollar. If software were really all that competitive, Microsoft would not reap profits 8 times that of the rest of industry." -- Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, Editor-in-Chief of Interactive Week, 2/1/99
I love Hiawatha Bray's writings (http://www.monitortan.com/) and have read his columns for years, but what he fails to realize in regards to Linux is how many companies have a fundamental economic interest to ditch Windows in favor of Linux. Billions of dollars flow from PC manufacturers alone to Microsoft (Compaq paid Microsoft close to a billion dollars last year). That gives all the hardware manufacturers a powerful reason to want an alternative -- look at the vendors who invested in Red Hat when it was still private. Eliminating the "Windows tax", as Bob Frankenberg (then the head of HP's PC division) once called it, will make them all more profitable.
And of course its not just vendors who pay. Major corporations spend huge amounts of money with Microsoft for their users, and spend even more money maintaining Microsoft applications, and in the year 2000 you will see creative IT departments convince a few Fortune 1000 companies to standardize on Linux on the desktop. It will be less expensive to deploy and less expensive to maintain. By 2005, it will snowball into Linux on the business desktop, coexisting with Windows on dual-boot machines for a while, until Windows is superfluous.
Since there is no comparable economic motive for businesses to embrace Java, I think that Bray's analogy between the two technologies is fundamentally flawed. Linux *will* dominate the world, because it will save vendors and users money in the short term and the long term.
LangMaker.com - Invent Your Own Language
Sun recently picked ECMA to be the standards board for Java. And ECMA said anyone can submit to the standard, not just SUn. So really they lost a lot of control.
Even NT already conforms to POSIX - it's mostly useless though, since POSIX misses many of the important functions many applications use. (For instance, until the recent addition of POSIX.1g, there were no networking calls in POSIX, and there is no GUI at all since X Windows is not part of POSIX.)
The X/Open standards from the Open Group which are used to determine which products can truly call themselves UNIX(tm) are more complete, but still would not ensure complete compatibility with all Linux apps. (Just look at the problems many apps written for Linux have when they are first ported to other Unixes.)
Heheheh... wow this has got to be one of the :-)
most one-sided battle of wits I've ever seen.
Red pen... don't waste your time any more.
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
It seems fairly obvious that one of the primary reasons that java gets trashed by slashdot readers is that they do not really know how to program in the language. They will confidently proclaim that they are familiar with the language but have they actually spent anywhere near equal time developing real applications with java as they have with c or c++? Many of you, with years of c experience, try java, pretend it is C[++] and get bitchy because it is not as good at being c++ as c++ is. It takes years to learn to program in a new paradigm and most of your c specific experience is next to useless under java. It is very difficult to train a c programmer to use java properly. Even after years, you still get strange c habits cropping up in code all over the place. If you want someone capable of learning java then avoid c people and try and dig up some smalltalk programmers. They have there own quirks but at least they make an effort.
As time passes, more and more Linux users will actually learn how to use Java properly and we will see good code come from them. Until then there are tons of good C coders around who will be happy to keep doing what they do best.
I write my java on Linux, test my EJBs on a 98 box against DB2 and finally deploy on an NT server with SQL7. The app is fully distributed across four seperate machines and the EJBs can be further scaled across multiple machines which do not even need to be aware of each other. Furthermore I stopped caring about the actual OS or even hardware a long time ago. I can mix and match any OS I like at any point in the Application.
I mention this because Java is the ONLY reason that my company has started to allow production use of Linux boxes. Linux fans need to start appreciating that fact. With Java I can silently replace NT boxes without making a headache for anybody.
Happy Java Programmer
Don't you think it's extremely lame to try and
rag on someone because they can speak more languages than you can?
C'mon, you can do better than that, right?
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
And you also should have mentioned that SMP support for Windows is pretty shaky, too.
Most Java development has little to do with applets now. Lots more Applications are being developed that applets. One interesting thing is the Open Java Interface at Mozilla.org (I think the URL is http://www.mozilla.org/oji/ but don't quote me. Just poke around and you should find it). It allows Mozilla to use the latest version of the JRE installed on the computer without an 8 megabyte plugin. Very handy idea.
--Distribution--
Have you used Java 2? I believe that was the version that allowed you to give the VM a jar file to run. You specify the main class of the jar file in the manifest, and then do something like this:
This executes the main class specified by the jar. At least on Windows (I'm inexperienced, so I don't know about other OSes) you can set the file type of aAs for the GUI, I'll admit that it leaves something to be desired. However, Swing in the JDK 1.3 looks nice (they finally fixed the drawing with non-standard pointers bug). I decided not to learn the MFC since I like Java better than C++, so I don't really have anything to compare Swing to. There are most likely many people more qualified than I to answer questions about the GUI.
Regards.
Mornelithe
PS: If you want a great Java text editor, go to The jEdit homepage. I'm using it as my default text editor now.
I've come for the woman, and your head.
I'm currently involved in a successful commercial Java project and I would strongly disagree with the cockroach statement. In our specific case (a retail system) it turns out that the portability of our system has generated lots of extra revenue that would have been a lot harder to get had we not picked Java.
I get really tired of hearing at how Java is dead where it has so many great uses out there. I think it gets a bad rap from all those awful craplets that first appeared with it.
Ok, your first post makes more sense now.
;-(
(Sorry for shouting in the prev post, ASCII just doesn't convey emotion that well.)
I have to agree, if the Linux community isn't carefull with its adovacy, it could turn a lot of the masses off completely. I think this is more commonly called "coming on too strong", or lack of diplomacy. I know that I've done it in other fields (non-computing)
For better or for worse, Linux is being thrust in "the lime light."
An interesting attempt to fit a textbook economics model onto the situation...! I loved the application of marginal analysis to programming! :)
... Linux itself was a pet project with zero commercial input. Now Red Hat etc are making money from it.
:)
.... the 'laws' are there to be challenged and broken!
I think a lot of these economic analyses pan out in plain language to be the general business knowledge in the market though. I would say that at the very least M$ understands this model better than anyone!
Lots of very valid points though - especially with regards to adaptability to market disruptions, which is a real strength.
It would be interesting to see some numbers and charts to validate this in terms of 'economics' though.
A couple of confusions though. I am by no means an expert in the art of economics but I don't understand how stability of software turns hardware into a durable good.
With Moore's law, and the ever widening scope of applications, I doubt hardware/software today will be sufficient for applications 10 years down the line. I doubt many slashdotters are using a 16MHz 286 with 20Mb hard drive to access this site. Computers will never be a durable. It's debatable whether most durables are durable anymore.
Valid conclusion at the end - in that there is a bit of a 'pet project' influence on Linux. And you are 100% correct in terms of mainstream established markets.
However, price signals aren't always the most efficient indicator of future markets (despite what classical economists say).
the fact that open-source isn't driven in such a manner is a key strength which allows interesting tangents outside of the current demand structure to develop.
How many cool, useful and important technologies can you think of which were developed as a pet project?
Quite a few I am sure. A lot of marketing people loathe engineers for coming up with useless inventions that the market can't support.
Inventions like the Sony Walkman, the Automobile, the Internet had no market during development. They were market makers
* Does software have inelastic demand?
I assume you mean that M$ charges way above market price for its new software releases, because users 'have to pay it'.
I would say software is extremely elastic. For three reasons:
1) M$ faces a huge competitive burden from itself. If M$ charged $1e20 for Win2k then users would stick with NT4!
2) Barriers to entry in the market, while incredibly strong in some respects (proprietary software standards etc), are incredibly weak in others. With the Internet, dissemination of new software and information is nearly efficient.
While there is no serious *current* competitve threat to M$, it must price as if there was, because it must price against the *threat* of possible future competition.
3) Piracy helps to keep the prices down too - if M$ doesn't charge a sensible price then people will find ever more inventive ways to rip off the software to meet the chasm of demand at a lower cost.
* Diversity of platforms
Judging by the ratio of Intel boxes to everything else, this isn't really a significant economic advantage in terms of superiority over NT. It could be significant in future in terms of 'information appliances' provided Win-Tel doesn't use market muscle to penetrate these markets with pricing and marketing economies.
* Efficiency of execution (less hardware investment)
Perhaps under the bucket of diversity of hardware you could squeeze Linux onto that 16MHz 286 and thus embrace a wider market than NT. However with the aforementioned acceleration in technology it is hard to see where the value would be added in this, apart from helping users to continue using outdated technology.
I know my example is extreme but consider a 600MHz PIII to be equivalent to a 16MHz 286 in 2019. From this perspective it seems a little conservative!
Anyway, if I am arguing with a proper economist and I am speaking 100% rubbish at least I hope I added a little outside perspective! And perhaps an interesting flame thread!
Economics will never be an exact science
Maybe this is a little bit offtopic, but anyway, here it goes...
Fact: Softwarepiracy is a huge problem in most of the world where computers are being used. We are talking about 40% to more than 90% in a lot of countries.
If a secure copy protection was developed (AFAIK they are getting better and better), it would prevent a lot of people in getting a lot of the software they need/want, because they simply can't afford it.
What are they to do? They will go for the free, just as good, allmost as god or better alternative!
I know a lot of students who can't afford to pay for all the expensive MS software, and neither can a lot of companies.
If Linux becomes a viable alternative (it isn't quite there yet, but lets se how Corels distribution looks when it is released, or wait about a year, and a lot will have changed), they will certainly think about going the Linux way...
In the end it is a big "if", but from what I know, it's getting harder and harder to get pirated software.
Another thing is that people has been tired of MS software for a looong time (I don't have to say why, do I?), but there just hasn't been a viable alternative - Linux is getting there fast.
They may not like the GPL, but it is a lot more open than almost all other licenses by far (except of course FreeBSD-style licenses) in particular
Microsoft's. So if they abandon Linux and go with FreeBSD - Good for them! ( I prefer GPL, but as long as I have source, I won't complain)
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
I don't know about you but I couldn't force :)
myself to read further beyond "WordPerfect and
other word processors are called 'client'
applications...."
Completely incompetent article. Everything is
messed up- terminology, basics.
This reminded me reading an article in our local newspaper about
NATO missiles misguided by 'Russian hackers' for they (missiles) have memory divided in
two parts: "the LEFT PART OF MEMORY contains target coordinates whereas the right one
holds the pic of the target" and missile is looking at the pic not to hit something else
KuroiNeko
I disagree. Java is still unacceptably slow, both on the client and server. We abandoned java soon after porting just a few simple applications from C. A program compiled in C that put unappreciable load and completed in minutes on an 8CPU HP9000/T600 brought the machine to 100% utilization for hours when ported to java. IMHO Java is not yet a good thing.
They can lie as much as they want about supposed
"Linux-compatibility" (?) but there is one international
standard they can't mess with : POSIX. This might be helpful.
They have two solutions :
1) they make a fully POSIX compliant system, then any
linux source code can be compiled under this
"MS-Linux" thing. In this case, whatever they do, there will
be little to complain about : it will just be another distro,
period. Download, compile (very easily if the system is
*really* POSIX-compliant), run. Usual business.
2) they don't make a Posix-compliant system. My opinion
is, for Linux's core user base (you and me, dear reader),
this will be definitely unacceptable. And I don't even want
to think about the press they'll get. Some people will use it,
because it's MS, but anyway those people are not ready
to use Linux as it is right now.
Newton said he had seen farther only by standing on the
shoulders of giants - that is, older scientists; Linux might
well happen to be in the same situation : getting its strength,
not only from its own conception, but also from the older,
world-accepted standards it is built upon. TCP/IP was an
obvious example; POSIX might prove extremely useful as
well.
Besides, I like the Idea of Linux being to OSes what Newton
was to his century's science.
Thomas Miconi
Karma Police - enforcing peace of mind by all possible
means.
Linux was not born in hype as Java was. There is actually very little hype about it now. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm as the corporate sector discovers it, but that is not really all that surprising. Linux is where it is not because it is oft hyped but because it works. Linux sneaks into companies as print, mail or web servers and runs so quietly and reliably that the only way anyone will ever notice it is there is if the VP of the department pulls you aside and asks you what you did to the mail server to make it stop crashing.
Some happy quotes:
''When you look at the hype versus the reality today,'' says Edwards, ''there is a big disconnect.''
I've been saying that of windows for years. MS is no stranger to hyping a product years before it's released. Of course, until they actually have a product we can look at, we're still in the dark about Win2K. I'll make one prediction and stand by it though. It'll be released in October and you'll be getting a service pack a week until the middle of 2K when it finally stabelizes as much as any MS product can.
An ass-raped monkey said:
"Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips."
In fact I've been using SMP reliably on Linux for years. I'm sick of this particular lie. I guarantee you Edwards knows damn well Linux can do SMP.
Lets cut some more out of that paragraph:
"Fitzgerald points to recent benchmark tests by the research firm Mindcraft Inc., which found Windows NT performs a variety of tasks faster than Linux."
Sure. On one of Linux's lower-end platforms. Lets see how MS can stand up on a 64 bit platform. Oh, that's right, they can't run on a 64 bit platform.
And he says Linux is notoriously complex and hard to use, making it a poor choice for any but the most sophisticated users.
s/sophisticated users/sophisticated windows users/
In fact the Linux target audience is currently the most sophisticated users -- the ones administering networks and running servers. And most people will agree that for those tasks, Linux is easier to deal with, if only because it doesn't crash every few days.
Lets break down Linux's complexities to see which portions of using the OS would be too difficult for a trained monkey, the target IQ of Microsoft's software:
1) Installation: In my years of supporting Linux, many users seem to have problems with installing the OS. Most of the problems relate to the user never having partitioned his hard drive before, trying to make Linux and Windows co-exist happily on the same hard drive, or trying to not lose all his data when he re-partitions. Since windows is pre-installed most of the time, the user does not have to endure the nightmare of trying to get it running with his machine. Typically I find Windows installs to be just as bad if not worse than Linux installs.
2) Setting up X: A subset of the installation problem. Most users wouldn't know a mode-line from a hole in the wall, and they shouldn't have to. You don't typically have to worry about this in Windows because you get a hard coded set of refresh rates that may or may not work with your monitor. Again, you don't usually have to worry about this because you get the system pre-installed.
3) Setting up the system to dial to the internet: The last main problem I see is that people have trouble setting up their system to dial the internet. One common problem is that they have a Winmodem. I view winmodems as an atrocity and feel that the person who created them should be stripped of his degrees and sent to remedial CS for a few years. The non-winmodem people do not tend to realize that there are several PPP dialers now that take most of the work out of connecting -- just enter the ISP's phone number, your user name and password and click dial. Pretty much just like Windows.
So if you get a decent Linux system pre-installed, you should be able to use Linux even if you're a trained Monkey or a habitual Windows user.
Lets see. What else...
''There certainly are categories where Linux is a strong competitor,'' Fitzgerald admits. For example, he says it makes a good server for delivering World Wide Web pages. But Fitgerald says Linux still isn't ready for the heavy-duty tasks that Windows 2000 is designed to perform.
I say Windows 2000 isn't up to the heavy duty tasks that Linux is capable of. You can get reliable 64 bit capability with Linux today. 2.4 will have the multi-threaded TCP/IP stack that was the big bottleneck in the Mindcraft benchmarks so that if you need to serve hundreds of megabits per second from one machine that should no longer be an issue. Linux clustering and load balancing is robust and well established, so you can go the sensible route and set up a server farm instead and server hundreds of megabits per second from several points around the internet. And you have the source to Linux so you know what you're getting -- no worries of back doors because you can review all the code.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Remember News; it died because Sun kept it too close to its heart. They learnt their lesson and when java was released, they said so. So there
were some white papers on java but they held on to the language itself. The next time they do something substantial, hopefully they will go the gpl way; having learnt more lessons...
In the meantime, linux is gpl'd and it has reached the critical mass by now: it cannot die now.
So the article's comparision is completely misplaced; linux is bottom up not top down like java.
I think Linus was quoted once as saying his goal was world domination.
Unfortunately, the more rabid zealots and tree huggers thought he was serious.
Linux is a viable option - I'd hate it to become the only option.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
- And he says Linux is notoriously complex and hard to use, making it a poor choice for any but the most sophisticated users.
(emphasis mine)permit me a cruel chuckle.
Hehe, Permit me to join you.
Sometimes, Microsoft marvels me with the words they use. Only a choice for the most sophisticated users, eh? So all those Windows Admins are clueless? That figures.
But that's what Microsoft long says. They've before claimed that one of the reasons you should use Windows is because it costs a lot more to hire a Unix admin then it does a Windows Admin. Now they claim that Window Admins aren't "sophisticated" and can't "handle" Unix.
I used to be a gung-ho Windows Advocate. Yeah Baby!! Windows was going to take over the world!! But Microsoft didn't do a very good job in serving me. They were just concerned about their own profits. I was just a pawn in their hands. Patted on the head when it helped "them", and stomped to the side when they no longer "needed" me.
They told me that by getting my MCSE I'd makes "lots" of money. But then I found out that by getting my MCSE I'd be getting paid less then if I'd learn another OS. I was going to be the smartest Windows Admin. But now they say that Windows is focused to the less "sophisticated" Admins, and I find that there isn't a lot of opportunity to learn the internals of Windows.
No, sorry Microsoft. If you want *real* admins, then you need to think of those admins. You need an OS that requires more to be certified then just knowing how to install, configure those few options, and reboot. You need to see that they are paid in the same range as other admins. And you need to attract the most "sophiscated" admins.
I wish I could feel your pain, Microsoft. But for some reason it eludes me.
-Brent--
My sentiments exactly! I started reading the original post and thought: "Okay, what planet are you from!?"
I currently am working for a company which is getting heavier into creating Java Applications and Applets to take care of core business logic. The management types are gladly willing to take a very slight performance hit to get the benefits of write once run anywhere. PC, Mainframe, Unix server, NT Server, WHATEVER. They also like hearing all about the benefits of object oriented re-use! I think Java is only going to get bigger and better as time passes. Eventually I can see that its originally intended use might come back around, but for now, businesses are seeing great value in its flexibility, and are only beginning to think of ways to use it.
-Diggem
What I love most about these pieces is that they
always manage to imply that the actual users of
a particular piece of sofware or technology are
the ones running around heralding the doom of
Microsoft. I mean, I don't remember anyone other
than PR flacks and journalists claiming that Java
was the end all be all (yes, and I include Sun in
the PR flack category). Same with Linux. I use
it, and some of my friends use it, but none of
have any realistic expectation that it is going
to dethrone Microsoft in the short term.
Thomas S. Howard
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man -Jebediah Springfield (a.k.a. Hans Sprungfeld)
In short no.
As a slightly longer, and more expanative answer no. I was mearly pointing out target market. Java has a limited target market to sell into, Linux is much less limited and is, therefore, much more likely to be able to gain users.
Well, I suppose one could go totally anonymous. AC all the way - but - it's not hard to generate positive karma either.
I've been through so many OS wars my head spins and been flamed by more than one side many a time.
Face it, if you want privacy in totality, you need to move to Europe - the US will happily sell it to the next person to offer a buck for your personal secrets.
Will in Seattle
Considering only two of my close friends (About a dozen all together) use MSIE in any form, and neither of them will touch IE3. I know when I was forced to use it at my last job, I did everything I could, short of downloading IE4 to get around it (They would skin anyone caught using non-MS software, and some people wonder why I don't work there anymore).
However, we're not talking about going into a market that has one juggernaut that is growing fat and lazy (in the case of IE3, it was Netscape 3), we're talking about trying to invade a market that has not one but six major players (RedHat, SuSE, Caldera, Debian, Mandrake, and Slackware) and scores of smaller ones. On top of that, the market has a decidedly anti-Microsoft attitude.
Also, considering Microsoft has pulled ALL proposed support for ANY applications on Linux (They were working on NetShow, and MediaPlayer for Linux but those pages have since disappeared) I really don't think they'd honestly try to subvert us like that.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Java is everywhere, and still growing. The threat
of thin clients running Java forced the competition
to produce the lowest cost pcs yet.
The same can be said of Linux, still growing and
forcing the competition to produce a better product to stay alive.
Open competition is great for the consumer and it promotes
the best products for the best prices.
Linux does one thing more, because it is open, it
assures that no one entity will control it and
make changes that will hurt other competitors,
thus keeping the market open for all to compete.
Both Java and Linux have suceeded, not failed.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
>And of course, Linux may have bugs, but once
/does/ promise that. "Linux" is not a company either. both things serve to make certain people quite nervous. like many businesses. it doesn't matter if the "pointee" doesn't give a rat's @$$ about it, it feels better to them to have someone to blame. human nature :)
:)
>found, they are generally squashed and patched
>within a week, if not shorter. No other company >on the planet can promise that.
if I'm not mistaken, no one
>Sure, you could go off and make your own
>modifications, but that's got to be a lot of work
>to do those. It could conviecibly happen but I
>doubt anyone wants to undertake it.
really? where do all the kernel hackers come from, then? perhaps you mean no one has forked the source into a separate kernel? (not counting the different architectures...)
>And save for the libc5 to glibc2 switch, nearly
>every problem works under every version of the
>kernel.
unfortunately true... luckily, nearly every correct, debugged piece of code works as well!
sorry a bit about the nit-picking. I agree with the basic thrust of your argument, but those things just jumped out at me.
you can't forget one of the best things about Java -- it's awfully pretty. and now that I'm writing a compiler for it, I'm starting to appreciate it...
Lea
on one point.
Visual Basic is natively compiled. Needing a runtime has nothing to do with whether it's compile or not. The runtime conaints VB calls like VC++ apps need msvcrt.dll.
VB uses the same compiler as VC++. It converts VB to C++ then compiles and links.
VB is _MUCH_ faster than Java for many things - it's just uglier.
Plus the fact that VB uses many ccontrols written in C++ etc, helps it be even faster.
Don't even try to compare AWT/JFC with Windows Common Controls.
Now go play with your Enlightenment settings or somethin -- you'll have plenty of time for grown-up things later.
I wasn't trying to make a fair comparison. I was trying, apparently unsuccessfully, to illustrate the stupidity of making unfair comparisons.
The person to whom I was replying was trying to argue that Linux won't "fail" like Java because its better designed. Firstly either Java hasn't failed or I've halucinated every project I've worked on for the last 2 years.
Secondly, the comparison is completely spurious, and this is what I was trying to illustrate. Linux does something fairly well understood and quite commonly implemented - its a Unix-like kernel. He was probably refering to the entire "operating system", not the kernel. If so, you can't even really argue its universally well designed and implemented. Linux is not just the Linux kernel.
Java's AWT tries to be a cross platform GUI framework. This is hard, infrequently attempted, and when it is attempted in invariably has only marginal success. It did is to within the state of the art, which is not very good, and then swung (pun intended) back to the other known solution to the problem. And Java is not just the AWT.
You can't tar the whole OS with the brush of the kernel, nor the whole class library with the brush of the hardest part. Not can you fairly compare the engineering in a fairly well-understood task with that in one that is universally seen to be difficult.
The desktop does not really need the Jackbooted style of standards. This is a rather big fallacy. Even what Windows benefits from isn't that sort of thing but more general low level sorts of standards aren't even really visible to the end user.
Interoperability is the key, not who's widgetset your using. Those issues are being addressed as we speak. GNOME & KDE are moving together towards defacto standards and accomodating older ones along the way.
gmc will interact with Netscape the same way explorer does now.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Give me a break.
1. Java is alive and well. Script kiddies won't know it, but those in the industry certainly do. Java is rapidly expanding into corporate IS/IT, server-side startup software ventures, and embedded systems. Java talent earns somewhere around 50% more on average than equivalent C/C++ talent.
2. Java doesn't suck. You only think it sucks because either you haven't really tried implementing a significant project in it (since 1.1.x), or you're a script kiddie who can't handle complying with imposed methodology. The class libs in Java are very close to object-based systems like Smalltalk. Very nice, but very strict. It's not PERL, VB, or any other script interpreted thing. It's more on a par with C++, Smalltalk, CLOS, etc.
Crusading script kiddie zealots would be well advized to embrace Java, Delphi, Oracle, Informix, ODI, or anything else enterprise level which legitimizes Linux in the enterprise. I know you hate it, but the enterprise is important to your succeeding beyond "hobbyist" status. (And save your ISP args; witness FreeBSD q.e.d)
--
Intelligent decisions about what? How to code a Perl script to display the latest prices at "Joe's Computer Barn" or how to architect the IT infrastructure for a multi-billion-dollar global organization for the next 5-10 years?
Your implication that the companies I listed are low-tech is laughable. Caterpillar? Do you know what they make? Do you even know what Sabre is? Ever see the specs on the largest and fastest transaction system on the planet?
Puh-leeez.
Java has yet to overcome the drool factor needed to beat Visual Basic
Actually, in many of the large IT shops I am familiar with, it already has, in that VB is already considered a "legacy" programming language and new projects are generally being done in Java. While it won't happen overnight (just like all the COBOL and C++ code out there won't go away), Java is already starting to replace VB, PowerBuilder and C++ for a lot of things.
This message, although very clear and insightful, carries on a blatantly false statement : "Java is weakly supported under Linux"
:o)
I am currently using my Linux Boxes (RH 5.2 & Mandrake 6.0) to develop Java 1.2software.
Yes, I use the 1.2 version, from Blackdown, ported to Linux thanks to Sun's "more-open-than-close-software" policy.
And it runs fine ! AWT, Swing, whatever you want, it's there and working, and just as fast as with Win98 versions.
The only problem is, it's hard to resist the temptation to write my programs with vi, which makes my co-workers think I'm some highly dangerous kind of psycho...
Thomas Miconi,
Karma Police Foreign Dept.
"Enforcing peace of mind by all possible means"
I'm sorry but I have to come out in defence of my precious little Java, the whipping boy of the hour. Java was not created as the answer to defeating Microsoft. It was initially created to allow mutiple piece of hardware to communicate with each other despite their architecture. The original Java was designed for intelligent appliances and was later geared toward computers (particularly Applets) This is apparant from the "sandbox security" mentality present in Java, especially Java 1.0.
Now I do agree that Sun has over sold this technology as the Anti-Microsoft, and that has led to a hype let-down, but I wouldn't say that Java is finished. It is one 0of the best languages I have come across for quick networking solutions, as well as Web interfaces to complex programs.
/me dons fire proof suit
--- Linux... a college project gone horribly right
You might be able to argue that Oak was developed to run appliances, but somebody got the idea to embed it into browsers to create an IT infrastructure to challenge Microsoft. They then renamed it Java.
Oak would never have seen the light of day had it not been for this anti-Microsoft strategy on Sun's part. I'll stick by what I said before, Java exists to attack Microsoft.
Am I the only one who sees this as basically a cheap attempt at jumping on the buzzword-bandwagon? In all seriousness, this article doesn't say much, although it speaks volumes about the technical ignorance of the author.
Java was born as hype, remained hype, and fell from grace because it didn't live up to the hype. Among other things, the concepts of Java and Virtual Machines weren't exactly new; in a lot of ways, it was just an interpreted language like Lisp, excepting compiled into bytecode to make it more proprietary.
Regardless of anything Java has and has not done, Java has about jack shit to do with Linux, other than you can run Java under Linux.
Just my $.02.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
This artical contains a lot of good points, and a lot of reasons why Linux may never become a contender to NT, but is this the point. It tries to draw a comparison between Java, a semi-open programming language, and Linux a fully open-sourced kernel/OS. Java has a t best a limited market, aimed at those who write programs. Consumers are not interested in what language a piece of software is written, but in how useable it is, how fast it is, and whether MS produce it. Everyone must use an OS, and the public is becoming a more advanced consumer in this respect. Normal (non-computing) people are questioning whether Windows is right for them. This is where Linux is different from Java. People want it and will, therfore, buy it.
Eh, maybe you're right. I feel sorry for all my "friends" who I haven't been able to convince *not* to get their MCSE, and instead spend their time and money learning what counts. They will soon find out about all the "money" to be made.
Sure $1 billion dollars is a lot of money. But spread out among 50,000 people it isn't a lot anymore
-Brent--
Well, it does lead one to think of the definitive way for Microsoft to kill Linux.
They develop their own version, release it as L++, base it on C libraries that are incompatible with both libc5 and glibc2 and in various other ways make it flashier but impossible to implement next to real Linux, but claim it's the same.
It should go without saying that they never support this product, fail to mention it on most of their web pages, remove all references to it from their Knowledge Base, charge exorbitant prices for it (while also distributing it free in computer books) and include the 49.7 day bug.
Then, after dividing the market, there's no way Linux could sue them. I mean, Sun has hundreds of lawyers. The best we could do is throw a couple FSF volunteers at them.
In a matter of six months, MS could have Linux deader than OS/2 and be free to force Win2000 upon everyone (because we know Linux people aren't going to bite the bullet and use *BSD).
Conquering The World 101. They've done it before, they'll try it again. Unfortunately.
-Chris
Ok, granted, Linux has a *lot* of hype. Maybe more than it deserves. But there are two important differences between Linux and Java.
:-p
1- Linux has developers already
2- Linux has open standards and source
Basically this means that the developers - who are actually using Linux can bend and twist it to fit their need. Sun needed to convince developers, and then jerked people around about the source code and license, then trying to get ISO certification (or was it IEEE?...whatever)
So I don't think the same fate applies. Linux will be around for a while and should do some great things. But then, I'm preaching to the choir - aren't I?
-m
I sent a letter to the author of the article, these were my 2 main points:
1. It was stated by the microsoft representitive that Linux does not
support Multi Processor systems, this is not true. Linux has been
succesfully run on systems containing up to 64 processors, where as
Windows NT has as yet not been run on anything containing more than 16
processors.
2. The articles premise is that Java and Linux are very similar and will
follow similar paths. Java and Linux are not even remotely the same.
Linux is an Operating system with over ten thousand active developers,
Java is a programming language that is tightly controlled by Sun, the
two
have nothing in common other than that they compete with microsoft, as
do Apple, Be, and countless other companies.
Here is the response I recieved within 45 minutes:
On point one...you have a point. Multiprocessor Linux does exist, but even
most Linux buffs concede that it's not yet good enough for mission-critical
use. Still, it does exist and I should have mentioned this fact. A
correction may be in order...
On point two...I think you're reading in something I didn't say. Indeed, I
make the very point you make in your reply. Java was still a newborn when
the hype began, while Linux was already a tried and proven operating
system.
So, the author was not meaning to imply that Java and Linux were similar, only that Microsoft thought that Linux would get shoved aside by its engine of Marketing just like Java.
I don't know whether the point about multiproc Linux systems not being ready for mission critical systems is valid or not, anyone care to comment?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
And NT is beating Linux. That proves...what? Five years from now, do you expect anyone to question Linux as a competitor to NT? Do you remember five years ago?
Read Larry Wall's 3rd State of the Onion for more info.
Yeah, more info on chemistry trivia and Larry Wall's inability to write a coherent speech.
Perl is still a better language for getting real work done...
I think you mean "Perl is a better language for getting my work done..." Maybe it is. Great, keep using it.
Java is a better language for getting my work done, which is multi-platform client/server programming. I have to deploy applications on HP Unix machines, Windows NT, AS/400s and Linux. To do this, I use emacs and Java on Linux. I write and test on Linux and then I'm ready to deploy. I can't imagine what kind of horror I'd face doing this in Perl or (shudder) C++.
I used to write device drivers. Perl for that? Even Larry Wall wouldn't suggest it. Very few people even use C++ for drivers. How about Java? No way! It's the whole "right tool for the problem" concept. Look into it.
"Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips."
Either Edwards has never used Linux and thus knows not of what he's speaking, or he's lying. Either way it's FUD.
It is slow. It was introduced for world domination consideration when the Pentium 200 was a super power user CPU. Most people were still shifting from 486/100 to Pentium 133 or 166. Also, MS was able to put their full effort into extend and embrace, while Sun attempted to maintain control over every single aspect introduced by smaller companies/programmers.
With Linux, there's a performance gain (in server use, still a hit for desktop use). Linux's biggest problem is the trolls who think they're advocating. There's so many people out there posting flame and counterflame over some poor newbie's "how do I get X working?" that the newsgroups haven't got bandwidth for beyond-newbie questions any more (such as "how do I make my IDE CD-ROM and CD-RW work at the same time?").
my 2 cents
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Another thing about Java is, that IMHO it is not at all such a nice language.
...
... a marketing phenomenon.
The concept of running on a virtual machine is nice, but there are problems.
Good features:
1) Threads in the language
2) Sockets in the language
3) Garbage collection
4) Homogenous environment on heterogenous architectures
Bad features:
0) It is not object oriented like C++, where you can choose to use object orientation when it fits the task at hand. You are _forced_ to use object orientation, always, everywhere.
2) You can easily communicate datastructures over the network. But you cannot (AFAIK) communicate the code. Why not ?? It's a virtual machine, distributing code over the network should be trivial.
3) You have garbage collection always, everywhere. Not just when it's a benefit, but again you're locked into it.
4) Floating point calculations are guaranteed to have same machine precision on all architectures. However, this is completely useless since numerical computations per definition are inaccurate, so all we have is an overhead from a feature with no use.
Sun invested an incredible amount of money and effort into marketing Java. Still, it is not the language that most people use when they need real work done. It's IMO a niche language. It has it's forces, but it's not a general purpose language.
To quote Bjarne Stroustrup:
Java is
That is, in my oppinion where Sun failed. If only Java had been a general purpose language, boy we'd be coding it today.
> Linux can indeed support SMP, if the kernel is rebuilt from the stock installation, and only if the installer knows to install all the supporting development tools and kernel source. The typical slashDotter knows how to do this, but not Average Joe User.
The Average Joe User DOESN'T EVEN HAVE a dual motherboard w/ 2 cpus, let alone most developers.
How many of the Average Joe Users EVEN CARE about SMP? (let alone what it means)
the obvious problem with this thinking is: if they did release an "L++", why would anyone use it? The obvious answer is that it would supposedly have some kind of interesting features that no other linux flavor has.
But then you kind of run up against the fact that if it's released under the GPL, then it is trivial for, say, Redhat, to pull out all the nice features and incorporate it into redhat. Or for someone to hack together a compatible version of L++ and release it.
And if it isn't GPL, then, well, it doesn't have a gnat's chance in hell. Never mind for a second what exactly it is that wouldn't be GPLed; it sure isn't the kernel, cuz they'd have to rewrite it from the ground up to be free of the GPL virus. And if it's a replacement for GNU GCC/Make, well, it has to be compatible enough to still compile the kernel perfectly.
Whatever a non-GPLed L++ would hypothetically be, it would get no support from the open source community. Meanwhile the closed source community would consider it a waste of time to develop for, since they can reach a wider audience by writing for NT anyway.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
With a couple of straight lies: 'And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced
capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple
processor chips.' Linux runs on 4 different SMP platforms: Intel, Alpha, Sparc and PowerPC. On Sparc64 Linux has been demonstrated to boot/run with 64 CPUs. NT runs on one SMP platform (Intel). The biggest SMP box NT ever ran on is 12 CPUs. Draw your own conclusions about SMP capabilities and hardware/vendor independence.
--Coke
The ones that a number of companies are now hiring to system administration. They're buzzword compliant, but they haven't got a Clue as to what to do if it isn't NT, and I'm not even sure they know that either.
Mr. AC, look at what you're quoting. professionals are different from enthusiasts. I'm not denying that professional facilities are not where Sony wanted it, but it's better than "enthusiasts."
:)
for one thing, professionals tend to have a lot more money
Lea
It's h_bray@globe.com
I posted it earlier. Pay attention next time.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Why not just call a spade a spade? "Write once, run anywhere" is a flat out lie. It never has, and it never will, run "anywhere". Before Java could run any any new hardware platform, a "virtual machine" (read: interpreter) specific to that platform must be created.
======
"Cyberspace scared me so bad I downloaded in my pants." --- Buddy Jellison
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Did Java really want to rule the world? Has nobody realized that Linus Torvalds is joking. Only madmen and waterheads want to rule (or buy) the world. Others realize that fair competition and cooperation between equal competitors can be fun and very fruitful.
>And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips.
This is ridiculous.
Joe
Only partially. It still requires a runtime, and DLLs are still not callable like normal C/C++/Delphi dlls.
I can't believe I'm seeing yet another article that says linux won't run on multiprocessor machines (YAATSLWROMM). The direct quote is "And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips." Obviously, linux can run on multiprocessor systems... the issue is that at present it isn't very efficient when handling more than a few processors.
/. have no credibility to back them up, and that there is no code to research and fact check stories. But when dealing with tech especially, old media is as bad or worse at spreading rumor and misinformation as the new media. Sheesh.
In net media vs. old school media arugments, the old school guys are always arguing that the net media and forums like
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
This stuff just kills me. UH...like lets compare apples to oranges and throw a lot of really cool buzz words around and people will read our article. Brilliant on-line journalism...yeah.. cutting edge stuff here.
/. link this garbage.
Comparing the success of Java to Linux is silly. Two different models..comp language VS OS..closed VS open..etc. Why...why..why do we have so much crap written out there..and why does
Then who ever hired you is a fool. Which then makes it Okay to take $150 from them every hour.
Linux O Muerte!
One of the problems that Java had was that it never lived up to it's initial hype. Linux on the other hand started out slowly and has been progressing forward ever since.
Linux will continue to improve and while Java will get better as well it has alot of catching up to do if it's to live up to it's expectations.
-tg
It seems that the writers of this article like lots before likes the idea that Linux is not multiprocessor-enabled, lacks power ("heavy-duty tasks that Windows 2000 is designed to perform"), that it is "notoriously complex and hard to use" and so on... I've already heard that music...
This article does not seem to like Java either
("[Java] prevents users from saving files to a computer's hard drive", what is true for an applet, but not for an application)
As it is a partial and not really a well documented article, it sounds like FUD for me.
How is it possible to compare Linux and Java? I remember that some years ago when Java went out, the media said that it was the end of Windows, but I never thought it was, really, because Java is a programming language and not really an OS. Linux (kernel + apps), like Windows is an OS
I like how the author compares Linux to Java : Linux is like Java because it is SLOW (in the Mindcraft test vs Windows NT) and Java is SLOW (yes, but it is a drawback of the virtual machin feature). So Java=Linux and Linux will end up as Java...
Lol
This is something I've been saying for a while: Linux is great, and I've used it for a while, but it is *not* necessarily going to achieve world domination. Technological superiority doesn't always win. In the end, it's a business decision, and denying that will get us nowhere.
The possible key difference is open-sourcing. If all bugs really are shallow to a sufficient number of eyeballs, then we should continue to see far more robust software. That can impact the bottom line for lots of corporations, and thus gain substantial extra market/mind share. But as far as the individual desktop goes, Linux (while always a viable alternative) won't succeed purely on the basis of being more robust. Users need out-of-the-box hardware support and the ability to run the software they want to run, from productivity apps to home applications (read: Quicken) to, yes, games.
Java hasn't won primarily because Sun seems to have forgotten that while technologically superior doesn't always win, it is important. I carpool with a Java programmer, and whenever I make the point that Java is slow, he tells me to run a performance VM. There's the flaw: a "performance" anything should be for excellent results, not acceptable results.
Linux needs to build on its technological achievements, always improving, to win corporate share, and on its fundamental usability (HW support, apps) for individual use. That's the way to avoid the Java trap.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
The Boston Globe puts a punctuation mistake in its headline?
Not impressed. With that, or the fact that the report seems to be cobbled together from interviews with those well-known impartial industry commentators, Microsoft. They say Linux and Java aren't much good.
Well, duh.
What's interesting is that the aforementioned executives give some ground up - "Linux and Java are quite good for running servers with", though of course not as good as W2K will be, cheers cheers ect.
The emphasis seems to be that both these products are up against Windows so they must be the same. Perhaps some of the more rabid Linux and Java advocates might see it like that too. But do we really want Linux, or indeed Java to "take over the world"? I don't think so.
--
i'm going to oversimplify, so don't flame me over my Java definition.
2 2425,00.html) You think this is gonna happen to NT?
linux: a totally open and cross-platform server operating system. through GNOME/KDE is attempting to become a consumer OS.
java: a slightly dodgy, but relatively open and (kind of) cross-platform embedded applet system.
OK, meanwhile:
Windows NT: a totally closed and mostly hardware-propeitary server operating system. through the W2K bug is attempting to become a consumer OS.
ActiveX: a very dodgy, not very open, not very cross-platform embedded applet system.
alright, so basically java is to activex as linux is to windows nt. so following the logic of this article, and making similar wild indefensable assumptions.. if linux is destined to go the way of java, that means windows nt is destined to go the way of activex.
So let's look at which way java and activex have gone, and predict how linux and windows nt will go.
As they say, java has mostly failed for any user-end usage but is still being used for server type stuff. What's more, java is very versitile, still runs in a variety of situations (you can implement java code into mac os programs.. dunno about windows..), and it's still useful to have a java VM sitting around somewhere. Perhaps Linux will wind up the exact same way in a number of years --servers with little end-user status.
Meanwhile, activex has just kind of disappeared off the face of the planet because of its sheer uselessness. It has almost no support in anything, consumer-oriented or otherwise. but microsoft still tries to foist it on people. The only known thing anyone has ever written in activex that does something is a security exploit. (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,23
This is all, of course, total BS. If anything even vaguely like this happens i'll be surprised.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Everyone is missing one vital point.
Linux has its place
Java was and is a great idea. Sun saw it for what it is. They marketed it, they put it out there, they tried to take over the world with it.
They got it an image problem when they stuck it into buggy browsers on slow machines, but that's a discussion for another time.
Linux didn't start out like that. Linux wasn't some germ of an idea that needed incubation and careful marketing. Linus didn't make deals with $large_software_company to include it with every copy of $popular_application. He coded it and stuck it out there.
And it stuck.
Guys, Linux has nothing to prove. The mindset is already there. The people who need to trust it most, trust it. We know when it can be used. We know when it can't. We can prove it.
Once we have that, we can work on the PHBs, and no dodgy benchmarks are going to change that.
This is not some ivory-tower dismissive. It's a reminder: in an industry awash with false promises and vapourware, Linux delivered long ago. It will remain as long as it is useful.
Dave
--
hehehe actualy i was just in a hurry to get the post out ;)
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Fitzgerald points to recent benchmark tests by the research firm Mindcraft Inc., which found Windows NT performs a variety of tasks faster than Linux. And he says Linux is notoriously complex and hard to use, making it a poor choice for any but the most sophisticated users. And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips.
I am surprised that the autor was willing to mention the Mindcraft test. And the point on multiple processors is obvious misinformation.
No sex is worth 30 grand.
I think this writer needs to look around a bit more. If she has a recent Nokia mobile phone, she'll be using a Java client app every day.
--
Java can not be compared to Linux because .. well.. how do I say this.. Java is awful.
:-(
The design of Javas standard library is horrible.. If the designers had given it a little more thought, they would have done this different.
And AWT.. don't get me started
Linux, on the other hand, is not so awful. Most distributions are still awful to install, but work is in the process.
*sigh*
I'm sorry this sounds a little mean, but I just had to say it.
Notice the quotes ? Failure is in the eye of the beholder. From a buyers (which most of us are) point of view, i don't think Java failed. I don't think Linux will fail. Why ? Because I expect them both to be alternatives to Microsofts products and not replacements. Who needs another Microsoft? As a consumer I want competition for Microsofts products, because that will improve all products involved.
Message on our company Intranet:
"You have a sticker in your private area"
beauty is only a light switch away
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The cause is that we didn't want to subject ourselves to yet another abusive monopoly. Sun wanted to "rescue" us from Microsoft the way Microsoft "rescued" us from monopolistic IBM, and for those of you who remember back to the visicalc days, it's exactly the same way IBM rescued us from the tyrrany of Apple's monopoly. Bit of a pattern there.
When Sun was going "Don't worry, we'll submit it to ISO" we were willing to give it a try, but when it became clear they were just stringing us along, we balked. Sun didn't want to destroy Microsoft's monopoly, it wanted to capture it. And we, as consumers, were sick of being pushed around and bled dry.
About the time enthusiasm in Java was being replaced by disgust at Sun's proto-monopolistic rumblings, the world looked around for an alternative and rediscovered Linux, and it was EXACTLY what we wanted. A system that COULD NOT result in a single monopoly. Those of us trying to USE the thing could go about our business in peace without forced upgrades, and those of us trying to make money on the thing could compete on a level playing field.
And we went "ooh", and pounced, and there was much rejoicing. 99% of us can't be bothered to mess with source code, but as anti-monopoly insurance Open Source and the GPL are pure gold.
This doesn't mean Java isn't a valuable tool. I still write Java programs in my day job. It's just that we won't bet our future on it, because it comes with Sun's strings attached. Sun may not be Microsoft now, but back in the early 80's Microsoft wasn't Microsoft, either. Power corrupts, absolute power is kind of neat, and all that...
Rob
Come on, asking Microsoft employees what they think will happen to Linux is hardly unbiased reporting.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I've used Linux for a few years. I don't ever remember any distro saying it was going to change the world. Media hype perhaps? How ironic that the media will be the ones to cause Linux to fail at a goal only they saw it achieving.
(moderator chow yum yum eat it up!)
OK go ahead say something good about Windows I'm waiting...
Here, I'll help you out some. Windows is great, it keeps morons from running real OSes.
"Then how come everyone wants MS to fail?"
Because it's a widely held belief that Microsoft is ruining the entire industry with their predatory business practices, and halfbaked code. Even Intel is getting a bit fed up with Billy and company because of them there's little reason to buy much stronger hardware anymore. Why buy the latest processor, to crash faster?
Oh, and as far as getting flamed from here to kingdom come, a lot of people would like to see MS out of the way. So the industry can move forward again. Maybe finally they will deliver with this WIN2000 stuff. I still feel that with their past track record it's too little, way too late. It all boils down to their exclusionary business model. There's us, then everyone else attitude. With their rather defensive posture why shouldn't other camps take on a bellicose stance? You are judged by the company you keep. So you take some flak. It's just the price you pay for standing shoulder to shoulder with whom a lot consider to be the antichrist of the business.
People without their heads in the sand, or someplace else for that matter, that have tracked the industry won't be very suprised at what I've typed here. You on the other hand are obviously without a few of the basic facts. Read some about the history of computing see what Microsoft has actually contributed. Can you say MS Bob and talking paperclips? Then see who they've steamrollered into oblivion. You know there's some pretty smart people in this industry that don't need all of this spelled out to them in simplistic terms. Again I don't think that you quite fit into the imformed catagory. Possibly with more facts in hand you wouldn't praise Windows as much? I am not familiar with your level of wisdom, but can only infer a rather low level from your sketchy post, and what I can read into it.
If ignorance was a crime punishable by death the world would be a lot less crowded. And some company coming out of Redmond would have a lot less marketshare. Yes I could go on and on until I've typed something out about the size of War and Peace but why bother? One thing I've learned is some people are just born to be Microserfs or Windrones. Others of us though won't toil under the yoke of opression. Free the source and the rest will follow.
PS. I do have a Slashdot account but from here on it it's AC for me. That's just the way the cookie crumbles I guess.
God must run a UNIXalike OS I mean look at the universe's uptime so far!
First, Java was doomed as soon as Sun decided on a closed-source format that invited companies like HP and Microsoft to 'modify' it without incorporating the changes into the 'official' distribution. Sun should have followed the appropriate standards committee, and forfeited the ownership of Java to avoid the fragmentation of Java.
Java has yet to deliever the promise of Write Once, Run Anyway. The poor Java support of systems beyond Solaris and WinXX, the existence of inconsistant versions with the same major version number (1.0 and 1.2) are just some examples.
Finally, and most importantly, Java is still bug ridden. While the rest of their developement is closed, Sun fixed bugs in an open-source sort of way with the Bug Parade. The problem is, no release ever clears out all the bugs in the bug parade. Does that seem wrong to anyone else (and reminisent of a Gates statement a while back?)
Thus, Java is currently difficult to work with outside of an intranet environment. Sure, I think it's a great language, if the above problems were non-existant, and it won't die in any short time, but some of the hype on Java is long-dead. It is NOT the next Windows killer.
Now look at Linux. It's open sourced, no one owns it, and the key element, the kernel, is controlled by one man in the open source model. Sure, you could go off and make your own modifications, but that's got to be a lot of work to do those. It could conviecibly happen but I doubt anyone wants to undertake it.
The kernel works for nearly every system, and with the modularity of it, can be easily met to fit the needs of any system. And save for the libc5 to glibc2 switch, nearly every problem works under every version of the kernel. And this is true for multiple architectures as well.
And of course, Linux may have bugs, but once found, they are generally squashed and patched within a week, if not shorter. No other company on the planet can promise that.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
For a start what can you say about an article that actually quotes the Mindcraft report ?
... but then 5 years is a long time. What we can say is that it wont come from Microsoft.
Secondly while slamming Java it shows graphs showing the number of Java apps doubling each year and the number of Java programmers increasing at an even greater rate.
Then the article uses Microsoft comments as the core of its article with a trailing comment by RedHat. This article is total crap.
Linux wont die because people find it fun. That's it. If some other OS comes along that is more fun then maybe a big slice of linux programmers will go over , but even then not all. I don't see a new OS like Linux coming along in the next 5 years
As for Microsoft. The pace of technological change in Linux is much faster than that of Windows, it wont be very long before Linux overtakes Windows in many areas we traditionally think of as being MS "strong" points e.g. look and feel.
Just my thoughts anyway.
Peter
Bitter and proud of it.
First you have to state the obvious: look at how much of the nay-saying in this article comes from Microsoft people: Aubrey Edwards, group product manager for Microsoft's forthcoming Windows NT upgrade Windows 2000 and Charles Fitzgerald, director of business development in Microsoft's software development unit. Do these people have a clue about Linux, or how it's currently being used and deployed? And if they did have a clue, would it make through their marketspeak filters?
Nevertheless, the comparison to Java isn't valid. Java was largely a top-down phenomenon: a reasonably cool technology, but pushed heavily by one large proponent: its inventors at Sun. Linux, on the other hand, has for most if its life had no large, wealthy proponents or advertising budgets. It has survived and prospered because it works and people like it. Its success is a bottom-up phenomenon (or, if you prefer the more radical phrase, a "grass-roots" revolution).
Java is still trying to prove itself, and having to carry the burden of its own hype at the same time. Linux, though, has already paid its dues in thousands of small ISPs, small businesses, department servers, and home systems throughout the world. Microsoft would do well to realize this difference before they yawn away the Linux movement as mere hype.
--JT
Maybe a better comparison would be with the IBM PC? A fairly open design, that is still around today (I'm typing on a PC clone now). Which computer platforms survived? Just a few, and of course M$.
Besides I drive a VW, so everyone in the world should drive one. Let's eliminate choices, they're no good...
Java has not taken over the world mostly because of speed and GUI problems (Let's face it there's very few good desk top applications written in Java).
But, Java has proven it's strengths. It's great at connecting different systems and simplifying various programming tasks (such as server/web based programming). So, You can't really call Java a failure. Maybe just not relevant to all applications.
As far as the HYPE goes thought, I'd give Linux a little more in the substance department any day.
And he says Linux is notoriously complex and hard to use, making it a poor choice for any but the most sophisticated users.
(emphasis mine)
permit me a cruel chuckle.
Linux will last longer than Java, because it is more cross-platform than Java itself -- Sun has wasted much time getting Java into your toaster that they stopped trying to get it into PC's!
Furthermore, Linux has been sending mail for years, and as the Law of Software Envelopment goes: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.". Has Mozilla revived the Java mailer?
If Java ran the world, the your blender would be able to talk to your refrigerator and tell it to make more ice, but the blender wouldn't be fast enough to crush the ice.
If Linux ran the world, the kitchen appliances would not be able to "talk" to each other, but would have some sort of obfuscated sign language or sequence of beeps, hacked together with a bunch of Perl scripts, cron jobs, and a couple rolls of duct tape.
If Windows ran the world... Oh, it already does. I see why everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing.
--
E2 IN2 IE?
- Do you even know what Sabre is? Ever see the specs on the largest and fastest transaction system on the planet?
You mean VISA/Mastercard?No, I mean Sabre. VISA and Mastercard are different companies, by the way.
Last time I checked, Sabre was so far out there that it did not even run on an OS - the program ran straight on silicon.
No again. It runs on TPF. That's an OS from IBM.
And yes, I know Catepillar makes Big dump trucks and goofy boots.
Well, you're getting closer to reality, but I think you are still safely outside its gravitational field.
Caterpillar makes, among other things, big dump trucks. Big like the size of a 4-bedroom ranch house. Big enough to need sophisticated AI computers just to drive them.
Tell ya what, why don't you take another bong hit and finish this debate with the voices in your head.
Linux may not become the desktop operating system for the majority of users. But it hardly promised to be that. Being more common than windoze has only been talked about as a possibility, never a likelyhood.
What makes Linux strong is not what it promises but what it _is_. Linux is an operating system that some people like to use. It also does well some things that people want done well.
Even if the masses stopped using linux because it wasn't trendy or whatever the code for everything that is linux is still there, If developers leave then new developers can step in.
Since Linux is not a commecial venture it is never in danger of having devopment stopped because it is no longer financialy viable.
Also, since the devopment of linux is not profit driven it isn't being pushed into fields, trying to find a home like sun is doing to java.
Linux doesn't get targeted at a market. People use it if it does things they want.
There will always be people that find that linux does what they want.
Linux will always be improved because there will always be people that want linux to do just one more thing and have the ability to add that thing.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Most of the Linux world woudn't touch MS Linux. Even the corporate sector is wary of Microsoft and knows the kind of stuff they pull. The best MS can hope to do on Linux is compete on a level playing field, which they really don't want to do.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Linux and Java have one big difference. Linux IS NOT run by one company. Linux is open source, thus in a lot of ways, Linux is owned by everyone that uses it. Yeah, Linus controls it, but he doesn't own it. Java on the other hand, is controlled by Sun Microsystems. All Microsoft had to do was attack Sun itself. Attacking a company is a lot easier than attacking the OS. All Microsoft can do is FUD, and that doesn't appear to work. But, I think the bottom line is that Java is owned by Sun (one company) while Linux isn't owned. That makes it a lot harder to attack and destroy.
Yes, it might cost me $5.6 billion to buy all of the existing Red Hat stock but Red Hat didn't make nearly that much. Obviously when they did their IPO they greatly under estimated the value of their stock. When Red Hat went public the should have been selling stock for pennies under it's value, not seventy dollars.
:)
Can't journalists get this straight?
This space for sale
When did java become a failure? Its in every web page, ported to every system, taught in almost every college, and is considered the best web programming language out there? Not 5 years ago, there was no such thing as java, and now it is (at least in my college) the only language used to teach OO stuff, and it has been that way for about 3 years.
I don't think that java has "died," and therefore don't think that linux will suffer that same fate.
-davek
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Let's get to the facts.. or what they call it.
Let's mumble all to ourselves in the holey chant that we know so well. Windows(NT|9[58]|3.[0-1]) is an OS. Java is a language. Java was to eliminate the problems of cross-platform development. This is what C and C++ almost did. In MY eyes, java is where perl was a little while back. Its at that point whre people are writting and using it. People aren't writting OS's and the sort in it. Perl has its limitations and that's why its going its direction. Java will go another. Give it time. More people are using it. Just because its not written in java doesn't mean that java is bad. Just like I'm writting in English doesn't make Latin bad. (or does it...) Has anyone ever had a kernel panic under Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD and whatnot? If you have, you can easily raise your clue-bats and find this guy. Most any software is buggy even in its first month. Hell, I wrote a piece of code that reorders and groups things, and I had a major bug in it. I'll admit it. I'm not like MS. I don't write perfect code first try!I've lost all faith in the author and the news paper for running that article. It isn't a bad shot at Linux.. it's a person trying to gain his fame with bad journalism.
sporty
---
FreeBSD 4ever! well.. at least for the next 200 years...
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
It's no wonder so many people in Boston have the New York Times delivered to them (judging by the piles of them I used to see outside my apartment building). Boston-area news media really sucks.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
1. Java has developers... where else did the Compiler and VM come from? I am not 100% sure if blackdown offers a open sourced Java VM, but I know that there are others doing it.
2. There are several open source movements for Java. Come on, you can't have truly open standards anyway. The linux kernel is rather tightly guarded as to what are the 'official' releases. Sure you can patch the hell out of the kernel yourself, but don't expect Linus to okay just anything. That is why we have *stable* kernels. So Sun having control over Java is a good thing, because when it comes to the final say on what stays and what goes somebody has to do it.
This space for sale
Would you really prefer a bunch of stupid corporations to jump on Linux the way that hundreds of others have jumped on Windows?
Matthew
- not a Java fan, but not a probably detractor either
Besides, Java was touted as a key tool in another heavily hyped movement toward ''network computers.'' Instead of keeping software on each machine, people would use small, cheap computers that would get all their software from a central server. Java is well-suited to this approach.
Java is well suited, and Sun came up with a good idea here. But surprise! Microsoft stole the idea, and their name is very similar to Sun's Name.
Charles Fitzgerald, director of business development in Microsoft's software development unit, says the Linux hype has already peaked.
Yep, that may be true. And the Windows hype peaked WHEN? Ohhhhh, about 1992.
Fitzgerald points to recent benchmark tests by the research firm Mindcraft Inc., which found Windows NT performs a variety of tasks faster than Linux.
I'm pretty sure I don't even need to comment here. Fitzgerald points to the Mindcraft bullshit because he's grasping for anything he can.
And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips.
THAT pissed me off a lot. That part is very misleading. Linux contains Multi-Processor support (and has for a long time). It may not be the best it could be, but it's being worked on. (also, I think Linux has more advanced capabilites then Windows* ever did.)
But Fitgerald says Linux still isn't ready for the heavy-duty tasks that Windows 2000 is designed to perform.
Like Windows2000test.com, I suppose.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Businesses ignore the laws of economics at their peril. Linux, due to its open-source nature, has several unique factors going for it
- long-term staying power, unlike companies who only produce software for the latest and greatest (due to inelastic demand, thus higher margins), open source can migrate with the platform and thus reduce transistional and maintenance costs
- diversity of hardware, because it is ported to a wide range of platforms, the code is more robust and resiliant to disruptions, a critical factor in stability
- efficiency of execution, because it was designed for lower-performance hardware, more thought has gone into the architecture which means that less money has to be spent on hardware
- due to the stability factor, the combined hardware+software service turns into a durable good and can thus be amortised over a longer time period, rather than a consumable item requiring regular upgrading and replacement
- rapid developmental feedback ensures greater responsitivity to the market as effectively the developers are also the consumers. Rather than bringing out a potential marketing lemon, the product evolves to completely fill an application niche and creating an absolute advantage (witness sendmail, bind, etc)
- wider pool of talent, because of its low-cost nature, any person can pick it up and extend. While not everyone may have the talent to be a hard core kernel hacker, the exposure will create a deeper pool of ideas to draw upon. Thus the marginal utility is higher than for a priced product
Note that not everything is roses, there are some structural problems with the OpenSource model, in particular the lack of pricing signals to indicate the software of greatest potential value. Thus it has the appearance of following commercial trends or personal pet projects (witness the significant freshmeat interest in 3D games against more mission critical functions such as support for wireless). This is not knocking the OpenSource model but just an observation where the commercial market is superior. Thus Linux will have a role in business just as closed applications have a different focus.
LL
- Java is a huge success -- just not where it was originally hyped. People don't see Java applets on every server they visted et viola that must mean Java failed. Well, it didn't.
- Java is alive and well in corporate enterprise computing. In fact, it's probably the hottest thing in client/server programming going right now.
- Java isn't any slower than Perl or Visual Basic or any other wildly popular not-compiled-directly-to-native-code language. Sure, it was pretty slow two years ago, but that was half it's commercial lifetime ago.
- Sun is not the only major corporation pushing Java. There are IBM and HP, as well as open-source Kaffe. This is not Sun's "OS/2."
- Remember Sony's "failed" Beta technology? Remember the "failed" DAT format? Well, both are staples of professional production facilities.
In a way, the comparison of Linux and Java is fair. Linux may never overcome the drool factor needed to beat Windows, just as Java has yet to overcome the drool factor needed to beat Visual Basic (or PerlJava was a language for programming garage doors and refrigerators. Somewhere along the line, Sun figured out that it could be used to make dancing pink elephants appear in a browser. Turns out that the demand for pink elephants in browsers isn't that great and can be handled by animated gifs. At any rate, Java got pushed as a one size fits all solution for problems it wasn't ready to solve. As a result implementations were buggy and slow and a lot of people (myself included) stopped caring. Linux could face the same fate. If you push people to use it when they aren't ready, they'll dislike it. Linux got where it is by being a good tool for certain tasks. The users extended it and it got to be a better tool - one that could be used for more tasks. Perl developed a following the same way. Both are strong while java is floundering and requiring massive efforts on the part of Sun. The lesson here is that pushing a technology on people who aren't ready for it is a good way to damage it. Next time you're hyping linux as the perfect solution, pause, take a deep breath and ask yourself if the people you're trying to convince have the time, energy, motivation and know-how to learn to use linux effectively. If they don't you're hurting the movement instead of helping. Also ask yourself if Linux is ready to handle the job you're suggesting it for. If it isn't, back off, get out your compiler and work on it.
--Shoeboy
Notice also that the Mindcraft benchmarks? Anyway.
Thing is, if this is the angle of attack proferred against Linux in the media today, then I'm quite happy with it. They are attacking Linux exactly in the place it is best-suited to defend: they say its performance is bad, especially when compared against Windows 2000 (excuse me while I wipe a tear of laughter) and that it is too complicated to use.
However, it says nothing of the Open Source model. This is where it gets interesting.
We all read the Halloween memos. Microsoft identified clearly that the real battle was not MS vs Linux, but Closed Source vs Open Source models.
The most interesting point of this article is that the Open Source model is not mentioned at all. Considering the previous moves of Microsoft, this is very interesting. If you don't attack an adversary on a particular point, then it means that point is perfectly defended. It means Microsoft knows it cannot attack successfully the Open Source model.
And that, fellow Open Source fans, is really good news. They're failing to come up with proper attacks. So let them claim Windows 2000 will outgun Linux. Let them claim Linux is hard to use. The fact of the matter is, Microsoft is running scared.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Java started out as a language...a set of reserved words and syntax but it has slowly advanced, I think the word Sun is using now is "platform". I always thought of it having the possibility of being an OS on top of an OS(any OS)! It's just very very slow right now...
To a large extent, Java was a victim of the war between Sun and Microsoft over Microsoft's "embrace & entend" tactics. The uncertainty over how Java was going to go may have been a significant factor in slowing up the adoption of Java-based technology by numerous large companies.
The "bazaar" development model on which Linux relies hugely should be sufficient to prevent that ever happening to Linux.
However, should Linux become too commercialised, and the flow of GPL'd software slow down, I think that could see a significant shift in the user-base - and developer-base - to some other open-source platform, such as FreeBSD. However, I don't believe Linux will ever go away, there are too many people at this time with too large a stake in it.
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
As others have pointed out, the differences between Java and Linux are so large that a comparison of the succes of these two technologies is essentially useless. If you need to compare the impact of Linux to something roughly comparable, OS/2 would have been a far more logical candidate, and the gist of the article might have ended up much the same.
But Linux has characteristics that lift it into a category of its own. The most important one (IMHO) is that it started as a low key project and that it had a chance to surprise people in a positive way. By the time that the name Linux started to become widely known, thousands of people were already using it seriously for all sorts of purposes, and because it's essentially a reimplementation of Unix, there were a lot of experienced developers for it from day 0.
Java on the other hand was positioned as the second coming that is going to fix all your problems with portability and reusability and sex, and in retrospect how could it have done anything but fail to deliver on those promises? I'm not claiming that it is dead, mind you, but so far it definitely has not become what is was once made out to be.
But now I have customers asking me 'Do you really think this Linux thing is going to make it?' and by make it they mean 'beat Windows'. I simply respond that Linux doesn't need to beat Windows, that it can live in perfect harmony in a Windows network, that it has nothing left to prove for the purposes these customers are looking for, that I've been doing useful work with it for years and that for them to have a reliable and inexpensive server it doesn't make the slightest difference whether or not common people will decide to use it on their desktop as well. Sure, the current Linux 'hype' makes this an easier sell, but essentially the difference is that Linux is not just a promise, it's a working, proven technology.
Ok... just something that bothers me here:
"required legions of geeks to just get it to work."
The same can be said for Windows NT/9x/2k, except that they are required to take 6 exams and be MCSE to get their OS to work.
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair... Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"
The difference is that Linux fulfilled a real need--a cheap and stable alternative to MS-DOS/Windows as a desktop OS--whereas Java was a technology in search of a problem.
Anyone who has a problem with the factual content of this article should e-mail h_bray@globe.com.
That is the authors e-mail address. Please only send WELL WRITTEN factual criticism, not flames and trollish garbage. If we want to influence journalists then we need to go right to them. Start sending corrections to the people who write this stuff. I sent an e-mail both to Hiawatha (Male or Female?) and to the Globe itself demonstrating a couple of glaring errors. If a few hundred people also point out problems them it will likely be corrected, or changed, or at least not happen again. We can watch dog any industry we please, there are enough of us.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The TV news coverage is worse. "How can you survive your car falling in a pond?" Now that's hard-hitting journalism.
On a side note, anyone remember Emmett Smith (the guy on Fox) from a TV show called "Mysterious Universe" or some such, where they covered the unexplained paranormal stuff? Seeing him doing the evening news gives me a chuckle.
In spite of the flurry of bile directed at Sun for Java that this posting willing no doubt generate, the comparison between Linux and Java here is actually not bad.
Java did not take over the world, but its a pretty good language and is being very widely used. In fact its the fastest uptake of any programming language I've ever seen, in spite of its problems.
Similarly Linux will never take over the world. It might get a 30 or even 70 percent share, but it will never completely obscure the possibility of using anything else the way Windows has in some places. Its not really within anyone's interest or ability to do that.
The problem with the article is that it assumes, as many people here do, and MS's and Sun's marketing machines pretend to, that the purpose of some technologies is to take over the world. It isn't, and by and large they can't. You wouldn't want them to anyway. Java hasn't failed because we've not all started to use Solaris (god forbid, in fact), and likewise Linux won't have failed if some people keep using NT. Articles like this are based on a false perception that there is some winner and some loser in technology battles. It never turns out that way, even if thats what the participants want.
Apart from anything else they frequently "talk to M$ executives" and don't seem to be aware that maybe they might be biased to some teeny extent. And from the quote later in the article from Redhat I can only assume this is pro-M$ slanted. Much as I can believe a Redhat rep may have said that quote, I can't believe it was the most positive quote they got from them, it practically says "Linux is almost entirely hype, we're entirely surprised it's done this well, it was nice while it lasted and now we're going to go under".
I don't think so.
Hudson
...one interview with one Microsoft exec, apparently. It appears that the exec even drew the Java parallel himself, which is irrelevant because Java, for all its good intentions, was released as a buggy, inefficient Sun product, while Linux was polished for quite some time before Redhat splashed it all over Wall Street. Even if you want to compare Linux to Java on the principle that they're both "Microsoft Competitors," which is itself somewhat iffy, Linux beats Java in the two very important ways:
So, the complaints made against Linux as "the next Java" are pretty baseless. Furthermore, I'm sick of seeing people misrepresent the Mindcraft benchmark! Frankly, the test in question demonstrated that Linux currently does not scale as well on multiple processors as does NT. The exec turned this into not one, but two "problems" with Linux, ie that "it lost in the benchmark" -and- "it doesn't do SMP." Which are really the same problem; cute how he worked it in twice.
The main problem with articles like this is that things MS execs say have an uncanny tendency to come true, especially when they get printed (apparently) without any other background research to determine whether they have a basis. And there's no good way to undo the damage; no one reads retractions or corrections, even if we could get them to print one.
The idea of Linux as another Java, though, is enticing in a kind of different way; obviously, programs are never going to be binary compatible between different Linuces, but Linux is actually doing quite well in covering a whole bunch of platforms with good Source compatibility. IMHO, i think the ability to "Write once, Compile anywhere!" (c) is the next best thing to what Java was supposed to do. So maybe Linux really is the next Java. But i think this time it's working :)
(sorry about posting anonymous; I don't have my password at work. Contact rkent with comments.)
Reluctantly I get up off the probverbial couch and weigh in.
Sadly the posts to regarding this article are falling along predictable lines.
1. "FUD!!!"
2. "Linux is open-source. Java is closed-source. enough said."
Let me first address the FUD agrument, afterall I did list it first. The article is not FUD. With the exception of the SMP reference (which was a Microsoft quote, and should have been corrected) There is nothing wrong with this article. To denouce the whole thing as FUD is simply wrong. All the Java commentary is pretty much on the mark. Java was hyped as the thing to displace Windows. It failed, and relatively speaking, became marginalized. Linux is being hyped to knock off Windows, so the comparisons are begged to be made.
Yes, the reporter should have fact-checked the Microsoft quote; but in all fairness Microsoft's Fitzgerald would be considered an authority. The reporter may have thought that Microsoft would shade the truth, but to out and out lie, that's somthing you just don't do in the reporter's world. (Sadly the Boston Globe's mailserver probably already has crashed twice due to "fuck you" mailings.)
Now on about the "Open-Source vs. Closed-Source" argument. (Please light your torches now.)
I'm sorry, but open-source is not some sort of silver bullet. An open-source project can fail just like any other project. An open-source project probably will never truly die since there isn't anyone to pull the plug on it, but instead it will continue to exist in some sort of Amiga-esque living-death. (The Amiga analogy isn't just applicable because of the living-death reference, but also because of the Amiga-persecution-syndrome that the failed project's die-hards will suffer from. (Damn Microsoft FUD! This really is the best thing out there!))
This doesn't mean that some other open-source project won't come along and challenge/clone the dominate proprietary system. I'm just saying that publishing the source doesn't magically make your technology/design better/chosen by God.
Why must a technology approach 100% market share in order for it be successful? Linux has a small marketshare, but I consider it very successful, because it performs its job very well and very cleanly.
Java has a small-ish marketshare, but it is approaching what I consider successful in that it is the best tool for many jobs.
I use java extensively in my groupware research. Java is an excellent language for prototyping guis and playing with rapid application development without having to piece things together in an IDE (which I dislike).
Will I replace all C code on my system with java? Not. Not right now. Probably never. Is that an unsuccessful product? I haven't replaced all of my C with c++ or perl or python or basic, either.
So yes, java isn't posed for world domination, but then neither are most things, and that's okay.
If java is dead then why am I looking at a Java advertisement on the top of the slashdot page as we speak. It seems to be alive and well as far as I can tell!
Some gullible medical types are swooning over Pascals new "Penny-sillum" treatment. The increasingly popular treatment for various diseases has produced high expectations amongst
various new fangled doctors.
But mention Penicillum to Phillipe Caas, product manager for "Leaches-R-us", and he seems almost on the verge of stifling a yawn. 'When you look at the hype versus the reality today,' says Caas, 'there is a big disconnect.
Maybe he is whistling in the dark. But then, Leeches-R-us has been here before.
Remember Electricity? That was the radical new treatment of four years ago, an upstart product that threatened to smash Leaches-R-us once and for all.
Born in the labs of Monsieur Volt this product raised high expectations, but people who tried using it to cure syphillus just ended up with smoking testicles. Most surgeons agree that leaches are the best modern treatment for STDs.
And yet, Electricity is far from dead.
On the contrary, there are still thousands of developers cobbling together Electricity products, but for purposes quite different than the overthrow of Leaches-R-us.
Talk to Leaches-R-us executives and they'll tell you that a similar fate awaits penicillum. Charles Whoever, director of business development in Leaches-R-us STD development unit, says the penicillum hype has already peaked. ''Cold hard reality is coming to bear,'' he says.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I hope that Linux learns from Java's (lack of) experience and will not suffer from Java's versioning nightmare.
Sun's doing a fine job of killing Java all by itself - no help required from Microsoft. I've got 5 versions of Java source code for my product to run on 5 different versions of Java Virtual Machines used by my customers - from 1.02 through to 1.3 beta. And no, for practical reasons Sun and Java Lobbiers cannot appreciate - they cannot all simply upgrade to the latest version because they have Java software version dependencies of their own. Frankly, this "write once, run everywhere" thing just ain't what it's cracked up to be.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Boston Globe article points out the serious flaw in Linux support, and that is the same zealots who pushed Java as the Microsoft killer are now on the Linux bandwagon, trying to do the same with Linux. You can point out all the differences you want between the language and the OS, but the hype hurting Java will eventually hurt Linux, if it hasn't already. As Microsoft says, "cold reality" is setting in. I've seen too many articles where non-geek users, who want to install and use Linux, wind up being stymied by Linux because it either wouldn't install, or after installation, wouldn't work quite as advertised, and trying to make it work causes them to get into Linux internals, leading to further shell-shock and disillusionment. Paranoia aside, Microsoft really doesn't have to do anything to fight Linux. Linux helps Microsoft every time a typical user has a negative experience either installing or using Linux. They can stand back and say "I told you so."
Microsoft is only sowing partial FUD when it says that Linux can't support SMP. Linux can indeed support SMP, if the kernel is rebuilt from the stock installation, and only if the installer knows to install all the supporting development tools and kernel source. The typical slashDotter knows how to do this, but not Average Joe User. And average Joe User isn't some knuckle-dragging anti-technology Neanderthal. Your Average Joe User can be, and usually is, the expert in another field who is a casual computer user and only wants to use the computer to get her or his job done. It is this market that Microsoft sells to, and as long as that market feels intimidated by the attitudes and antics of the typical Linux user as occasionally illustrated by the slashDot crowd, then that market will react by buying Microsoft.
I thought that it was a caveat of journalism that when you write an article about a horse, you get your information right from the horse's mouth.
This article gets its information from MS marketdroids and management staff, shoehorning a comment in from Eric Troan at the very end.
For that matter, it wastes nearly two thirds of its length nattering on about Sun and Java.
Even if you don't bother to comment on the factual errors of this article (and there are plenty - doesn't anyone fact-check anymore? Has it somehow gone out of style?), it's an awful piece of work.
I helped pay for my final year of university with a campus newspaper editor's honourarium. If I'd put out a piece like that, read it and signed off on it and initialed the proofs for the issue, I'm sure my editorial board would have sacked me. At best, this belongs in a low-quality campus rag. The Boston Globe should be terribly, terribly ashamed.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
As I take a momentary break from Java coding:
It seems to me that reports of Java's death are greatly exaggerated...
Wasn't there a post on slashdot just last week that showed Java's continuing rise in popularity, at the expense of C++ and C, forcasting a landscape totally dominated by java and perl a few years out?
Every programmer that I know prefers java (where appropriate) to anything else. Java may not have lived up to its hype, but what has??
I have to agree. The layman is now suspicious of MS. Just the other day I was reading about the new dictionary created by Microsoft, and one Critic stated that, if Microsoft put the same effort into this dictionary as they do in their software, then we can't expect much quality from the dictionary.
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
First the author cites the Mindcraft study which
speaks volumes about his credibility. A little
later he quotes a MS employee who claims that
linux does not support multiple processors. Now
correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the linux boxes
used by Mindcraft have more than one cpu?
Linux and Java have diffrent goals. .01% more users than anyone else.
Java has to be used by 100% of the web browsers otherwise to some sites like eBay it might as well not exist at all. Thies web sites can not afford to turn away even a small precentage of browsers.
Linux on the other hand is doing fine at 20% as long as Windows is also at 20%.
Linux isn't going to dominate and control the market. It's just a really good os for those who can use what Linux has to offer.
Windows has it's nitch group and no one expects them to give it up.
Linux can do just fine sharing the market with like likes of Solarus, BSD, and other operating systems.
Just as long as when the day is done Linux has
I don't actually exist.
IMHO, software should be written _primarily_ with "solving the problem" in mind, with readibility/maintainability/reusability also as the foremost concerns. "Optimizing for performance" should be pretty far down on the list. That's why Java's relative slowness doesn't bother me at all.
As far as I'm concerned, the primary place one should look to improve the speed of an app is hardware. We always joke that if you want speed, don't write in Java, use C! Then some other yuckster says, "Be a real hacker, only write Assembly!"
Certainly, an experienced coder can avoid most of the common pitfalls associated with writing an app in a lower-level language. However, experienced coders are a scarce resource, and even they aren't perfect. And when you choose a language because you are optimizing _for_ performance in software, that programming style is more likely to result in buggy systems than optimizing for maintainability.
Higher-level languages generally come about to address deficiencies in the lower-level languages, and almost without exception, they carry with them a performance penalty. But, in Java's case, provided that you don't have a buggy JVM, you can be guaranteed that an app written in Java is immune to such problems as buffer overflows that are prolific in the C-application world.
So, when people tell me, "Don't use Java, it's slow," my immediate response usually starts with, "So What?"
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
The arrogance that leads microsoft to claim that Linux is not a threat is the biggest thing that is going to kill them. Microsoft supposes that, because they have beaten one (weak) threat to their hegemony they can easily dimiss all new threats, including Linux.
Java was never really a threat to Windows -- noone who was very bright ever thought so. Furthermore, Java was (and is) a successful language! Just because we aren't all running Corell Office for Java doesn't change that.
As other's have pointed out, Linux is already enormously successful. And Microsoft can't change that. We are in a situation similar to the one Word was compared to WordPerfect in 1991. Windows is dominant, but we are hot on their tails. All it takes is for Microsoft to make ONE SLIP and we slide into dominance.
-- Slashdot sucks.
First Java is still big. Just look for a programming Job, and many want Java, and Perl, or C++. It is still in the game don't count it out dead. It may not wipe M$ off the face of the earth, but it is is still there.
Linux (IMHO) is an alternative, to M$. Just Like Apple/Mac is. It may not 'take over the world' but it is still growing.
The big difference is that with Java all these companies like Corel and Lotus as he mentioned made promises, and never kept them. The difference is that They are keeping there promises with Linux. Ie there does exist Corel Office 8.0 for Linux and Lotus has released Domino for Linux too, a beta I believe (there was something about this on /.).
I moved to Linux cause Win 3.1 left a bitter taste in my mouth with it always crashing. Win95 was better but still crashed to much for me. Yes Linux does have its problems, but
Only 'flamers' flame!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A decade of Microsoft domination has convinced people that there can only be one serious player in the desktop market. Microsoft has used this "natural monopoly" arguement in the anti-trust trial. The truth is that this is a massive market with room for lots of successful competitors.
Java is not dead, it just hasn't taken over the world. A lot of people and companies use and like it. Linux, *BSD, Unix, and OS/390 are alive and well with no signs of going away any time soon. Just because none of them dwarfs the competition doesn't mean they aren't successful.
Oddly enough, the only company that really NEEDs a dominant position in order to stay alive is Microsoft. NT doesn't really measure up technically and most people know it. It's "good enough" for a lot of companies, but I don't know anybody who thinks it's great. People use it because of the perception that everybody else uses it. If Windows became a niche OS (which is quite likely), who would form the core of supporters? SGI has high-end media, Apple has publishers, OS/390 has dinasaur handlers. But who will champion Windows?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Java was released with a blaze of hype and glory well before it was anywhere near ready for prime time, mainstream work. If Linux received the hype at kernel 0.99pl13 and XFree 1.x that Java had for JDK 1.0, it would have sunk without a bubble.
Instead, Linux sat quietly in the background for six years, evolving in the hands of capable technical people obsessed with turning it into the Right Thing.
Java will survive--is is oh-so-close to where it should be; most of the barriers between it and wild success at this point seem to be legal.
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This is not my sandwich.
Some gullible medical types are swooning over Pascals new "Penny-sillum" treatment. The increasingly popular treatment for various diseases has produced high expectations amongst various new fangled doctors.
But mention Penicillum to Phillipe Caas, product manager for "Leaches-R-us", and he seems almost on the verge of stifling a yawn. 'When you look at the hype versus the reality today,' says Caas, 'there is a big disconnect.
Maybe he is whistling in the dark. But then, Leeches-R-us has been here before. Remember Electricity? That was the radical new treatment of four years ago, an upstart product that threatened to smash Leaches-R-us once and for all.
Born in the labs of Monsieur Volt this product raised high expectations, but people who tried using it to cure syphillus just ended up with smoking testicles. Most surgeons agree that leaches are the best modern treatment for STDs.
And yet, Electricity is far from dead. On the contrary, there are still thousands of developers cobbling together Electricity products, but for purposes quite different than the overthrow of Leaches-R-us.
Talk to Leaches-R-us executives and they'll tell you that a similar fate awaits penicillum. Charles Whoever, director of business development in Leaches-R-us STD development unit, says the penicillum hype has already peaked. ''Cold hard reality is coming to bear,'' he says.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Hiawatha Bray is the Boston Globe's answer to ZDNet's Jesse Berst and Slashdot's Jon Katz. I know this; I'm from the Boston area and get to read the Globe articles even when /. doesn't link them. Hiawatha Bray is a FUDMaster 2000 with neither the technical knowledge the job requires nor the ability to write coherantly and logically.
I don't mean this as a flame - I'm just saying Bray articles should be approached with the same warning and preparedness-for-bullshit as you'd have on a JonKatz or ZDNet/Jesse Berst article.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
From the article:
;) (I'll explain.)
Fitzgerald points to recent benchmark tests by the research firm Mindcraft Inc., which found Windows NT performs a variety of tasks faster than Linux. And he says Linux is notoriously complex and hard to use, making it a poor choice for any but the most sophisticated users. And Microsoft's Edwards says that Linux lacks many advanced capabilities, such as the ability to run on computers with multiple processor chips.
That paragraph is a beauty. It contains a reference to the Mindcraft benchmarks and is completely wrong about the SMP support. But the sentence in the middle is the one that I think Microsoft will be using the most.
Ph34r not! Anyone who has been watching the development of Linux for any length of time has seen great changes in the user interface over the past year. Windows is far from perfect even after having the same interface for 4 years. Win2k doesn't look like it's going to be much different. I will be extremely suprised of the open source community doesn't surpass Windows in this area in the next year.
At work I use NT 4.0 and Visual Studio Enterprise for web programming. At home it's Linux, Perl, PHP and a text editor. The incredible thing is how much more I can accomplish in Linux. This is where my strange mind made the connection with violent Saturday morning cartoons
If you haven't had the opportunity to try Linux, and are wondering why people are so infatuated with it, I think I may be able to help. Remember how Wiley Coyote used to keep buying crap from ACME--despite the fact that nothing ever worked right... It was ridiculous. Well, Windows 98 is a cartoon operating system and when I use it I feel like Wiley Coyote. I haven't really picked out a decent analogy for NT yet. Anyone?
numb
You've managed to put your finger on the one real weakness of Java -- it's still early in its development cycle.
I earn my living through Java programming, and this is always something that's troubled me.
It was hyped inappropriately and far sooner than it should have been. It's a great language-in-progress.
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The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
This article is pretty low quality stuff, even as FUD goes. It's riddled with factual errors (no SMP support for Linux, confusing Java applet/application differences with general Java limitations).
It's backdrop of opinion is not generally accepted nor is it strongly argued. (Java has failed, Network Computers have failed, Linux hype has peaked). In this industry, success ranges from days or weeks (games), months or years (new hardware architectures, applications, websites), and years to decades (programming languages, operating systems, CS theories). Java and Linux appear to be still climbing the success curve, even a bit faster than most successful languages and OS's.
And, last, perhaps the biggest journalistic offense of all: there is no article here, just a sampling of opinions and quotes from industry sources. By soliciting quotes from 10 or 15 well-selected sources I can produce an article to make any point I want just by throwing out the ones that I can't weave into the point I'm trying to make.
Sheesh. What a waste of bandwidth.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
What would be required for Linux to fail? First, there has to be some definition of what would be required for it to succeed. Now, the question becomes, who defines how it could succeed? The answer is, no one and everyone. Everybody from Bill Gates to Anonymous Bloody Slashdot Coward has his/her own idea of what it would take for Linux to succeed. Yet, there is no single, monolithic "they" that defines whether Linux will succeed because a certain thing has happened.
If you ask me, Linux has already succeeded. It provides my little home Windows network with disk space, printer sharing and Internet connectivity, gives me a forum to learn more about underlying computer technologies like TCP/IP and have a blast doing it, and gives me a place to use no-longer-hip-for-Windows hardware. It does all the things I want from it and more. That's succees. Do I care about world domination for Linux? Not really. I don't think it's a realistic goal. Do I think Linux would be the be-all and end-all for everyone? Not in this lifetime. Do I think it's a great server OS and has the capability of being a great desktop OS, and incidentally a thorn in Microsoft's side? You betcha. It does what I want, when I want it to. It succeeds. Your mileage may vary, especially if you think it's going to reduce Bill Gates to begging for quarters.
I have long maintained that Microsoft is 100% irrelevant for any success Linux may have. Linux will succeed on its own terms, and whether it captures 90% or 9% or any number in between of any market, if it does its job and does it well, it has succeeded. Giving Microsoft a good kick in the shins or worse is just a pleasant side benefit.
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Someone you trust is one of us.
> No, because C++ is a hybrid language, whereas Java is a pure OO language.
Exactly. And the world just isn't pure OO.
> Yes you can, with RMI.
Didn't know about that. Thanks.
> I don't see why this would be a bad thing?
Try writing a guidance system for a missile.
And try sleeping for two seconds while waiting for the GC to do it's job.
> No, it is not useless. It quarantees that machine X doesn't suddenly have 10 bits less in its floating points than machine Y. Also, there is also java.math which has classes for arbitrary-precision integer and decimal arithmetic.
You just don't have 10 bits of difference in the real world. The difference (between machines that would be likely to be on the same network) you usually see around one bit or so, and perhaps different rounding/truncation of numbers.
Numerical algorithms work because they know that they work with finite precision. Unifying the finite precision is outright dumb. You would get just as far, faster, by knowing your worst precision and using that as the unified precision.
Arbitrary precision floating point is nice, but it's something that can be in a library (or class if you like) just as well as in the language. I'm pretty indifferent to that. I guess there are plenty of libraries out there just for that, for almost any language one could imagine.
You gave no accurate reasons as to why Java is so terrible. Slow? Perhaps on the client (and this is not true for the most part).
Ugly? What does that mean? The syntax? It is very C++ like as far as that goes? Design? I think Java has the best of C++ and SmallTalk and in fact more elegant (in most cases) than either. Graphically ugly? Or is it the name that's ugly? Sheesh
Use it were it belongs, and it's a godsend. I just got done writing a Servlet based system using JSP, JNDI, JDBC... I can't even begin to imagine what horrors I would have gone through writing it using CGI (or ISAPI or NSAPI) using C/C++ or any other language for that matter...
What is it with Sun? What product that they've touched hasn't died?
I tend to call it the touch-o-shit.
I don't like the fact that they have to screw with the license of any languages that they touch.
First tcl/wish, now Java. I'd argue that they've done more to screw up the UNIX world than Microsoft. At least Gates isn't poisoning the language license pool.
Down with Sun!
Never trust a man who uses the word "disconnect" inappropriately. It's a variety of corporate slang common to PHBs.
Discrepancy. Difference. Not disconnect.
Once again, a journalist who can't differentiate between Java and Applets. Java applications have always been able to read from hard drives. Say what you want about the language, but it's not a toy. (It may not be possible to make this statement of applets.)
>sarcasm<
If I were looking for a good source of unbiased Linux coverage, I'd look to IT professionals. Hey, the director of business development for Microsoft looks like a good choice!
>/sarcasm<
Seriously - doesn't anyone find it odd that Troan's comments only address the comparison of Linux to Java, and not allegations by Microsoft executives? I'd like to see a little bit more balance in this story.
What more needs to be said about this?
When Java was released, it was v1.0 from SunLabs and was given far too much hype for a programming language just born. How many programming languages out there captured huge market share with v1.0? How many were all together stable in v1.0? I would doubt any were. Everyone, including Sun, thought Java was going to cure cancer. It was way way to early in Java's life
to judge it.
Now with Linux, it's been around for over 8 years and has been in constant development. Only recently has the media picked up on Linux and it has had much time to mature, v2.2.12.
Whether it was Open Source or closed has very little to do with it. It's all development and maturing time.
Aside from the article's spreading of FUD, it rather misses two key points: Firstly, the takeup patterns of programming languages and OSes are bound to be different - many developers might take up a new OS in a language they know, but may be less keen on picking up another language until its established as a market leader. Secondly, whilst Linux offered great advantages over its competitors (being free being just one of those), Java is rather "Just another programming language" - a lot of the neater bits are machine-specific, and so on, never mind the performance...
"At least you know where you are with Microsoft." "True. I just wish I'd brought a paddle." http://www.debian.org
I think Java is dieing because Sun failed to develop to the right people. (M$, IBM, Oracle, HP, Intel?)I think they were banking on others to do their developing for them and lost a big share of the market when it didn't happen. Consequently, people found other ways to do the same things Java would have done.
Check out the smoking-gun "Labor Day Memo" I posted on Slashdot just yesterday.
They've done it before, they'll try it again.
Uncanny! This was Ballmer's thought exactly!
One should ask how much the Boston Globe was paid for this PR. Obviously comparing an OS to a language is ridiculous to a semi-intelligent person. It is obvious that both Java and Linux have one thing in common - they both worry (bother?) Microsoft. They know they have an inferior OS have done everything they can to discredit Linux in the corporate marketplace. They are still in court with Sun over Java. So is it strange to see supposedly legitimate news articles which quote Microsoft spokespersons without counter balancing opinions?
Every programmer that I know
who has tried using java for a commerical product (except servlets) would rather eat cockraches than go through that again.
Slashdot has large student/youngster bias. Yes- it has fewer pitfalls than C/C++, but so what. It's the power of the tools, not ease of use that matters in the long run. Java's libraries are so fucking buggy - etc, while the langauge itself is a SUBSET of C++ (well, almost).
http://rareformnewmedia.com/