Watch and listen to the progression they made in just a few short years. Yes, arguably some of the earlier stuff might be dismissed as "teeny bopper" stuff, but even a lot of it had much higher production quality and songwriting quality compared to everything else out at the time. So the quality was head and shoulders above much of their 'competition' at the time.
But watch the artistic progression between 1963 - I Saw Her Standing There / All My Loving 1964 - Can't Buy Me Love / Eight Days a Week 1965 - Drive My Car / Day Tripper / Yesterday 1966 - Taxman / Tomorrow Never Knows / Eleanor Rigby / Rain 1967 - I Am the Walrus / Fool on the Hill 1968 - Revolution / Lady Madonna / The Inner Light 1969 - Something / Because / Get Back
Just in the span of a few years the songwriting quality exploded, and brought with it new production techniques and set new standards for what was considered 'art'.
Most of those songs above can hardly be considered 'teeny bop' music, or comparable with Britney Spears. For one thing, the Beatles were 4 people who increasingly expressed their individuality, yet managed to retain a 'Beatlesque' quality to most of their recordings. Britney is one person, and while she probably expresses herself in her music, it's limited by the perspective of her being one person, not bringing the perspective and talents of multiple people (well, multiple 'named stars') to the equation.
Few artists have displayed such remarkable growth and boundary pushing, while still retaining and growing a fan base, as the Beatles have. Arguably U2 might fit that bill, or perhaps REM. They didn't start off as primarily targeting teenage girls, then progress in to more adult themes later - they simply started targetting college age kids from the get go, so the artistic progression is harder to graph, in my mind.
"Had good marketers"? They had radio DJs, and a manager who dressed them in suits. That was about it. They had no massive PR team, or a marketing department. They had a roadie, and later a press agent, but hardly the stuff of mega-acts today (the Stones' organization comes to mind).
Another angle that captivates people about the Beatles is the 'rags to riches' story. 4 kids coming from essentially an outcast area of England London would have cared to forget, conquered the music world and changed pop culture. Simply the fact that they had such an impact is in itself part of the attraction for many people to discover and listen to their music (to see what the fuss is about).
Something about the music (quality of production, songwriting wit, energy of early performances, sophistication of imagery in later song) continues to entrance a large number of new people every year. You're apparently not one of them. Too bad - it's your loss.
Exactly. Other PDF mags do it, as does GroovyMag. No DRM, indexable searchable PDF bundled with relevant code examples ready to cut/paste or run in some cases. There's so many opportunities in electronic publishing that go above and beyond the traditional print model.
However, some people still like print. I believe people that want print will be forced in to paying an ever-increasing premium for that luxury in the coming years.
It's somewhat chicken and egg - you don't really know the content in the magazines cause you don't see it until you buy it.
There's not enough stuff out there that's targeted at groovy users specifically. This is not saying that we don't ever run ads. We've got one (for training) and another one for next month. The goal is not to *rely* on advertising though. That's the distinction I was trying to make.
Sure you can find *most* information on the internet for free. The value add here is, ideally, a mix of timely content that's picked, edited (working on improving that every issue), and presented with other related/relevant information. Exposure to new writers that you might not have heard of before is a nice side benefit.
To bastardize a Linux phrase - the information is only free elsewhere if you don't value your time. You need to spend time going out and finding what's valuable. The assumed value we're providing is that we're doing some degree of judgement and filtering so you don't have to spend as much time doing so.
Other chicken and egg is that people may not subscribe for a year if they don't think we'll be around, but it's hard to guarantee you'll be around if people don't subscribe. This is issue #3, and we don't have any indication of going away, precisely because we're not reliant on ad revenue, and approaching this as something that people have to pay for. Witness a recent Ruby magazine endeavor - one issue ($8 print or $3 pdf) in August, then nothing. Or the 'jquery javascript magazine' project from 2 years ago - one issue, then nothing. I think the jquery one aimed to be free with ads, and that just petered out.
Time will tell if enough people are willing to be paying for some level of "custom" Groovy content on a monthly basis. Early indications seem to say yes.
I recently started http://groovymag.com as a PDF-only publication, and have had interest from people in print versions. At the small numbers we're at, it's probably about an extra $5 per copy just to cover print and postage, which I don't think most people are willing to pay that right now, though maybe I'll be proven wrong.
We're in a niche market, so we don't rely on advertising, and have no plans to do so. I suspect we may see more products forgoing the advertising model altogether, and focusing on providing value for 'micropayments' - $2-$4/month for access to content. I think the 'micro' in micropayments has traditionally had people thinking about "2 cents per page view" sort of thing, but that's never proven feasible.
What might arise from this downturn in advertising-driven publications are content networks of like minded publications that offer access to content from all sites for a set fee. Aren't there some industries that already do this (ahem - adult?)
And "Rails" isn't a framework? And by "as3" I assume you mean ActionScript3, presumably for Flex, which one might reasonably assume is a framework, no?
They provide an ecosystem which allows local professionals to earn a living (developers doing.net stuff, etc.) However, it often entails a lot of money leaving the area (licensing costs) when *decent* equivalents exist. Lot of open source stuff just doesn't cut the mustard, but plenty of it does.
'Software piracy negatively impacts local economic growth,'
And buying Microsoft software takes money out of local economies and sends it to Redmond. (And buying Apple software does the same thing, but to Cupertino).
I say that using non-free software can also negatively impact local economies, but people do it anyway.
Really, answering my own post here, it's not just as black and white as that. Companies using open source would help energize their local economy by using local companies/consultants, but often they don't. And companies using MS software, while spending for it, may use local companies/consultants as well, keeping some of the money local.
However, in the case of real large scale piracy, it's the worst of both worlds, because money has left the local economy, and not gone to the rightful owners (in this case, Microsoft).
I think the reason most of those free papers you see are still there is that they're going to be full of ads. Generally the only purpose of most of those free papers is to sell ads.
What the GP is proposing is to have taxpayer funded newspapers. While I'm not 100% sure I agree with them, I don't think people would ignore them or leave them in stands. If anything, when people think they've "paid" for something already via taxes, they take as much as they can get and more. How many people *don't* cash their Social Security checks?
Then the freep wasn't charging enough for subscriptions. My understanding was that generally the subscription cost was only intended to cover the distribution cost, not anything to do with the writing/production. The subscriber model might work if you got a few less ads. I know people like some ads in their paper - especially Sundays - but why would I buy a subscription to 'news and info' when 50% of the paper would still be ads?
A reduced-ad version for subscribers would be (or would have been) nice.
I don't live in Detroit anymore, but grew up there (and delivered papers for a bit). I remember the Sunday editions being especially hefty at one point.:)
We don't have enough history on this tech to know what, if anything, will "last for decades". Possibly "paper" and "microfiche" might fit in that list, but those aren't the sort of things you're talking about. Best option I can think of right now would be to get a couple 500gig drives, put everything on both, and then put them in different areas. In 3-5 years, back them up to something newer, and repeat that every 3-5 years. Maybe in those intervening years, we'll have more data and newer tech that's demonstrably suited for what your needs are.
See my signature - I'm involved in the Groovy world (via GroovyMag) already.:) I do try to keep tabs on what's going on in other JVM languages, especially JRuby.
Ruby 1.9.1 and JRuby seem to be the 'winners' in most tests. Have a look at the PNG here: http://antoniocangiano.com/images/shootout3/main_time.png
I've heard a lot of good things about the JRuby project, and this test seems to demonstrate that it's probably the closest in terms of speed to the standard Ruby (canonical Ruby?)
"A Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a gaseous working fluid."
As with many of these hybrid and electric car announcements, it'd be great if I could really go buy one, and have it be inexpensive. We're always just "2-3 years" away from these things reaching market, and "eventually" being affordable by regular folks.
Perhaps some Indian or Chinese company will make these and sell them here for under $10k. That would spark a huge revolution. Hybrids at $24k don't change people's buying habits enough to cause a huge shift in demand.
For better or worse, I think we'll see an alt-energy evolution in the US, rather than a revolution.
Whatever the reason, they describe that online anger has resulted in real-life violence
Of course I didn't RTFA, but I have to wonder, to what extent would these people be angry about whatever they did anyway? I tend to get impatient/grumpy/angry in many situations, regardless of whether it's online or offline (in lines at the bank, stores, etc.). Yeah, it's a bit easier to vent online sometimes, in IM thread, some forums, and so on, but I've vented in public and with friends/colleagues offline for years, well before the world of 'online'.
Perhaps in a way its better than people do this online and stay away from other people in the real world to avoid physical harm to themselves and others.
Since when has a school been *just* about academics? Isn't it also about the 'life experience' aspect too?
Since when has a 'job' *just* been about 'performance'? Doesn't your personality and ability to fit in with others have anything to do with how well you'll do on a job?
with at least some cameras. I got some $25 walmart webcam and it works on Skype with my cheapo linux laptop. If the submitter is really hankering for 'open source' and 'practical' and 'easy to use', then he/she is SOL - there's no good options that satisfy all those requirements.
I'd suggest starting with Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org/) then perhaps move in to Grails (http://grails.org). Groovy is a dynamic language that runs *on* the JVM, and can co-exist with native Java code, but requires far less boilerplate code to get anything done. If you're coming from a dynamic language background, Groovy will be a bit easier to understand.
This will allow you to get involved with Java technologies without as steep a learning curve as you'd require if you were doing it 'from scratch'. You can incorporate as much 'other' Java tech as you want as you go along, but you'll be up and running fast with Groovy.
http://michaelkimsal.com/blog/grails-for-php-developers/grails-for-php-developers-part-1 is few part series on did on Groovy and Grails for people coming to it from non-Java backgrounds. Never quite finished the series, but it's someplace to look to see if it's something to investigate further.
Having SQL Server easily accessible by any front-end application would have meant that ASP.NET wouldn't have been a shoe-in for the front-end app. You could just have easily used PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, etc.
relative PHP job growth over past 3 years: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=php&l=&relative=1
relative Java job growth over past 3 years: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java&l=&relative=1
One might simply argue that it takes more people longer to do stuff in Java than in other languages, hence the need for more developers. And it's not always just "Java is superior so we stick with it" as the reason for continued usage. "We've already got 4 years of experience with this tech, let's just keep going with it cause adopting something else will mean more ramp up time." "Sunk cost" analysis I think that's called, and while not always useful, it's used in some (many) shops to justify their decisions.
Memory costs nothing, nowadays. So what if my code caches 100 MB of data permanently in memory? If that helps performance, that's what's needed.
I'm primarily talking about the 'shared hosting' market in reply to your comment (it was yours, right?) that "java dominates the web market". "Dominate" is a strong word, and I just simply don't accept that word. Difference of definition perhaps? What constitues 'domination'?
Many current PHP frameworks are trying to ape Java techniques from years ago (large config files, build processes, etc.). Current Java trends are to move away from that complexity and towards more dynamic language benefits (faster prototyping, etc.) Much of the hype in the Java world these days is around Groovy and JRuby, which provide Grails and Rails for rapid web development.
It's aimed at larger, more complex projects with completely different demands in terms of performance and availlability.
This is exactly why I question the term 'dominate'. The huge majority of work out there is not with large corps with 'complex' projects. It is with small busineses dealing with more narrowly defined (but often still very complex) problems. PHP/Perl/Ruby are eating Java's lunch in this space. And guess what? Many of those companies grow up to be larger companies. They will not be running wholesale to adopt Java as they grow up because of some idea that Java 'dominates' the web arena. They will continue to build on their current platforms (PHP/Ruby/etc) and end up 'dominating' their own verticals.
Java's good for some problems. However, it does not lend itself to rapid prototyping (Grails helps) nor does it lend itself to shared hosting scenarios (which is the majority of 'the web').
In what context? PHP/Perl and to a growing extent Ruby have scads of hosting options for public projects to fit every budget, which means companies and individuals of every budget can write or use web apps and make them available publically at a domain name. This doesn't require any sort of weird mod_rewrite hacks or anything of the sort.
Website hosting for Java-based apps is abysmal (and more expensive) by comparison. It's far more complicated to set up and maintain, hence fewer orgs offering it, less competition, fewer innovations, and more expensive service. It's also far more memory hungry than typical PHP (and perl, etc) apps.
There are dozens of web frameworks to run Java apps. So what? There are dozens of web frameworks for PHP. And you can deploy most of them in a couple of minutes on almost any shared web host out there.
It may 'dominate' the 'web backend' in certain vertical markets in internal usage at many companies. But that's defining the 'web' pretty narrowly.
We could have even just added a 3 more positions in the address and assumed a default of 1.1.1. as the default prefix if none was given. That would have given us 16 million * the current 4 billion addresses - 64 quadrillion addresses.
At the risk of repeating the 'no one needs more 640k', I'd have to say that I think 64 quadrillion is more than usable for the next several years. The upshot is that it would have been much easier to deal with that. From a pragamatic viewpoint, there's a whole lot of software out there invested in the dotted quad format. Modifying that to deal with a few more X.X.X places wouldn't have been as hard (think GUIs that check IP validity, for example) as moving to IPv6.
Lame excuses, perhaps, but I think we'd have seen much faster adoption to a format like X.X.X.X.X.X.X because it's an incremental, not radically different.
Slashdot Mirror
Watch and listen to the progression they made in just a few short years. Yes, arguably some of the earlier stuff might be dismissed as "teeny bopper" stuff, but even a lot of it had much higher production quality and songwriting quality compared to everything else out at the time. So the quality was head and shoulders above much of their 'competition' at the time.
But watch the artistic progression between
1963 - I Saw Her Standing There / All My Loving
1964 - Can't Buy Me Love / Eight Days a Week
1965 - Drive My Car / Day Tripper / Yesterday
1966 - Taxman / Tomorrow Never Knows / Eleanor Rigby / Rain
1967 - I Am the Walrus / Fool on the Hill
1968 - Revolution / Lady Madonna / The Inner Light
1969 - Something / Because / Get Back
Just in the span of a few years the songwriting quality exploded, and brought with it new production techniques and set new standards for what was considered 'art'.
Most of those songs above can hardly be considered 'teeny bop' music, or comparable with Britney Spears. For one thing, the Beatles were 4 people who increasingly expressed their individuality, yet managed to retain a 'Beatlesque' quality to most of their recordings. Britney is one person, and while she probably expresses herself in her music, it's limited by the perspective of her being one person, not bringing the perspective and talents of multiple people (well, multiple 'named stars') to the equation.
Few artists have displayed such remarkable growth and boundary pushing, while still retaining and growing a fan base, as the Beatles have. Arguably U2 might fit that bill, or perhaps REM. They didn't start off as primarily targeting teenage girls, then progress in to more adult themes later - they simply started targetting college age kids from the get go, so the artistic progression is harder to graph, in my mind.
"Had good marketers"? They had radio DJs, and a manager who dressed them in suits. That was about it. They had no massive PR team, or a marketing department. They had a roadie, and later a press agent, but hardly the stuff of mega-acts today (the Stones' organization comes to mind).
Another angle that captivates people about the Beatles is the 'rags to riches' story. 4 kids coming from essentially an outcast area of England London would have cared to forget, conquered the music world and changed pop culture. Simply the fact that they had such an impact is in itself part of the attraction for many people to discover and listen to their music (to see what the fuss is about).
Something about the music (quality of production, songwriting wit, energy of early performances, sophistication of imagery in later song) continues to entrance a large number of new people every year. You're apparently not one of them. Too bad - it's your loss.
Exactly. Other PDF mags do it, as does GroovyMag. No DRM, indexable searchable PDF bundled with relevant code examples ready to cut/paste or run in some cases. There's so many opportunities in electronic publishing that go above and beyond the traditional print model.
However, some people still like print. I believe people that want print will be forced in to paying an ever-increasing premium for that luxury in the coming years.
It's somewhat chicken and egg - you don't really know the content in the magazines cause you don't see it until you buy it.
There's not enough stuff out there that's targeted at groovy users specifically. This is not saying that we don't ever run ads. We've got one (for training) and another one for next month. The goal is not to *rely* on advertising though. That's the distinction I was trying to make.
Sure you can find *most* information on the internet for free. The value add here is, ideally, a mix of timely content that's picked, edited (working on improving that every issue), and presented with other related/relevant information. Exposure to new writers that you might not have heard of before is a nice side benefit.
To bastardize a Linux phrase - the information is only free elsewhere if you don't value your time. You need to spend time going out and finding what's valuable. The assumed value we're providing is that we're doing some degree of judgement and filtering so you don't have to spend as much time doing so.
Other chicken and egg is that people may not subscribe for a year if they don't think we'll be around, but it's hard to guarantee you'll be around if people don't subscribe. This is issue #3, and we don't have any indication of going away, precisely because we're not reliant on ad revenue, and approaching this as something that people have to pay for. Witness a recent Ruby magazine endeavor - one issue ($8 print or $3 pdf) in August, then nothing. Or the 'jquery javascript magazine' project from 2 years ago - one issue, then nothing. I think the jquery one aimed to be free with ads, and that just petered out.
Time will tell if enough people are willing to be paying for some level of "custom" Groovy content on a monthly basis. Early indications seem to say yes.
Thanks for the well wishes.
Capt Obvious here. :)
I recently started http://groovymag.com as a PDF-only publication, and have had interest from people in print versions. At the small numbers we're at, it's probably about an extra $5 per copy just to cover print and postage, which I don't think most people are willing to pay that right now, though maybe I'll be proven wrong.
We're in a niche market, so we don't rely on advertising, and have no plans to do so. I suspect we may see more products forgoing the advertising model altogether, and focusing on providing value for 'micropayments' - $2-$4/month for access to content. I think the 'micro' in micropayments has traditionally had people thinking about "2 cents per page view" sort of thing, but that's never proven feasible.
What might arise from this downturn in advertising-driven publications are content networks of like minded publications that offer access to content from all sites for a set fee. Aren't there some industries that already do this (ahem - adult?)
And "Rails" isn't a framework? And by "as3" I assume you mean ActionScript3, presumably for Flex, which one might reasonably assume is a framework, no?
They provide an ecosystem which allows local professionals to earn a living (developers doing .net stuff, etc.) However, it often entails a lot of money leaving the area (licensing costs) when *decent* equivalents exist. Lot of open source stuff just doesn't cut the mustard, but plenty of it does.
'Software piracy negatively impacts local economic growth,'
And buying Microsoft software takes money out of local economies and sends it to Redmond. (And buying Apple software does the same thing, but to Cupertino).
I say that using non-free software can also negatively impact local economies, but people do it anyway.
Really, answering my own post here, it's not just as black and white as that. Companies using open source would help energize their local economy by using local companies/consultants, but often they don't. And companies using MS software, while spending for it, may use local companies/consultants as well, keeping some of the money local.
However, in the case of real large scale piracy, it's the worst of both worlds, because money has left the local economy, and not gone to the rightful owners (in this case, Microsoft).
I think the reason most of those free papers you see are still there is that they're going to be full of ads. Generally the only purpose of most of those free papers is to sell ads.
What the GP is proposing is to have taxpayer funded newspapers. While I'm not 100% sure I agree with them, I don't think people would ignore them or leave them in stands. If anything, when people think they've "paid" for something already via taxes, they take as much as they can get and more. How many people *don't* cash their Social Security checks?
Then the freep wasn't charging enough for subscriptions. My understanding was that generally the subscription cost was only intended to cover the distribution cost, not anything to do with the writing/production. The subscriber model might work if you got a few less ads. I know people like some ads in their paper - especially Sundays - but why would I buy a subscription to 'news and info' when 50% of the paper would still be ads?
A reduced-ad version for subscribers would be (or would have been) nice.
I don't live in Detroit anymore, but grew up there (and delivered papers for a bit). I remember the Sunday editions being especially hefty at one point. :)
We don't have enough history on this tech to know what, if anything, will "last for decades". Possibly "paper" and "microfiche" might fit in that list, but those aren't the sort of things you're talking about. Best option I can think of right now would be to get a couple 500gig drives, put everything on both, and then put them in different areas. In 3-5 years, back them up to something newer, and repeat that every 3-5 years. Maybe in those intervening years, we'll have more data and newer tech that's demonstrably suited for what your needs are.
See my signature - I'm involved in the Groovy world (via GroovyMag) already. :) I do try to keep tabs on what's going on in other JVM languages, especially JRuby.
Ruby 1.9.1 and JRuby seem to be the 'winners' in most tests. Have a look at the PNG here: http://antoniocangiano.com/images/shootout3/main_time.png
I've heard a lot of good things about the JRuby project, and this test seems to demonstrate that it's probably the closest in terms of speed to the standard Ruby (canonical Ruby?)
So now we can have *3* devices that don't work in our laptops running Linux, instead of potentially only 1 or 2 not work! Awesome :)
Wonder no more
"A Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a gaseous working fluid."
As with many of these hybrid and electric car announcements, it'd be great if I could really go buy one, and have it be inexpensive. We're always just "2-3 years" away from these things reaching market, and "eventually" being affordable by regular folks.
Perhaps some Indian or Chinese company will make these and sell them here for under $10k. That would spark a huge revolution. Hybrids at $24k don't change people's buying habits enough to cause a huge shift in demand.
For better or worse, I think we'll see an alt-energy evolution in the US, rather than a revolution.
Good point!
Whatever the reason, they describe that online anger has resulted in real-life violence
Of course I didn't RTFA, but I have to wonder, to what extent would these people be angry about whatever they did anyway? I tend to get impatient/grumpy/angry in many situations, regardless of whether it's online or offline (in lines at the bank, stores, etc.). Yeah, it's a bit easier to vent online sometimes, in IM thread, some forums, and so on, but I've vented in public and with friends/colleagues offline for years, well before the world of 'online'.
Perhaps in a way its better than people do this online and stay away from other people in the real world to avoid physical harm to themselves and others.
Since when has a school been *just* about academics? Isn't it also about the 'life experience' aspect too?
Since when has a 'job' *just* been about 'performance'? Doesn't your personality and ability to fit in with others have anything to do with how well you'll do on a job?
What do you bet that was the original full project name? ;)
Well, go ask the same questions of Apple employees in an Apple store. Replace 'vista' with 'leopard'. It would serve the same purpose.
with at least some cameras. I got some $25 walmart webcam and it works on Skype with my cheapo linux laptop. If the submitter is really hankering for 'open source' and 'practical' and 'easy to use', then he/she is SOL - there's no good options that satisfy all those requirements.
I'd suggest starting with Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org/) then perhaps move in to Grails (http://grails.org). Groovy is a dynamic language that runs *on* the JVM, and can co-exist with native Java code, but requires far less boilerplate code to get anything done. If you're coming from a dynamic language background, Groovy will be a bit easier to understand.
This will allow you to get involved with Java technologies without as steep a learning curve as you'd require if you were doing it 'from scratch'. You can incorporate as much 'other' Java tech as you want as you go along, but you'll be up and running fast with Groovy.
http://michaelkimsal.com/blog/grails-for-php-developers/grails-for-php-developers-part-1 is few part series on did on Groovy and Grails for people coming to it from non-Java backgrounds. Never quite finished the series, but it's someplace to look to see if it's something to investigate further.
Good luck!
Having SQL Server easily accessible by any front-end application would have meant that ASP.NET wouldn't have been a shoe-in for the front-end app. You could just have easily used PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, etc.
Just a hunch.
Job vacancies:
relative PHP job growth over past 3 years:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=php&l=&relative=1
relative Java job growth over past 3 years:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java&l=&relative=1
One might simply argue that it takes more people longer to do stuff in Java than in other languages, hence the need for more developers. And it's not always just "Java is superior so we stick with it" as the reason for continued usage. "We've already got 4 years of experience with this tech, let's just keep going with it cause adopting something else will mean more ramp up time." "Sunk cost" analysis I think that's called, and while not always useful, it's used in some (many) shops to justify their decisions.
Memory costs nothing, nowadays. So what if my code caches 100 MB of data permanently in memory? If that helps performance, that's what's needed.
I'm primarily talking about the 'shared hosting' market in reply to your comment (it was yours, right?) that "java dominates the web market". "Dominate" is a strong word, and I just simply don't accept that word. Difference of definition perhaps? What constitues 'domination'?
Many current PHP frameworks are trying to ape Java techniques from years ago (large config files, build processes, etc.). Current Java trends are to move away from that complexity and towards more dynamic language benefits (faster prototyping, etc.) Much of the hype in the Java world these days is around Groovy and JRuby, which provide Grails and Rails for rapid web development.
It's aimed at larger, more complex projects with completely different demands in terms of performance and availlability.
This is exactly why I question the term 'dominate'. The huge majority of work out there is not with large corps with 'complex' projects. It is with small busineses dealing with more narrowly defined (but often still very complex) problems. PHP/Perl/Ruby are eating Java's lunch in this space. And guess what? Many of those companies grow up to be larger companies. They will not be running wholesale to adopt Java as they grow up because of some idea that Java 'dominates' the web arena. They will continue to build on their current platforms (PHP/Ruby/etc) and end up 'dominating' their own verticals.
Java's good for some problems. However, it does not lend itself to rapid prototyping (Grails helps) nor does it lend itself to shared hosting scenarios (which is the majority of 'the web').
Right now, Java does dominate the web backend.
In what context? PHP/Perl and to a growing extent Ruby have scads of hosting options for public projects to fit every budget, which means companies and individuals of every budget can write or use web apps and make them available publically at a domain name. This doesn't require any sort of weird mod_rewrite hacks or anything of the sort.
Website hosting for Java-based apps is abysmal (and more expensive) by comparison. It's far more complicated to set up and maintain, hence fewer orgs offering it, less competition, fewer innovations, and more expensive service. It's also far more memory hungry than typical PHP (and perl, etc) apps.
There are dozens of web frameworks to run Java apps. So what? There are dozens of web frameworks for PHP. And you can deploy most of them in a couple of minutes on almost any shared web host out there.
It may 'dominate' the 'web backend' in certain vertical markets in internal usage at many companies. But that's defining the 'web' pretty narrowly.
We could have even just added a 3 more positions in the address and assumed a default of 1.1.1. as the default prefix if none was given. That would have given us 16 million * the current 4 billion addresses - 64 quadrillion addresses.
At the risk of repeating the 'no one needs more 640k', I'd have to say that I think 64 quadrillion is more than usable for the next several years. The upshot is that it would have been much easier to deal with that. From a pragamatic viewpoint, there's a whole lot of software out there invested in the dotted quad format. Modifying that to deal with a few more X.X.X places wouldn't have been as hard (think GUIs that check IP validity, for example) as moving to IPv6.
Lame excuses, perhaps, but I think we'd have seen much faster adoption to a format like X.X.X.X.X.X.X because it's an incremental, not radically different.