Re:No big surprise there.
on
Upcoming Cyberwars
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"So, if Al Qaeda is pure evil, then surely the Chechnyans and the Palestinians are worse, right?"
There is a profound difference. The chechens and the palestenians are occupied people. They are fighting to reclaim their independence from an opressive and violent occupation of their lands. Neither one of them enjoy the full spate of human rights that their occupiers or the rest of the free world enjoy.
I am sure you don't need me to reel off starvation, torture, assasinations, no right to travel, curfews, mass arrests, no access to lawyers and plain old murders that are visited on those unfortunate people.
When al Quadia attacked us we were not occupying anybody, we were not denying anybody human rights, not torturing people, not preventing people from getting medical attention etc.
Of course we now seem to be sliding in that direction but that's another story altogether.
It's one think to attack unprovoked it's another to fight to throw off your enslavers. You remember this phrase "give me freedom or give me death"? The same thing.
Well that can be debated. The president, most of his staff, the vice president and the secy of defense are all born again christians. So are most of the congress. COnsidering that Iraq has never attacked the US and had nothing to do 9-11 there are only two reasons to attack it. 1) Oil 2) religion.
Not really. You are presuming that the lands that are logged would remain empty to be re-forested when and if they are needed. What will more likely happen is that those lands will be turned into malls and subdivisions and will never be reforested.
Also as long as the human population grows there will be more demand no matter what the price.
Now that the US has decided to wage a war against terrorism many other countries have decided to crack down own their own internal problem populations by painting them with the terrorist brush.
Russia did it with chechnians, China did with the minority muslim population in the west. In the case of Israel it has used the post 9-11 US position to crack down much harder on the palestenians to the point of putting eight hundred thousand people under curfew and starving the population into submission.
Before 9-11 all of these actions would have been objectionable to the US govt and the public at large but post 9-11 nobody has raised an eyebrow.
Even in the US anybody who disagrees with the govt gets tagged with the terrorist label. The environmentalists, the "anti globalists", hackers, music swappers, open source developers etc.
It should not surprise anybody to see taiwan jumping on board this bandwagon.
My suspicion is that the term will dilute itself just like the word nazi did after it got overused so much. Feminazi, green nazi, surf nazi, soup nazi etc. When you start labeling everybody with the same tag pretty soon the label encompasses so many people it loses it's potency.
One of the stated goals of Osama Bin Laden was to drive a wedge between the US and Saudi Dictatorship. He is offended that US soldiers are stationed on holy ground and wanted the Saudi govt to kick the American out. To achieve this end he recruited saudis to ride along on the airplanes and act as strongmen (keeping the passangers scared) while other arabs actually planned the attack and drove the planes (mostly egyptians).
it was no accident that the bulk of the terrorist on 9-11 were saudis and egyptians, those two countries are by and large friendly with the US and Osama wanted to to end that. He nows full well that americans will not be able to differentiate the actions of a dozen terrorists with the actions of the countries those terrorists were born in.
He had basically two main goals. Break any alliances between the US and the arab world, and incite a religous war between the US and the Arabs.
On both of those he succeeded brilliantly. As comments like yours and many others on the media demonstrate there has been a severe strain on US saudi relations post 9-11. After all Saudis have been opressive theocracy for ever yet only post 9-11 are americans bringing it up. I of course need not mention that we are about to start a religous war with iraq any day now and that iraq, libya, somalia, and yemen will not be too far behind.
When Iraq is attacked by the US Saddam knows he is going to die so he will attack Israel with all he has and this time there is no way in hell israel under sharon will stand on the sidelines. Once Israel starts droping bombs on iraqis Osama is hoping there will be massive riots in the arab world and the current spate of govts will fall only to be replaced by more radical fundamentalist govts.
First of all you are not being punished for doing something only thinking a particular way or simply because you choose not to believe something. TO top it all off there is no evidence for the xistance of god.
So this is not like a murder but more like a contract. God says "if you believe that I exist then I will reward you for eternity but if you don't believe that I exist then I will burn you in hell for eternity.
This is like signing a contract under duress or confessing to murder under torture. It's coerced and the terms are dictated by god.
They say rationalization is more important then sex and apprantly this is true.
Most operating systems are perfectly capable of running file services, mail services, DNS and web services on the same machine. Of course you may choose not to do that if your security needs demand it but the choice should be yours and not be forced on you by your operating system.
We run all of our internal services on the same box. DNS, intranet, dhcp, file, mail etc all on the same box. Despite that the cpu utilization rarely gets over 50% and the uptime last I checked was over 120 days. I have zero worry about the machine going down because it's being replicated via rsync a few times a day. If it goes down I have a standby ready.
"The whole point of a BDC is to take over the logins when the PDC goes down!!!! "
Well DUH. Apparently you did not read my message properly. My point was that these people are DEDICATING AN ENTIRE MACHINE TO ACT AS THE SECONDARY DOMAIN CONTROLLER. The reason they did is because they do not expect windows to be able handle that task and other tasks at the same time. Of course they are right. Like I said windows is a single tasking single user operating system and most MSCEs admit this by installing a sperate machine for each and every task no matter how trivial or lightweight the service. Go to any MS shop and take their employee to server ratio and compare that with a unix shop.
BTW I have run DNS services on a floppy based linux distro running on a pentium 90. I don't think the CPU utilization ever went past 1% on that box. Tinydns is rock solid, stable and unhackable and able to handle the loads of most organizations without trouble. Anybody who spends five thousand dollars on a box and then five hundred dollars on a windows 2000 server licence just to run DNS is a first class idiot. Since you seem to agree with that decision (apparently you think they have brains) that makes you a first class idiot as well.
I think you are mixing the desktop windows with server widnows. On the server side MS does not enjoy such a numerical advantage.
Also consider the fact that most people use windows servers as a single user single tasking operating system (which is the only responsible thing to do given the stability of windows). So a shop may have a exchange server, an SQL server, a PDC, a SDC, a file server etc. You could easily eliminate 5 or 6 servers by switching to unix.
In our company the Powers that be put DNS into it's own compaq server which costs over $5K.
" Of course it's possible. All you need is a decent component model, many of which are available - e.g. Bonobo, XPCOM, COM, CCM, VCL. "
You need much more then that. You need a highly dynamic and reflective environment where the plug ins and the main code can interact intensively. You need a language that is easy to learn. You need a language which has a rich library with which to build plug ins. And of course a generous community which donates code.
Say what you want about COM or XPCOM or VCL but so far it has not manifested itself like java or jedit has.
BTW I am a consumer just as much as I am a developer. No difference.
"If stockholders were to be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose stock they hold, I, and probably most citizens, would simply not buy any stock. It just wouldn't be worth the risk."
Never the less the shareholders are responsible for what their corporations do. If the shareholders were held responsible they would exert pressure on management to act responsibly and they would take a more active role in the way their corporation was run. Both of which would be better for the economy.
It's not that people would not invest it's that they would only invest in well run ethical companies.
"So in other words you're saying that because you like it, there can't be anything wrong with Swing? While at the same time suggesting that you might switch if someone converted JEdit to something other than Java."
I don't think you are parsing my sentences correctly. Here let me try again.
I love Jedit. It's written in Java. Therefore it is possible to write great, usable, lovable software in java.
That is point one.
Point two.
If somebody rewrote jedit in C or Delphi I might switch but I doubt it because It is probably not possible to write such an application in a static language.
One of the things that makes Jedit great are the great are the plug ins. The reasons why there are great plug ins is because java is a rich language with many built in features. Java is easy to lean and use. Java has a large user community of generous people who are willing to contribute their code.
In a nutshell Jedit is great because of java not despite it. As a bonus I get to use Jedit on my lnux box, my windows box and my macosX box. rewrite Jedit in any other language and it will be half the program that it is today.
"You imply that java is "good" because it is (allegedly) popular. "
I imply no such thing. I simply state that Java has been used by the majority of the corporations in the world to build large mission critical applications which is ample evidence that it is a capable language. You ignore that evidence and keep insisting that it's not possible to build huge mission critical applications in java despite the evidence to the contrary.
"How are the Zend IDE, or JBuilder, consumer applications? They're for programmers,"
Are you saying that programmers are not consumers? If so that's a silly distinction to make. All this aside I still don't get your point. Your point seems to be that java/swing is not suitable to GUI development becasue somebody did not write an application you like. What does it matter who the application is aimed at, who wrote the application, why they wrote the application, or who uses the application.
All the applications I pointed out prove that it's possible to write great looking and highly functional applications in java/swing. I just don't understand how your criterea applies at all.
I use JEdit every day and it's my favorite text editor. Not because it's written in java but because it has a list of features I can't live without and really love it. If somebody else re-wrote it in C or Delphi or whatever I would maybe switch but I doubt you could write the same kind of a program in those static languages. Jedit is programmable by ordinary people because of beanshell and that is what makes it great. All those plug ins are possible because java is a dynamic and reflective language.
Yes. Let's ignore the fact that java is the most popular language in the world. Let's also ignore that the majority of all comapnies in the world use java. While we are at it let's ignore the thousands of mission critical applications written in java and the fact that java pretty much runs banking in this country.
Let's ignore all that listen to some luser called Tablizer on slashdot and accept once and for all that java is just not suitable for applications. After all who needs facts and evidence when some MS astro turfer says it sucks?
" There doesn't seem to be any successful shrinkwrap GUI software being sold to consumers, as an independent product, that uses Java.
That's not an arbitrary set of criteria; what it indicates, to me, is that the market hasn't found the Swing UI to be competitive, in its current form, compared to native UIs. And based on my personal experience with these apps, I can see why. "
Once again your criterea are impossible to meet. Is the Zend IDE a successful product? is Jbuilder a succesful product? is moneydance a successful product?
My guess is that you will say no. Not because they don't generate revenue or profits for the companies that make them but because your definition of successful will change every time you are confronted with another commercial product written in Java.
This is a very common FUD tactic. Declare that something is shit because it does not fit some criterea and then define that crierea so loosely that no product can meet it.
Mmmmm let me see what that could possibly prove. Oh I think I got it. It proves that java is a suitable language for writing huge mission critical applications.
Re:One of my favourite quotes...
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
I think the fact that all the anthrax attacks were aimed at liberals and democrats pretty much points the finger at some US based right wing ractionary groups. Just last week a woman was arrested in montana for sending soda laced with arsenic to sen kennedy and a few other democrats. It's no secret that the republican reactionary crowd is actively trying to assassinate democrats and members of the "liberal media".
No I don't think so. I think you have already made up your mind that you don't like Java gui apps and nothing will change your mind.
you asked for some examples of shrinkwraped java gui apps or popular java open source software. I provided you with examples of both. Did you then say "gee I guess I was wrong, there really are popular open source java apps and commercial java software"? No you found some excuses to dismiss them like "I don't like it", "they have to eat their own dogfood", "it's a single purpose app" or whatever. All of these are extremely lame excuses and none of them prove that a nice application can not be written in swing or that swing is inadequate for commercial applications.
I don't think at this point anything will change your mind.
Re:One of my favourite quotes...
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"So the attempted assassination of George H. W. Bush isn't doing anything to us? "
No it isn't because it's a fucking joke. Exactly what attempt was made on the president? did anybody actually fire a bullet. What is your definition of "attemped assasination"? Does wishing that Bush senior was dead count as "attempted assassination"?
"There are also several bits of evidence connecting Iraq to the 9/11 attacks (Iraqi intelligence meeting with Mohommad Atta is one)"
This is a lie so please stop perpetuating it. The CIA even admits it's a lie. BTW repeating a lie never makes it the truth.
"Constantly moving anti-aircraft guns/missles into the no-fly zones (UN mandated) to target US/allied aircraft."
God forbid a sovereign nation moves defensive equipment within their own country.
"It's not like Saddam has initated two wars of aggression or anything."
We encouraged both of those actions. We also provided them with weapons, intelligence and money during their war against iran. "There are also several bits of evidence" that the Iraq checked with the US and a nod of approval before invading kuwait but did not realize they were being set up.
"Okay, but one case still does not say much. It only says that it can be done and one person liked it. You need to perform a wider search and your own surveys of multiple sites to get a better feel."
I think that if you bothered to actually perform a wider search you would find there are many many large apps written in java. Java is the most popular language in the world and is used by the vast majority of corporations in the world.
JEdit is a very popular open source project written in swing. I also happen to be quite fond of Jdiskreport.
Jbuilder, netbeans, zend ide, think free office, and the oracle suite of DBA tools are shrinkwrapped commercial products written in swing
In the sourceforge java foundry you will find lots of open source java swing products. I am also sure that there are other java based commercial apps as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"So, if Al Qaeda is pure evil, then surely the Chechnyans and the Palestinians are worse, right?"
There is a profound difference. The chechens and the palestenians are occupied people. They are fighting to reclaim their independence from an opressive and violent occupation of their lands. Neither one of them enjoy the full spate of human rights that their occupiers or the rest of the free world enjoy.
I am sure you don't need me to reel off starvation, torture, assasinations, no right to travel, curfews, mass arrests, no access to lawyers and plain old murders that are visited on those unfortunate people.
When al Quadia attacked us we were not occupying anybody, we were not denying anybody human rights, not torturing people, not preventing people from getting medical attention etc.
Of course we now seem to be sliding in that direction but that's another story altogether.
It's one think to attack unprovoked it's another to fight to throw off your enslavers. You remember this phrase "give me freedom or give me death"? The same thing.
Well that can be debated. The president, most of his staff, the vice president and the secy of defense are all born again christians. So are most of the congress. COnsidering that Iraq has never attacked the US and had nothing to do 9-11 there are only two reasons to attack it.
1) Oil
2) religion.
Not really. You are presuming that the lands that are logged would remain empty to be re-forested when and if they are needed. What will more likely happen is that those lands will be turned into malls and subdivisions and will never be reforested.
Also as long as the human population grows there will be more demand no matter what the price.
Now that the US has decided to wage a war against terrorism many other countries have decided to crack down own their own internal problem populations by painting them with the terrorist brush.
Russia did it with chechnians, China did with the minority muslim population in the west. In the case of Israel it has used the post 9-11 US position to crack down much harder on the palestenians to the point of putting eight hundred thousand people under curfew and starving the population into submission.
Before 9-11 all of these actions would have been objectionable to the US govt and the public at large but post 9-11 nobody has raised an eyebrow.
Even in the US anybody who disagrees with the govt gets tagged with the terrorist label. The environmentalists, the "anti globalists", hackers, music swappers, open source developers etc.
It should not surprise anybody to see taiwan jumping on board this bandwagon.
My suspicion is that the term will dilute itself just like the word nazi did after it got overused so much. Feminazi, green nazi, surf nazi, soup nazi etc. When you start labeling everybody with the same tag pretty soon the label encompasses so many people it loses it's potency.
One of the stated goals of Osama Bin Laden was to drive a wedge between the US and Saudi Dictatorship. He is offended that US soldiers are stationed on holy ground and wanted the Saudi govt to kick the American out. To achieve this end he recruited saudis to ride along on the airplanes and act as strongmen (keeping the passangers scared) while other arabs actually planned the attack and drove the planes (mostly egyptians).
it was no accident that the bulk of the terrorist on 9-11 were saudis and egyptians, those two countries are by and large friendly with the US and Osama wanted to to end that. He nows full well that americans will not be able to differentiate the actions of a dozen terrorists with the actions of the countries those terrorists were born in.
He had basically two main goals. Break any alliances between the US and the arab world, and incite a religous war between the US and the Arabs.
On both of those he succeeded brilliantly. As comments like yours and many others on the media demonstrate there has been a severe strain on US saudi relations post 9-11. After all Saudis have been opressive theocracy for ever yet only post 9-11 are americans bringing it up. I of course need not mention that we are about to start a religous war with iraq any day now and that iraq, libya, somalia, and yemen will not be too far behind.
When Iraq is attacked by the US Saddam knows he is going to die so he will attack Israel with all he has and this time there is no way in hell israel under sharon will stand on the sidelines. Once Israel starts droping bombs on iraqis Osama is hoping there will be massive riots in the arab world and the current spate of govts will fall only to be replaced by more radical fundamentalist govts.
I think so far his plan is working great.
Unfortunately the demand for wood is already so high that forests worldwide are being stripped faster then they can regenate.
This is different.
First of all you are not being punished for doing something only thinking a particular way or simply because you choose not to believe something. TO top it all off there is no evidence for the xistance of god.
So this is not like a murder but more like a contract. God says "if you believe that I exist then I will reward you for eternity but if you don't believe that I exist then I will burn you in hell for eternity.
This is like signing a contract under duress or confessing to murder under torture. It's coerced and the terms are dictated by god.
It's not free will if you will be punished for choosing wrong.
They say rationalization is more important then sex and apprantly this is true.
Most operating systems are perfectly capable of running file services, mail services, DNS and web services on the same machine. Of course you may choose not to do that if your security needs demand it but the choice should be yours and not be forced on you by your operating system.
We run all of our internal services on the same box. DNS, intranet, dhcp, file, mail etc all on the same box. Despite that the cpu utilization rarely gets over 50% and the uptime last I checked was over 120 days. I have zero worry about the machine going down because it's being replicated via rsync a few times a day. If it goes down I have a standby ready.
"The whole point of a BDC is to take over the logins when the PDC goes down!!!! "
Well DUH. Apparently you did not read my message properly. My point was that these people are DEDICATING AN ENTIRE MACHINE TO ACT AS THE SECONDARY DOMAIN CONTROLLER. The reason they did is because they do not expect windows to be able handle that task and other tasks at the same time. Of course they are right. Like I said windows is a single tasking single user operating system and most MSCEs admit this by installing a sperate machine for each and every task no matter how trivial or lightweight the service. Go to any MS shop and take their employee to server ratio and compare that with a unix shop.
BTW I have run DNS services on a floppy based linux distro running on a pentium 90. I don't think the CPU utilization ever went past 1% on that box. Tinydns is rock solid, stable and unhackable and able to handle the loads of most organizations without trouble. Anybody who spends five thousand dollars on a box and then five hundred dollars on a windows 2000 server licence just to run DNS is a first class idiot. Since you seem to agree with that decision (apparently you think they have brains) that makes you a first class idiot as well.
I think you are mixing the desktop windows with server widnows. On the server side MS does not enjoy such a numerical advantage.
Also consider the fact that most people use windows servers as a single user single tasking operating system (which is the only responsible thing to do given the stability of windows). So a shop may have a exchange server, an SQL server, a PDC, a SDC, a file server etc. You could easily eliminate 5 or 6 servers by switching to unix.
In our company the Powers that be put DNS into it's own compaq server which costs over $5K.
" Of course it's possible. All you need is a decent component model, many of which are available - e.g. Bonobo, XPCOM, COM, CCM, VCL. "
You need much more then that. You need a highly dynamic and reflective environment where the plug ins and the main code can interact intensively. You need a language that is easy to learn. You need a language which has a rich library with which to build plug ins. And of course a generous community which donates code.
Say what you want about COM or XPCOM or VCL but so far it has not manifested itself like java or jedit has.
BTW I am a consumer just as much as I am a developer. No difference.
"If stockholders were to be held responsible for the actions of the companies whose stock they hold, I, and probably most citizens, would simply not buy any stock. It just wouldn't be worth the risk."
Never the less the shareholders are responsible for what their corporations do. If the shareholders were held responsible they would exert pressure on management to act responsibly and they would take a more active role in the way their corporation was run. Both of which would be better for the economy.
It's not that people would not invest it's that they would only invest in well run ethical companies.
"So in other words you're saying that because you like it, there can't be anything wrong with Swing? While at the same time suggesting that you might switch if someone converted JEdit to something other than Java."
I don't think you are parsing my sentences correctly. Here let me try again.
I love Jedit. It's written in Java. Therefore it is possible to write great, usable, lovable software in java.
That is point one.
Point two.
If somebody rewrote jedit in C or Delphi I might switch but I doubt it because It is probably not possible to write such an application in a static language.
One of the things that makes Jedit great are the great are the plug ins. The reasons why there are great plug ins is because java is a rich language with many built in features. Java is easy to lean and use. Java has a large user community of generous people who are willing to contribute their code.
In a nutshell Jedit is great because of java not despite it. As a bonus I get to use Jedit on my lnux box, my windows box and my macosX box. rewrite Jedit in any other language and it will be half the program that it is today.
"You imply that java is "good" because it is (allegedly) popular. "
I imply no such thing. I simply state that Java has been used by the majority of the corporations in the world to build large mission critical applications which is ample evidence that it is a capable language. You ignore that evidence and keep insisting that it's not possible to build huge mission critical applications in java despite the evidence to the contrary.
You are therefore and idiot.
"How are the Zend IDE, or JBuilder, consumer applications? They're for programmers,"
Are you saying that programmers are not consumers? If so that's a silly distinction to make. All this aside I still don't get your point. Your point seems to be that java/swing is not suitable to GUI development becasue somebody did not write an application you like. What does it matter who the application is aimed at, who wrote the application, why they wrote the application, or who uses the application.
All the applications I pointed out prove that it's possible to write great looking and highly functional applications in java/swing. I just don't understand how your criterea applies at all.
I use JEdit every day and it's my favorite text editor. Not because it's written in java but because it has a list of features I can't live without and really love it. If somebody else re-wrote it in C or Delphi or whatever I would maybe switch but I doubt you could write the same kind of a program in those static languages. Jedit is programmable by ordinary people because of beanshell and that is what makes it great. All those plug ins are possible because java is a dynamic and reflective language.
Yes. Let's ignore the fact that java is the most popular language in the world. Let's also ignore that the majority of all comapnies in the world use java. While we are at it let's ignore the thousands of mission critical applications written in java and the fact that java pretty much runs banking in this country.
Let's ignore all that listen to some luser called Tablizer on slashdot and accept once and for all that java is just not suitable for applications. After all who needs facts and evidence when some MS astro turfer says it sucks?
" There doesn't seem to be any successful shrinkwrap GUI software being sold to consumers, as an independent product, that uses Java.
That's not an arbitrary set of criteria; what it indicates, to me, is that the market hasn't found the Swing UI to be competitive, in its current form, compared to native UIs. And based on my personal experience with these apps, I can see why. "
Once again your criterea are impossible to meet. Is the Zend IDE a successful product? is Jbuilder a succesful product? is moneydance a successful product?
My guess is that you will say no. Not because they don't generate revenue or profits for the companies that make them but because your definition of successful will change every time you are confronted with another commercial product written in Java.
This is a very common FUD tactic. Declare that something is shit because it does not fit some criterea and then define that crierea so loosely that no product can meet it.
"So is NT. What does that prove?"
Mmmmm let me see what that could possibly prove. Oh I think I got it. It proves that java is a suitable language for writing huge mission critical applications.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.h tmlp 23s3. htm7 891/s addam_glaspie.html1 992/921020-248867.ht m
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/05/27/
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/
I'll leave it up to you to do further research but those links pretty much sum it up. Saddam was suckered.
I think Jesse Jacson said it best.
Capitalism without capital is just another ism.
I think the fact that all the anthrax attacks were aimed at liberals and democrats pretty much points the finger at some US based right wing ractionary groups. Just last week a woman was arrested in montana for sending soda laced with arsenic to sen kennedy and a few other democrats. It's no secret that the republican reactionary crowd is actively trying to assassinate democrats and members of the "liberal media".
"I think there's an expectations issue here."
No I don't think so. I think you have already made up your mind that you don't like Java gui apps and nothing will change your mind.
you asked for some examples of shrinkwraped java gui apps or popular java open source software. I provided you with examples of both. Did you then say "gee I guess I was wrong, there really are popular open source java apps and commercial java software"? No you found some excuses to dismiss them like "I don't like it", "they have to eat their own dogfood", "it's a single purpose app" or whatever. All of these are extremely lame excuses and none of them prove that a nice application can not be written in swing or that swing is inadequate for commercial applications.
I don't think at this point anything will change your mind.
"So the attempted assassination of George H. W. Bush isn't doing anything to us? "
No it isn't because it's a fucking joke. Exactly what attempt was made on the president? did anybody actually fire a bullet. What is your definition of "attemped assasination"? Does wishing that Bush senior was dead count as "attempted assassination"?
"There are also several bits of evidence connecting Iraq to the 9/11 attacks (Iraqi intelligence meeting with Mohommad Atta is one)"
This is a lie so please stop perpetuating it. The CIA even admits it's a lie. BTW repeating a lie never makes it the truth.
"Constantly moving anti-aircraft guns/missles into the no-fly zones (UN mandated) to target US/allied aircraft."
God forbid a sovereign nation moves defensive equipment within their own country.
"It's not like Saddam has initated two wars of aggression or anything."
We encouraged both of those actions. We also provided them with weapons, intelligence and money during their war against iran. "There are also several bits of evidence" that the Iraq checked with the US and a nod of approval before invading kuwait but did not realize they were being set up.
"Okay, but one case still does not say much. It only says that it can be done and one person liked it. You need to perform a wider search and your own surveys of multiple sites to get a better feel."
I think that if you bothered to actually perform a wider search you would find there are many many large apps written in java. Java is the most popular language in the world and is used by the vast majority of corporations in the world.
JEdit is a very popular open source project written in swing. I also happen to be quite fond of Jdiskreport.
Jbuilder, netbeans, zend ide, think free office, and the oracle suite of DBA tools are shrinkwrapped commercial products written in swing
In the sourceforge java foundry you will find lots of open source java swing products. I am also sure that there are other java based commercial apps as well.