Its [DirectX] a lot better in many ways than OpenGL (at least I think so). Its certainly powerful and easy to code for. It was a load of poo up til at least DX6, but now its surprisingly nice and object-oriented. They are of course targetted at completely different uses: D3D is generally Retained Mode, whereas OpenGL is generally Immediate Mode. I can't be bothered explaining what those mean, so go look in Google, but it does mean that DX is probably better for games, whereas OGL is better for most other things.
Last I looked at it, almost every serious game was done in Direct3D immediate mode, and most recent changes to the API are there.
OpenGL is perhaps only better for games in that it is a thin C layer on top of the hardware rather than a thicker COM layer. One can always write OO scene graph frameworks on top of OpenGL like Performer.
Most importantly, though, is that every computing platform other than Windows that supports hardware 3D acceleration does so through OpenGL. I expect it to outlive Direct3D.:-)
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And for a hardware partner, avoiding a lawsuit, or gaining a contract to work on future versions of Xbox, may well outweigh the advantages from continuing to support OpenGL.
NVIDIA is the graphics (and glue chipset) supplier for Xbox. It is also now the sole supplier of graphics chips for desktop Macs. Apple is solidly behind OpenGL as it's strategic 3D API (as is the entire high performance 3D graphics world, for that matter). I'd be willing to place a large wager that NVIDIA (which has strong SGI roots) will not abandon OpenGL.
One last thought - I think Microsoft would be very ill advised to try to charge more for the use of those patents than SGI was...and that cost should already be part of current hardware prices.
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It doesn't matter who "governs" OpenGL. All Microsoft has to do to kill it now is refuse to license their 3D patents to any hardware vendor who chooses to make OpenGL drivers instead of DirectX.
No one makes OpenGL drivers "instead of" DirectX. Every card I'm aware of supports both. I assure you, if Microsoft were to try something so predatory, there would be a huge backlash. (Microsoft does sit on the OpenGL ARB by the way.) I wouldn't worry about the future of OpenGL unless viable alternatives are found for both Linux (Unix) and Macintosh. I find that highly unlikely.
My guess is this is more aimed at leverage versus NVIDIA, Microsoft's Xbox chip supplier.
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I got to this party a bit late, but I was glad to see that the first post pretty much summarized what I had to say!;-)
I don't think its a stretch to for Jobs to concede that MS won the operating system war - thats why he is trying to fight the total user experience war - something MS can't do unless it wants to start making boxes.
Yes, and to amplify on this a little more, one should ask why the various major features were added to MacOS X versus Windows XP. In the case of MacOS, virtually every feature was added to enhance the user experience. Apple is pretty good at paying attention to detail and making life easier for the users. Microsoft, on the other hand, added most of the big new features to XP in order to lock it's users into Windows, to increase revenues, and to kill competitors. The Windows UI is still a hodgepodge, and Windows applications follow loose guidelines if any with regard to user interface.
The Mac has some major advantages (Unix!), and my guess is that Apple will gain significant marketshare this year. The thing that Katz most seemed to miss is that Apple is good at making complex tasks simpler. That is the exact thing required in order for the Mac to begin displacing Windows in the home of the proverbial Joe Sixpack.
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Sorry I wasn't able to reply earlier I was busy (I was also surprised to see my post make it all the way to a '5' total!).
I've been a Java developer for over four years now and although I trust Sun a whole lot more than Microsoft, the fact is, Java is a proprietary standard owned and licensed solely by Sun, whereas C# and the CLR are open standards managed by ECMA.
This is a trickier issue than you make out. To a degree you're right. Sun does, however, specifically allow clean room implementations of Java. It doesn't allow versions that don't pass the compatibility tests to call themselves Java. I do think the compatibility tests should be open source and freely available, but I don't have that much trouble with their stance otherwise. The JCP is an effective mechanism for moving the language and class libraries forward.
I disagree about the results of the JCP 'belonging to Sun' - they belong to the (ever widening) Java community.
Oh, yeah, there's Kaffe, and GNU Classpath for Java, which are cleanroom implementations with no license and no permission to call themselves Java, and guess what, they are still broken, not compliant with even JDK 1.1, and have been under development for something like five years now. I dare you to try to get JBuilder running on them. I really, really wish them good luck, but so far they are a major disappointment.
Yes, but is the lack of progress on the OSS VMs simply due to satisfaction with the free-as-in-beer commercial VMs?
On the other hand, C#, the CLR, and the core classes of.NET are an ECMA standard. You can choose not to trust Microsoft, and still look at the standards and see if they are worth using or not. This is what Ximian has done, and they decided the standards were worth using. If Microsoft then chooses to go off and violate the ECMA standard, that doesn't lock you into their proprietary version; you can still stick with the ECMA standard, and all the implementations that adhere to it, and tell MS to take a flyng leap.
Great, in theory. Microsoft has already made noises about 'licensing' issues, so we'll see where that leads. Further, Microsoft did not make big chunks of.Net ECMA standards, including the entire GUI framework. So much for cross-platform GUIs...which are working quite well these days in Java.
The real thing that people need to be concerned about is how objective and open ECMA is going forward. Microsoft has been known to try to hijack standards bodies before; if they can control ECMA, then they can claim that it's an open standard when in fact it would be a sham.
Sun is claiming that eventually it will open source Java. That will be desirable once Java is mature and well established.
In the meantime, to me the important things are that Java is here, functional, and cross platform today - and I'm not furthering Microsoft's computing agenda or monopolies by using it.
In fact, I would argue that Java's widespread adoption among developers is the strongest thing it has going for it. It is also very widely used as a teaching language.
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(Java is a replacement for C/C++, and doesn't have an equivalent to iostream.h?! No local file access?! WTF!)
WTF indeed! Java applications have both! Ever hear of the java.io package?
Would you really want Java applets, downloaded from an arbitrary Internet site, to have access to your hard drive by default? (Signed applets can do such things, by the way.)
Java is infinitely preferable to C#+CLR, simply because there is no platform lockin, or vendor lockin (you can get great JVMs from IBM, for instance).
I'll start seriously considering C#+CLR when the Mono runtime exceeds the performance of Linux JVMs on the same box. I expect that to happen...never.;-)
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"Red Hat has offered its own Linux operating system to be used in the schools instead of Windows. ``We do not think that the remedy should be a mechanism by which Microsoft can further extend its monopoly,'' said Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat, in a statement."
I'm a Java fan, drawn to it by (relative) simplicity, decent OO and speed.
That said, Objective-C also has many fine attributes, and has never gained the popularity it deserves. Objective-C (gcc is Apple's Obj-C compiler also) is fully compiled and has great legacy compatibility with C, both desirable attributes when compared with Java. There are other tradeoffs between the languages, but Objective-C looks like a great Java alternative in certain circumstances. It also looks like a fun 'recreational language' for side projects.
I was considering one of the new iMacs anyhow, it's good to see that much code might port to an open source setting also!:-)
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Isn't it interesting that Bohr was frightened that the Nazis would have such a weapon only to see it used to butcher Japanese civilians five years later by "the good guys"?
You say that like it's a bad thing...
Many people feel that saving approximately 1 million American lives was more important at that time than a percentage of the populations (both military and civilian) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You should also consider how many Japanese would have been killed without the surrender (nuclear weapons are not needed for massive destruction...see Dresden for instance).
Do you seriously think the Japanese would have hesitated to kill any number of American civilians if they had the means? It was a vicious war, and both sides were concerned about victory (and survival) above all else.
Perhaps he should have been frightened, period. Perhaps the whole lot of them should have been clockmakers, like Albert said.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps we should praise the brilliant inventors of nuclear weapons, since those weapons have apparently halted the practice of "world war". Peace is a good thing, right?
Regardless, not pursuing the a-bomb wasn't an option...someone would have. Most would agree that the US has been a model citizen as a nuclear superpower. At least we have tremendous safeguards surrounding the use of such devices.
Of course, that part goes unmentioned in the NYT article, because that might call into question just who really *did* use those horrible weapons, and it might have to be stated that it wasn't everyone's favorite boogeyman of the 20th century. We can't have people thinking about the realities of the past; no, interesting what-ifs make for much better propaganda.
Sounds to me like you've absorbed quite a bit of propaganda yourself...;-)
Personally, I'm worried that nuclear stockpiles will be cut to the point where world war becomes 'thinkable' again.
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And just how exactly (sarcasm) did you come by this amazingly insightful opinion?
I have quite a bit of familiarity with JBuilder (I've been using it daily for about two years, primarily on Linux), further the information is readily available on Borland's JBuilder website in the "Features and Benefits" PDF document. To quote:
"The Borland JBuilder environment ships with the Java2 SDK 1.3 and is entirely implemented in Java for excellent platform interoperability and performance on Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, and any operating system that fully supports the Java SDK 1.3."
Emphasis mine. You can apologise now.:-P
(It has been that way since JBuilder 4.)
Do us all a favor and check your facts before trying to "educate" people. JBuilder is not "100% pure Java" by any stretch of the imagination - not any more than my cup of Starbucks with cream is "100% pure Java".
Would you care for any salt with that crow?:-)
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FWIW, Borland knew this would happen to them if they did JBuilder entirely in Java, so most of it is done in what I assume is C++ (or Delphi, whatever. Anything that compiles). IMO JBuilder is the best dedicated Java editor, hands down (for Windows).
FWIW (sarcasm) JBuilder is written in 100% Pure Java. This, of course, completely refutes your entire point. Sorry.;-)
Java is _plenty_ fast on modern machines.
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'That means that C# and the CLI are now officially standards, administered by ECMA. But Microsoft will retain control over who gets to license the technology and how it will be distributed, a [Microsoft] company spokesman said.'
I wonder what they mean by "license" and just how will Microsoft limit the distribution of the technology? Bleh. Ximian better beware of it's bedfellows...
By the way, the article quoted above is from today, December 13...unlike the Icaza interview.
I already ranted about Ximian not using Java, so I won't bother with that again...;-)
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Hmm... I'm having difficulty seeing what the need for any sort of realtime OS would be for an ATM or slot machine. (Probably because I'm more used to real realtime systems like navigation and landing systems.)
That was exactly my point - why use an OS that's restricted to only the 'easy' embedded projects? You're much better off gaining expertise with something that'll address the entire gamut of systems.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
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is best embedded in a block of concrete and dumped in the ocean.
You'll note that it is touted for use in "ATMs and slot machines". That is because it cannot be used for hard realtime, low latency applications like flight controls, robotics, or medical devices. It is also sure to be bloated and inefficient compared with something that is designed from the ground up to be an embedded OS.
I'd highly recommend QNX instead, it is POSIX and QNX sits on the realtime Linux committee. Hard Hat Linux and cousins are looking better and better as well. These solutions do support hard realtime scheduling, thus providing across the board solutions for all your embedded needs. QNX, in particular, is also very well engineered. It provides a highly modular architecture, allowing you to deploy only the functionality you need, minimizing system cost.
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Sales of Unix-powered servers, sold by companies such as Sun, grew just 20 percent. Though Unix market share remained almost double that of Windows, Windows' market share rose to 22.7 percent from 20.7 percent.
I don't suppose anyone at ZdNet considered the many companies that have installed "roll your own" Linux servers (often removing Windows in the process)? I know our company has several. Its entirely possible that Unix/Linux marketshare has actually risen. Don't forget MacOS X either, which I'm sure Gartner missed in it's Unix box count.;-)
There are lies, damn lies and statistics!- Mark Twain
From a technical perspective, I'd like to see Java get some of the features of C# (only better of course;). Operator overloading and lightweight classes are both good ideas (although operator overloading can be done now with a preprocessor like jpp). Perhaps these features will make it into one of the Java clones like gcj.
Regardless of the technical issues, I think everyone involved in software development should think long and hard before committing to a Microsoft-inspired approach. Microsoft's track record on getting people to buy into platform lock is clear. It is in your company's best interest to avoid Microsoft lockin in almost every case.
One of the saddest things that's happened in some time is the Mono team's committing to C#. It should have been gcj. Shame on them for encouraging the use of Microsoft's platform. IMO, Ximian can be well assured that Microsoft will either change, patent or extend things until Mono is irrelevant in the end - after lots of Open Source energy has been expended on that dead end.
On the other hand, Java continues to gain momentum in almost every area. There are good VMs available on every important desktop platform (as well as most embedded and server platforms). Go forth and code!;-)
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The courts have found that Microsoft is a monopolist, and that its abused it's monopoly. The current case doesn't even address any of the numerous issues with Windows XP!
Like what issues?
The settlement allows OEM's to:
1. Replace all MS "middleware" including IE, WMP, MSN, Windows Messenger, etc. That settles the "tying issue".
It doesn't settle the tying issue in any real way. There are valid concerns that Microsoft can access Windows APIs in ways that aren't shared with third parties. Certainly the 'integration' that Microsoft touts heavily isn't available to third parties. Finally, I'm pretty sure that this proposed settlement doesn't provide for the replacement of IE on a system, only the installation of Navigator (for instance) alongside IE.
2. License other OS's and dual boot them on a per-machine basis.. That settles the "unfair pricing issue".
Sure, as long as the IHVs trust the settlement and are willing to incur Microsoft's wrath in the short term. Wonder what'll happen to them after five years?;-)
3. Force MS to open, under NDA, protocols to allow 3rd party products to interoperate successfully. That solves the "unfair and hidden protocols issue".
Uh huh. Who's going to enforce this? What about after five years?
So whats the big deal? What issues arent addressed is the better question? With those things in place you could really make XP a nice OS - strip out IE, WMP and replace with Mozilla/Winamp.
What about Product Activation and Passport? The proposed settlement doesn't address either of those two abominations. It also does nothing to prevent Microsoft from going down the 'software lease' path, where Microsoft gets to decide when you upgrade, and how much it'll cost. Not paying will not be an option (unless you make the smart move and migrate to a different platform).
What else is there left to understand? This will give people more choice (pre-installed Linux dual botting with Windows), allow more 3rd party software (replacements for IE/WMP/OE/WM), and allow OEMS more flexibility and give them fair pricing.
The OEM pricing approach seems like an improvement, but the rest of it is way too wimpy. What, for instance, is to stop Microsoft from continuing to leverage it's operating system dominance into office software suites?
What else do you want? How does that not address the trial points? In fact, this is actually 100's better than a breakup which would have kept things how they were but with two MS's - one with Windows and one with Office and other apps.
The original breakup plan didn't go far enough for me. I wanted four divisions: OS, software development tools, application software and server software. Now that might make a difference.
There won't be a healthy software industry without several vital, strong OS offerings. Linux and MacOS X have potential, but they need a little more fertile soil to really start growing the way they should.
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I find it hard to believe the Feds are willing to give Microsoft a slap on the wrist
Umm, why is that exactly?
Is it because of GWB's hatred of american businesses, or his belief that all people should be free from the wrath of big business?
Despite the popular impression that Bush is an 'elected king', he doesn't have all that much power. Supposedly he exercised none in this case (I'll reserve judgement;).
The DOJ is supposed to fairly judge the impact of this type of practice on the consumer, and then take appropriate action. It seems fairly obvious to me that Microsoft is close to closing a noose around the neck of all software developers - either develop for an MS platform or don't develop (at least commercially). I guess the DOJ feels that competition in the OS and software development areas isn't important.
Ah well, at least the states are carrying on the crusade! (Oh wait that's not a politically correct term these days is it...?)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
I find it hard to believe the Feds are willing to give Microsoft a slap on the wrist and then (more or less) let them run roughshod over the rest of the computer industry.
The courts have found that Microsoft is a monopolist, and that its abused it's monopoly. The current case doesn't even address any of the numerous issues with Windows XP!
No court has yet done a good job of truly understanding the software industry and it's relationship to OS providers. Microsoft is making a massive attempt to lock the entire software world into it's infrastructure - this is a bad thing from almost any perspective you choose.
So, let's hope the states have the courage and resources to stick with this case and insure real change at Microsoft.
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I see in my moderation totals that this article was rated "redundant" twice. I think the moderators should be forced to indicate what article they feel made the article they're rating 'redundant'. My post was something like the 15th overall in this topic, and I haven't seen any that mentioned the Amazon/Linux article.
In short, I think Slashdot moderation is somewhat broken in this regard - no one metamoderates against 'redundant' mods since its too much trouble to figure out if they're correct.
By the way, for those who think Sun will lose out to Linux as opposed to Microsoft, take a look at Sun's new anti-Wintel servers. Pretty sweet, eh?;-)
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I think you mean Sun Microsystems, not Microsoft...
Oh really? Sun sells hardware, which runs a Posix OS. Solaris can be made fully 'Linux compatible' very easily. If Sun hardware continues to be compelling (the basic value proposition of Sun), Sun will prosper.
Microsoft, on the other hand, sells software (ignoring cheap Xbox servers for the moment;). Microsoft is currently engaged in driving up it's software margins across the board. What do you think the effect will be if much less expensive software does the same job better?;-)
It doesn't hurt that Windows XP has been received with jeers of condemnation. Also, don't rule out the legal system yet. The states have yet to weigh in, also the courts have not considered the monopolistic chutzpah exhibited by Windows XP. Oh yes, and then there are the legal challenges from foreign governments.
It doesn't seem to be a good time to be a MS stockholder (regardless of today's bump).
Linux, with it's free licensing, and lack of Product Activation, is looking very good to many people these days. It also benefits from version stability (no need to get a new version simply because a vendor says so). Its quite a value proposition compared with Windows XP.
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Well, I tried that Grand Canyon Demo link; download some components required for it (I'm running Windows 2000 sp2), and no matter what I tried to do, it gave me a "Unexpected Error" at "java.nio.channels.FileChannel.map(IJI)Ljava/nio/M appedByteBuffer;"
According to my Java Web Start Application, I'm running 1.4.0-beta3... and it seems like I also had 1.3.0_03 already installed.
I thought there was a 300 MB dataset involved...did you download that? Something related to that would seem to make sense given the error you're seeing...
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Nope, according the gnu's gcj website it is the 1.0 specification, not 1.1.
I think you're confusing the language spec with the JDK spec. Could you post a link to the page to which you're referring? JDK 1.02 didn't include JNI, but gcj does, for instance. I don't think gcj is a full JDK 1.1 implementation, but it's close and getting closer all the time.
And Gnu is still calling it gcj so I guess I can too.
I thought I covered that, but thanks very much for pointing it out...again.;-)
I base it on personal experience, I code java full time mostly server side but occasionally gui as well, and as yet I have never seen any java based gui app perform to a resonable degree.
Really? You don't think jEdit or LimeWire perform adequately? Regardless, Java games will generally not be GUI apps. They will be 2D or 3D graphics apps with custom user interfaces.
Swing is a heavy and inefficient library in current implementations (supposedly better in 1.4) but Java games don't need it. That is why gcj is an option even though it doesn't have AWT or Swing. BTW, what is your rationale against games developed with gcj? I see no reason why they would be slower than OO C++.
As far as Arkanae goes, it looks interesting but I will reserve judgement until I get a chance to play.
It's far from complete, but it is Open Source. Fun stuff!
If you'd care to continue this in e-mail, use glock27sd@yahoo.com. Thanks!
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The moderators giveth, and the moderators taketh away. Actually, I think I've annoyed some moderators with my political views, so I take a karma hit.;-)
B) I didn't think about the bundling of the JVM with it. In that case though, wouldn't you then need to still sell specific versions since the JVM is OS/machine specific?
I'd just try to bundle JREs for the major supported platforms.
How much of a footprint is the JVM on a disc?
The full JRE 1.3 for Linux is ~14 MB, so it wouldn't be too bad bundling a few of them (Windows and Linux would be the only two currently).
Things could also get better if Sun provided a way to distribute the platform independent part of the JRE (.jars) separately from the system dependent stuff.
Maybe the publisher could put all the jvm's on the install disc and have the installer pick the correct one at runtime.
But then does Sun charge your for licensing one jvm or X (x = number of jvm's). I am not up on Sun's licensing policy, but you do have to pay for any jvm you bundle with software you distribute if I recall.
I'm pretty sure there's no problem redistributing any number of JREs.
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Slashdot Mirror
Last I looked at it, almost every serious game was done in Direct3D immediate mode, and most recent changes to the API are there.
OpenGL is perhaps only better for games in that it is a thin C layer on top of the hardware rather than a thicker COM layer. One can always write OO scene graph frameworks on top of OpenGL like Performer.
Most importantly, though, is that every computing platform other than Windows that supports hardware 3D acceleration does so through OpenGL. I expect it to outlive Direct3D. :-)
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NVIDIA is the graphics (and glue chipset) supplier for Xbox. It is also now the sole supplier of graphics chips for desktop Macs. Apple is solidly behind OpenGL as it's strategic 3D API (as is the entire high performance 3D graphics world, for that matter). I'd be willing to place a large wager that NVIDIA (which has strong SGI roots) will not abandon OpenGL.
One last thought - I think Microsoft would be very ill advised to try to charge more for the use of those patents than SGI was...and that cost should already be part of current hardware prices.
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No one makes OpenGL drivers "instead of" DirectX. Every card I'm aware of supports both. I assure you, if Microsoft were to try something so predatory, there would be a huge backlash. (Microsoft does sit on the OpenGL ARB by the way.) I wouldn't worry about the future of OpenGL unless viable alternatives are found for both Linux (Unix) and Macintosh. I find that highly unlikely.
My guess is this is more aimed at leverage versus NVIDIA, Microsoft's Xbox chip supplier.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
I don't think its a stretch to for Jobs to concede that MS won the operating system war - thats why he is trying to fight the total user experience war - something MS can't do unless it wants to start making boxes.
Yes, and to amplify on this a little more, one should ask why the various major features were added to MacOS X versus Windows XP. In the case of MacOS, virtually every feature was added to enhance the user experience. Apple is pretty good at paying attention to detail and making life easier for the users. Microsoft, on the other hand, added most of the big new features to XP in order to lock it's users into Windows, to increase revenues, and to kill competitors. The Windows UI is still a hodgepodge, and Windows applications follow loose guidelines if any with regard to user interface.
The Mac has some major advantages (Unix!), and my guess is that Apple will gain significant marketshare this year. The thing that Katz most seemed to miss is that Apple is good at making complex tasks simpler. That is the exact thing required in order for the Mac to begin displacing Windows in the home of the proverbial Joe Sixpack.
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I've been a Java developer for over four years now and although I trust Sun a whole lot more than Microsoft, the fact is, Java is a proprietary standard owned and licensed solely by Sun, whereas C# and the CLR are open standards managed by ECMA.
This is a trickier issue than you make out. To a degree you're right. Sun does, however, specifically allow clean room implementations of Java. It doesn't allow versions that don't pass the compatibility tests to call themselves Java. I do think the compatibility tests should be open source and freely available, but I don't have that much trouble with their stance otherwise. The JCP is an effective mechanism for moving the language and class libraries forward.
I disagree about the results of the JCP 'belonging to Sun' - they belong to the (ever widening) Java community.
Oh, yeah, there's Kaffe, and GNU Classpath for Java, which are cleanroom implementations with no license and no permission to call themselves Java, and guess what, they are still broken, not compliant with even JDK 1.1, and have been under development for something like five years now. I dare you to try to get JBuilder running on them. I really, really wish them good luck, but so far they are a major disappointment.
Yes, but is the lack of progress on the OSS VMs simply due to satisfaction with the free-as-in-beer commercial VMs?
On the other hand, C#, the CLR, and the core classes of .NET are an ECMA standard. You can choose not to trust Microsoft, and still look at the standards and see if they are worth using or not. This is what Ximian has done, and they decided the standards were worth using. If Microsoft then chooses to go off and violate the ECMA standard, that doesn't lock you into their proprietary version; you can still stick with the ECMA standard, and all the implementations that adhere to it, and tell MS to take a flyng leap.
Great, in theory. Microsoft has already made noises about 'licensing' issues, so we'll see where that leads. Further, Microsoft did not make big chunks of .Net ECMA standards, including the entire GUI framework. So much for cross-platform GUIs...which are working quite well these days in Java.
The real thing that people need to be concerned about is how objective and open ECMA is going forward. Microsoft has been known to try to hijack standards bodies before; if they can control ECMA, then they can claim that it's an open standard when in fact it would be a sham.
Sun is claiming that eventually it will open source Java. That will be desirable once Java is mature and well established.
In the meantime, to me the important things are that Java is here, functional, and cross platform today - and I'm not furthering Microsoft's computing agenda or monopolies by using it.
In fact, I would argue that Java's widespread adoption among developers is the strongest thing it has going for it. It is also very widely used as a teaching language.
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WTF indeed! Java applications have both! Ever hear of the java.io package?
Would you really want Java applets, downloaded from an arbitrary Internet site, to have access to your hard drive by default? (Signed applets can do such things, by the way.)
Java is infinitely preferable to C#+CLR, simply because there is no platform lockin, or vendor lockin (you can get great JVMs from IBM, for instance).
I'll start seriously considering C#+CLR when the Mono runtime exceeds the performance of Linux JVMs on the same box. I expect that to happen...never. ;-)
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This is a quote from this Yahoo article.
I'm really happy to see that the judge didn't cave in!
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
That said, Objective-C also has many fine attributes, and has never gained the popularity it deserves. Objective-C (gcc is Apple's Obj-C compiler also) is fully compiled and has great legacy compatibility with C, both desirable attributes when compared with Java. There are other tradeoffs between the languages, but Objective-C looks like a great Java alternative in certain circumstances. It also looks like a fun 'recreational language' for side projects.
I was considering one of the new iMacs anyhow, it's good to see that much code might port to an open source setting also! :-)
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You say that like it's a bad thing...
Many people feel that saving approximately 1 million American lives was more important at that time than a percentage of the populations (both military and civilian) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You should also consider how many Japanese would have been killed without the surrender (nuclear weapons are not needed for massive destruction...see Dresden for instance).
Do you seriously think the Japanese would have hesitated to kill any number of American civilians if they had the means? It was a vicious war, and both sides were concerned about victory (and survival) above all else.
Perhaps he should have been frightened, period. Perhaps the whole lot of them should have been clockmakers, like Albert said.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps we should praise the brilliant inventors of nuclear weapons, since those weapons have apparently halted the practice of "world war". Peace is a good thing, right?
Regardless, not pursuing the a-bomb wasn't an option...someone would have. Most would agree that the US has been a model citizen as a nuclear superpower. At least we have tremendous safeguards surrounding the use of such devices.
Of course, that part goes unmentioned in the NYT article, because that might call into question just who really *did* use those horrible weapons, and it might have to be stated that it wasn't everyone's favorite boogeyman of the 20th century. We can't have people thinking about the realities of the past; no, interesting what-ifs make for much better propaganda.
Sounds to me like you've absorbed quite a bit of propaganda yourself... ;-)
Personally, I'm worried that nuclear stockpiles will be cut to the point where world war becomes 'thinkable' again.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
I have quite a bit of familiarity with JBuilder (I've been using it daily for about two years, primarily on Linux), further the information is readily available on Borland's JBuilder website in the "Features and Benefits" PDF document. To quote:
"The Borland JBuilder environment ships with the Java2 SDK 1.3 and is entirely implemented in Java for excellent platform interoperability and performance on Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, and any operating system that fully supports the Java SDK 1.3."
Emphasis mine. You can apologise now. :-P
(It has been that way since JBuilder 4.)
Do us all a favor and check your facts before trying to "educate" people. JBuilder is not "100% pure Java" by any stretch of the imagination - not any more than my cup of Starbucks with cream is "100% pure Java".
Would you care for any salt with that crow? :-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
FWIW, Borland knew this would happen to them if they did JBuilder entirely in Java, so most of it is done in what I assume is C++ (or Delphi, whatever. Anything that compiles). IMO JBuilder is the best dedicated Java editor, hands down (for Windows).
FWIW (sarcasm) JBuilder is written in 100% Pure Java. This, of course, completely refutes your entire point. Sorry. ;-)
Java is _plenty_ fast on modern machines.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
'That means that C# and the CLI are now officially standards, administered by ECMA. But Microsoft will retain control over who gets to license the technology and how it will be distributed, a [Microsoft] company spokesman said.'
I wonder what they mean by "license" and just how will Microsoft limit the distribution of the technology? Bleh. Ximian better beware of it's bedfellows...
By the way, the article quoted above is from today, December 13...unlike the Icaza interview.
I already ranted about Ximian not using Java, so I won't bother with that again... ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
That was exactly my point - why use an OS that's restricted to only the 'easy' embedded projects? You're much better off gaining expertise with something that'll address the entire gamut of systems.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
You'll note that it is touted for use in "ATMs and slot machines". That is because it cannot be used for hard realtime, low latency applications like flight controls, robotics, or medical devices. It is also sure to be bloated and inefficient compared with something that is designed from the ground up to be an embedded OS.
I'd highly recommend QNX instead, it is POSIX and QNX sits on the realtime Linux committee. Hard Hat Linux and cousins are looking better and better as well. These solutions do support hard realtime scheduling, thus providing across the board solutions for all your embedded needs. QNX, in particular, is also very well engineered. It provides a highly modular architecture, allowing you to deploy only the functionality you need, minimizing system cost.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Sales of Unix-powered servers, sold by companies such as Sun, grew just 20 percent. Though Unix market share remained almost double that of Windows, Windows' market share rose to 22.7 percent from 20.7 percent.
I don't suppose anyone at ZdNet considered the many companies that have installed "roll your own" Linux servers (often removing Windows in the process)? I know our company has several. Its entirely possible that Unix/Linux marketshare has actually risen. Don't forget MacOS X either, which I'm sure Gartner missed in it's Unix box count. ;-)
There are lies, damn lies and statistics!- Mark Twain
Regardless of the technical issues, I think everyone involved in software development should think long and hard before committing to a Microsoft-inspired approach. Microsoft's track record on getting people to buy into platform lock is clear. It is in your company's best interest to avoid Microsoft lockin in almost every case.
One of the saddest things that's happened in some time is the Mono team's committing to C#. It should have been gcj. Shame on them for encouraging the use of Microsoft's platform. IMO, Ximian can be well assured that Microsoft will either change, patent or extend things until Mono is irrelevant in the end - after lots of Open Source energy has been expended on that dead end.
On the other hand, Java continues to gain momentum in almost every area. There are good VMs available on every important desktop platform (as well as most embedded and server platforms). Go forth and code! ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Like what issues?
The settlement allows OEM's to:
1. Replace all MS "middleware" including IE, WMP, MSN, Windows Messenger, etc. That settles the "tying issue".
It doesn't settle the tying issue in any real way. There are valid concerns that Microsoft can access Windows APIs in ways that aren't shared with third parties. Certainly the 'integration' that Microsoft touts heavily isn't available to third parties. Finally, I'm pretty sure that this proposed settlement doesn't provide for the replacement of IE on a system, only the installation of Navigator (for instance) alongside IE.
2. License other OS's and dual boot them on a per-machine basis.. That settles the "unfair pricing issue".
Sure, as long as the IHVs trust the settlement and are willing to incur Microsoft's wrath in the short term. Wonder what'll happen to them after five years? ;-)
3. Force MS to open, under NDA, protocols to allow 3rd party products to interoperate successfully. That solves the "unfair and hidden protocols issue".
Uh huh. Who's going to enforce this? What about after five years?
So whats the big deal? What issues arent addressed is the better question? With those things in place you could really make XP a nice OS - strip out IE, WMP and replace with Mozilla/Winamp.
What about Product Activation and Passport? The proposed settlement doesn't address either of those two abominations. It also does nothing to prevent Microsoft from going down the 'software lease' path, where Microsoft gets to decide when you upgrade, and how much it'll cost. Not paying will not be an option (unless you make the smart move and migrate to a different platform).
What else is there left to understand? This will give people more choice (pre-installed Linux dual botting with Windows), allow more 3rd party software (replacements for IE/WMP/OE/WM), and allow OEMS more flexibility and give them fair pricing.
The OEM pricing approach seems like an improvement, but the rest of it is way too wimpy. What, for instance, is to stop Microsoft from continuing to leverage it's operating system dominance into office software suites?
What else do you want? How does that not address the trial points? In fact, this is actually 100's better than a breakup which would have kept things how they were but with two MS's - one with Windows and one with Office and other apps.
The original breakup plan didn't go far enough for me. I wanted four divisions: OS, software development tools, application software and server software. Now that might make a difference.
There won't be a healthy software industry without several vital, strong OS offerings. Linux and MacOS X have potential, but they need a little more fertile soil to really start growing the way they should.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Umm, why is that exactly?
Is it because of GWB's hatred of american businesses, or his belief that all people should be free from the wrath of big business?
Despite the popular impression that Bush is an 'elected king', he doesn't have all that much power. Supposedly he exercised none in this case (I'll reserve judgement;).
The DOJ is supposed to fairly judge the impact of this type of practice on the consumer, and then take appropriate action. It seems fairly obvious to me that Microsoft is close to closing a noose around the neck of all software developers - either develop for an MS platform or don't develop (at least commercially). I guess the DOJ feels that competition in the OS and software development areas isn't important.
Ah well, at least the states are carrying on the crusade! (Oh wait that's not a politically correct term these days is it...?)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
The courts have found that Microsoft is a monopolist, and that its abused it's monopoly. The current case doesn't even address any of the numerous issues with Windows XP!
No court has yet done a good job of truly understanding the software industry and it's relationship to OS providers. Microsoft is making a massive attempt to lock the entire software world into it's infrastructure - this is a bad thing from almost any perspective you choose.
So, let's hope the states have the courage and resources to stick with this case and insure real change at Microsoft.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
In short, I think Slashdot moderation is somewhat broken in this regard - no one metamoderates against 'redundant' mods since its too much trouble to figure out if they're correct.
By the way, for those who think Sun will lose out to Linux as opposed to Microsoft, take a look at Sun's new anti-Wintel servers. Pretty sweet, eh? ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Oh really? Sun sells hardware, which runs a Posix OS. Solaris can be made fully 'Linux compatible' very easily. If Sun hardware continues to be compelling (the basic value proposition of Sun), Sun will prosper.
Microsoft, on the other hand, sells software (ignoring cheap Xbox servers for the moment;). Microsoft is currently engaged in driving up it's software margins across the board. What do you think the effect will be if much less expensive software does the same job better? ;-)
It doesn't hurt that Windows XP has been received with jeers of condemnation. Also, don't rule out the legal system yet. The states have yet to weigh in, also the courts have not considered the monopolistic chutzpah exhibited by Windows XP. Oh yes, and then there are the legal challenges from foreign governments.
It doesn't seem to be a good time to be a MS stockholder (regardless of today's bump).
Linux, with it's free licensing, and lack of Product Activation, is looking very good to many people these days. It also benefits from version stability (no need to get a new version simply because a vendor says so). Its quite a value proposition compared with Windows XP.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
How Linux saved Amazon millions
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
According to my Java Web Start Application, I'm running 1.4.0-beta3... and it seems like I also had 1.3.0_03 already installed.
I thought there was a 300 MB dataset involved...did you download that? Something related to that would seem to make sense given the error you're seeing...
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
I think you're confusing the language spec with the JDK spec. Could you post a link to the page to which you're referring? JDK 1.02 didn't include JNI, but gcj does, for instance. I don't think gcj is a full JDK 1.1 implementation, but it's close and getting closer all the time.
And Gnu is still calling it gcj so I guess I can too.
I thought I covered that, but thanks very much for pointing it out...again. ;-)
I base it on personal experience, I code java full time mostly server side but occasionally gui as well, and as yet I have never seen any java based gui app perform to a resonable degree.
Really? You don't think jEdit or LimeWire perform adequately? Regardless, Java games will generally not be GUI apps. They will be 2D or 3D graphics apps with custom user interfaces.
Swing is a heavy and inefficient library in current implementations (supposedly better in 1.4) but Java games don't need it. That is why gcj is an option even though it doesn't have AWT or Swing. BTW, what is your rationale against games developed with gcj? I see no reason why they would be slower than OO C++.
As far as Arkanae goes, it looks interesting but I will reserve judgement until I get a chance to play.
It's far from complete, but it is Open Source. Fun stuff!
If you'd care to continue this in e-mail, use glock27sd@yahoo.com. Thanks!
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
The moderators giveth, and the moderators taketh away. Actually, I think I've annoyed some moderators with my political views, so I take a karma hit. ;-)
B) I didn't think about the bundling of the JVM with it. In that case though, wouldn't you then need to still sell specific versions since the JVM is OS/machine specific?
I'd just try to bundle JREs for the major supported platforms.
How much of a footprint is the JVM on a disc?
The full JRE 1.3 for Linux is ~14 MB, so it wouldn't be too bad bundling a few of them (Windows and Linux would be the only two currently).
Things could also get better if Sun provided a way to distribute the platform independent part of the JRE (.jars) separately from the system dependent stuff.
Maybe the publisher could put all the jvm's on the install disc and have the installer pick the correct one at runtime.
InstallAnywhere already supports this. Nice package, too.
But then does Sun charge your for licensing one jvm or X (x = number of jvm's). I am not up on Sun's licensing policy, but you do have to pay for any jvm you bundle with software you distribute if I recall.
I'm pretty sure there's no problem redistributing any number of JREs.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!