I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years,
Really? Large enterprise settings were using Java before the official release? The only way you could have been using it in large enterprise settings for over 15 years ago is if you were using the pre-release alpha from '94. J2EE is only 12 years old.
Actually yes. I was involved in the Sun Early Access program and started working with Java in mid 1995 (actually, I believe it was Beta code at that point, maybe still Alpha - I don't recall). JDK 1.0 was officially released in early 1996, but we were already heavily into development at that point.
No, this was not J2EE work, and it was not web oriented at all (the corporate web applications at that time were primarily done with C++ and ISAPI). These were all system integration applications and there were primarily intended as chance for the corporation to dip it's toe into Java technology. I haven't worked with that particular corporation in several years, but they are very heavily into Java development today.
First, I said "I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years". I didn't say I have applications that were written 15 years ago that are still running the same binaries.
Second, there was a lot more than applets being written 15 years ago. I do still have Java back-end applications that were originally built back then but have undergone enhancements over the years. Just because the "Server JVM" wasn't introduced until somewhere around 1.4, doesn't mean java didn't run on servers long before that. The Server JVM was introduced mainly because there was so much being written for back-end systems it was advantageous for them to share a single JVM rather than each application running their own. Other than playing around a bit with them, I've never spent much time working with applets since this technology never really received widespread use.
You may very well be correct that applets written for JDK 1.0 no longer work, but that's a problem with the applet technology. However, class files created back then can (as far as I know, although I haven't tried it) still be executed in the latest JVM. But even if they can't, a simple re-compile should take care of it. Again, applets are not a fair representation of Java since it's strength is in the server side, not the client side.
Ok, I see your point. Vendor supplied applications almost always specify a particular Java version. Sometimes it's because they do something out of the ordinary (such as using JNI to get outside the JVM), or sometimes it's just that they've only tested and certified it to work with a particular version. However, generally speaking an application that is written in 100% pure Java should run without change on later versions of the JRE.
I'm sure your right. Just one thing I don't understand though. If it's so shitty, can you explain why it has been and continues to be (increasingly) the most widely used language/platform on the planet?
I assume you have a different language/platform that you prefer. Care to share it with us? I'm sure it is the 100% perfect language that no one here on/. can find flaws with.
While I don't doubt the sincerity of your post, I certainly have had a different experience. I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years, with hundreds of stand-alone and web applications and I can't think of a single instance where upgrading to a newer version of Java caused an existing application to break. I know of one recent upgrade that broke Eclipse, but it was quickly regressed and the problem was really in Eclipse, not Java.
Java was supposed to run in its own sandbox and therefore wouldn't be a security issue according to the original SUN PR bullshit.
This is actually true. However, when user just mindlessly click through the security dialog on unsigned applets that warn that resources outside the sandbox may be accessed it defeats the whole sandbox protection mechanism.
I guess it gets back to the old adage "Make it foolproof and only a fool will use it.".
Microsoft is a corporation and thus it has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
Completely erroneous bullshit.
Which part?
AFAIK, Microsoft IS a corporation.
Corporations (at least public corporations) have a legal mandate to maximize shareholder value which, usually, translates into maximizing profit.The only wiggle room I see on this point is that sometimes short-term value may be sacrificed for longer term value or vice-versa.
Seriously, I'm not challenging your viewpoint, but I'd be interested in exactly what that viewpoint is.
I suspect the biggest benefit to IBM is the vast amount of patents they were able to accumulate while developing this technology. IBM also generates a large part of their revenues from services. I'm sure IBM has the GSA contracts already lined up for implementing pieces of this technology for DOD, DHS, etc.
I suppose this depends on when Watson was fed the question. If the question was fed as soon as the question was displayed on the screen, then it might have had an advantage over the humans for the reasons you cite. However, if it was not fed the question until Alex completed reading the question, then the advantage was given to the humans since they could have already read and been formulating their answer while Alex was reading it.
Actually, as I understood it, the humans actually had an advantage in reaction time. Watson did not "click" until it had an acceptably high confidence in it's answer. Humans on the other had could click when they thought they could come up with the correct answer and then use the remaining 3 or for seconds to think and formulate their response.
These "little-g" gods as you put it are not considered "gods" at all. Angels, demon and the like are "beings", not unlike humans. Beings != gods.
There's no point in my going into the whole belief system around the trinity as there is plenty of information on this on the web (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity).
While you may see this belief system as "hand waving", true Christians do not. They believe it is a mystery that defies explanation in human terms.
As I noted before, I personally think religion as a whole is bunk, but I also don't think it's proper to go around misrepresenting other's beliefs regardless of your own.
The concept of the trinity was a hotly debated concept in the early church and even today, some christian faiths do not believe in the trinity (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Unitarianism).
There were absolutely disagreements and compromises made in the early church, but out of those debates arose the doctrine which is embodied by most Christian faiths today: there is but "one god". Some faiths believe there is one god and no trinity, some believe there is one god manifested as three beings, but I don't know of any true Christian faiths that believe in more than one god (although I'm sure you could find some corner case since there are more splinter groups than you can shake a stick at). You can argue the particulars, but by definition Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all monotheist religions.
My personal opinion is that the whole thing (and religion in general) is a scam. However, I do allow that it is perfectly valid for others to hold different beliefs than mine. To argue that others' belief systems are inferior to your own is simply a fools errand.
Such blatant idiocy. Maybe the concept of trinity just too much for a simple mind to understand.
Christians regard their religion as monotheistic, since Christianity teaches the existence of one God - Yahweh, the God of the Jews. It shares this belief with two other major world religions, Judaism and Islam.
However, Christian monotheism is a unique kind of monotheism. It holds that God is One, but that three distinct "persons" constitute the one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This unique threefold God of Christian belief is referred to as the Trinity. I repeat, "God is One". Assuming God is all powerful, is it not feasible for him/her to manifest himself/herself in as many ways as he/she wishes?
The concept of the trinity was a hotly debated concept in the early church and even today, some christian faiths do not believe in the trinity (Jehovah's Witnesses,
Mormonism, Unitarianism).
They certainly do not believe that the devil and angels are gods by any stretch of the imagination.
You should really learn just a wee bit about what you are spouting out before you look like a complete idiot.
I know this stuff and I consider myself an agnostic theist.
I've refrained from commenting on this topic because every time the topic of AI comes up on/., the same group of folks drag out the "AI hasn't progressed at all in over 50 years" crap and I get tired of aguing against them.
Their argument boils down to this. If programmers have to program it, then it's not AI. WTF? By that definition I guess all we can do is keep shovelling sand into a fire and hope that a chip falls out that can produce the Unified Theory with no human intervention. Anything less is "just a bunch of algorithms" and not intelligence.
Debating about what constitutes intelligence (artificial or not) with people that take that position will only give you a headache.
In order to be able to be able use of the Sun/Oracle patents, the VM (Dalvik or a clean-room version of it) must pass the TCK (compatibility suite). Since Oracle will not license the TCK, passing this compatibility test is impossible. Therefore, shipping a VM without this would would violate the Oracle patents (just like what Google is being sued about). In order to implement a JVM on the BB, they would have to use the certified Java ME, which is crap and pretty pointless since it won't give them the Android platform their looking for.
The only way I can see BB pulling this off is to use Java ME for the JVM, implement the Android API on top of it, and translate the Dalvik binaries back to bytecode as you suggest above. From what I know about the Dalvik format, that would be quite a challenge, but who knows.
I suppose it's possible that BB could be getting some special dispensation from Oracle to get around the patent issue, but I find it highly unlikely that Oracle is going to help anyone wanting to put Android on their platform.
Did I say there were the only alternatives I know? No I just mentioned a few of the platforms I'm currently engaged (as in "being paid to develop") in.
I have no idea of your age and/or experience in the industry so, unlike you, I won't jump to any judgments about your abilities (or lake thereof).
However, I'm fairly confident though from your post though that you are an ass. I've been writing code since the mid '70s and have spent pretty close to 12 hours a day everyday since, designing and coding and I've worked in just about every platform and language environment out there. My judgments come from many years of hands on experience. I'm not about repeating what I read somewhere and passing it off as my own thought, which is what your comments appear to be.
Talk to me again when you've done a little more homework.
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I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years,
Really? Large enterprise settings were using Java before the official release? The only way you could have been using it in large enterprise settings for over 15 years ago is if you were using the pre-release alpha from '94. J2EE is only 12 years old.
Actually yes. I was involved in the Sun Early Access program and started working with Java in mid 1995 (actually, I believe it was Beta code at that point, maybe still Alpha - I don't recall). JDK 1.0 was officially released in early 1996, but we were already heavily into development at that point.
No, this was not J2EE work, and it was not web oriented at all (the corporate web applications at that time were primarily done with C++ and ISAPI). These were all system integration applications and there were primarily intended as chance for the corporation to dip it's toe into Java technology. I haven't worked with that particular corporation in several years, but they are very heavily into Java development today.
First, I said "I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years". I didn't say I have applications that were written 15 years ago that are still running the same binaries.
Second, there was a lot more than applets being written 15 years ago. I do still have Java back-end applications that were originally built back then but have undergone enhancements over the years. Just because the "Server JVM" wasn't introduced until somewhere around 1.4, doesn't mean java didn't run on servers long before that. The Server JVM was introduced mainly because there was so much being written for back-end systems it was advantageous for them to share a single JVM rather than each application running their own. Other than playing around a bit with them, I've never spent much time working with applets since this technology never really received widespread use.
You may very well be correct that applets written for JDK 1.0 no longer work, but that's a problem with the applet technology. However, class files created back then can (as far as I know, although I haven't tried it) still be executed in the latest JVM. But even if they can't, a simple re-compile should take care of it. Again, applets are not a fair representation of Java since it's strength is in the server side, not the client side.
Ok, I see your point. Vendor supplied applications almost always specify a particular Java version. Sometimes it's because they do something out of the ordinary (such as using JNI to get outside the JVM), or sometimes it's just that they've only tested and certified it to work with a particular version. However, generally speaking an application that is written in 100% pure Java should run without change on later versions of the JRE.
I'm sure your right. Just one thing I don't understand though. If it's so shitty, can you explain why it has been and continues to be (increasingly) the most widely used language/platform on the planet?
I assume you have a different language/platform that you prefer. Care to share it with us? I'm sure it is the 100% perfect language that no one here on /. can find flaws with.
While I don't doubt the sincerity of your post, I certainly have had a different experience. I've been working with Java in large enterprise settings for over 15 years, with hundreds of stand-alone and web applications and I can't think of a single instance where upgrading to a newer version of Java caused an existing application to break. I know of one recent upgrade that broke Eclipse, but it was quickly regressed and the problem was really in Eclipse, not Java.
I guess I've just been lucky.
Java was supposed to run in its own sandbox and therefore wouldn't be a security issue according to the original SUN PR bullshit.
This is actually true. However, when user just mindlessly click through the security dialog on unsigned applets that warn that resources outside the sandbox may be accessed it defeats the whole sandbox protection mechanism.
I guess it gets back to the old adage "Make it foolproof and only a fool will use it.".
Since new exploits are identified each day.
It's really spelled "Goofy", but he prefers euphemisms.
Microsoft is a corporation and thus it has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
Completely erroneous bullshit.
Which part?
AFAIK, Microsoft IS a corporation.
Corporations (at least public corporations) have a legal mandate to maximize shareholder value which, usually, translates into maximizing profit.The only wiggle room I see on this point is that sometimes short-term value may be sacrificed for longer term value or vice-versa.
Seriously, I'm not challenging your viewpoint, but I'd be interested in exactly what that viewpoint is.
I suspect the biggest benefit to IBM is the vast amount of patents they were able to accumulate while developing this technology. IBM also generates a large part of their revenues from services. I'm sure IBM has the GSA contracts already lined up for implementing pieces of this technology for DOD, DHS, etc.
I suppose this depends on when Watson was fed the question. If the question was fed as soon as the question was displayed on the screen, then it might have had an advantage over the humans for the reasons you cite. However, if it was not fed the question until Alex completed reading the question, then the advantage was given to the humans since they could have already read and been formulating their answer while Alex was reading it.
Actually, as I understood it, the humans actually had an advantage in reaction time. Watson did not "click" until it had an acceptably high confidence in it's answer. Humans on the other had could click when they thought they could come up with the correct answer and then use the remaining 3 or for seconds to think and formulate their response.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose - Kris Kristofferson
I'm betting Google is going to just release 2.4 as their next "standard" release that's widely distributed.
Better hedge that bet.
Motorola Atrix coming in March will be 2.3 (actually 2.3.3 I believe).
Most of the dual-core phones coming out the first half of the year will be 2.3.3 because of it's better dual-core support.
2.4 (Ice Cream) is still a ways out from release, so most of the new phones will be 2.3 (Gingerbread) and new tablets will be 3.0 (Honeycomb).
Gingerbread is out and has been since December. It's the handset manufacturers that are slow about putting it out on the phones.
I do wish someone would explain to Ret. General Honoré that when doing television interviews, ending sentences with "over" is not really necessary.
These "little-g" gods as you put it are not considered "gods" at all. Angels, demon and the like are "beings", not unlike humans. Beings != gods.
There's no point in my going into the whole belief system around the trinity as there is plenty of information on this on the web (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity).
While you may see this belief system as "hand waving", true Christians do not. They believe it is a mystery that defies explanation in human terms.
As I noted before, I personally think religion as a whole is bunk, but I also don't think it's proper to go around misrepresenting other's beliefs regardless of your own.
Did I not acknowledge this?
The concept of the trinity was a hotly debated concept in the early church and even today, some christian faiths do not believe in the trinity (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Unitarianism).
There were absolutely disagreements and compromises made in the early church, but out of those debates arose the doctrine which is embodied by most Christian faiths today: there is but "one god". Some faiths believe there is one god and no trinity, some believe there is one god manifested as three beings, but I don't know of any true Christian faiths that believe in more than one god (although I'm sure you could find some corner case since there are more splinter groups than you can shake a stick at). You can argue the particulars, but by definition Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all monotheist religions.
My personal opinion is that the whole thing (and religion in general) is a scam. However, I do allow that it is perfectly valid for others to hold different beliefs than mine. To argue that others' belief systems are inferior to your own is simply a fools errand.
flatter then a Crepe.
My pancakes are fluffy and think.
Pleeeze! Let's not get back into the whole AI thing again.
I want to believe!
Such blatant idiocy. Maybe the concept of trinity just too much for a simple mind to understand.
Christians regard their religion as monotheistic, since Christianity teaches the existence of one God - Yahweh, the God of the Jews. It shares this belief with two other major world religions, Judaism and Islam.
However, Christian monotheism is a unique kind of monotheism. It holds that God is One, but that three distinct "persons" constitute the one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This unique threefold God of Christian belief is referred to as the Trinity. I repeat, "God is One". Assuming God is all powerful, is it not feasible for him/her to manifest himself/herself in as many ways as he/she wishes?
The concept of the trinity was a hotly debated concept in the early church and even today, some christian faiths do not believe in the trinity (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Unitarianism).
They certainly do not believe that the devil and angels are gods by any stretch of the imagination.
You should really learn just a wee bit about what you are spouting out before you look like a complete idiot.
I know this stuff and I consider myself an agnostic theist.
Thank you. You summed up my thoughts nicely.
I've refrained from commenting on this topic because every time the topic of AI comes up on /., the same group of folks drag out the "AI hasn't progressed at all in over 50 years" crap and I get tired of aguing against them.
Their argument boils down to this. If programmers have to program it, then it's not AI. WTF? By that definition I guess all we can do is keep shovelling sand into a fire and hope that a chip falls out that can produce the Unified Theory with no human intervention. Anything less is "just a bunch of algorithms" and not intelligence.
Debating about what constitutes intelligence (artificial or not) with people that take that position will only give you a headache.
When will it ever end?
When we reach the end of the internet.
I don't think the problem is the Java license.
In order to be able to be able use of the Sun/Oracle patents, the VM (Dalvik or a clean-room version of it) must pass the TCK (compatibility suite). Since Oracle will not license the TCK, passing this compatibility test is impossible. Therefore, shipping a VM without this would would violate the Oracle patents (just like what Google is being sued about). In order to implement a JVM on the BB, they would have to use the certified Java ME, which is crap and pretty pointless since it won't give them the Android platform their looking for.
The only way I can see BB pulling this off is to use Java ME for the JVM, implement the Android API on top of it, and translate the Dalvik binaries back to bytecode as you suggest above. From what I know about the Dalvik format, that would be quite a challenge, but who knows.
I suppose it's possible that BB could be getting some special dispensation from Oracle to get around the patent issue, but I find it highly unlikely that Oracle is going to help anyone wanting to put Android on their platform.
Did I say there were the only alternatives I know? No I just mentioned a few of the platforms I'm currently engaged (as in "being paid to develop") in.
I have no idea of your age and/or experience in the industry so, unlike you, I won't jump to any judgments about your abilities (or lake thereof).
However, I'm fairly confident though from your post though that you are an ass. I've been writing code since the mid '70s and have spent pretty close to 12 hours a day everyday since, designing and coding and I've worked in just about every platform and language environment out there. My judgments come from many years of hands on experience. I'm not about repeating what I read somewhere and passing it off as my own thought, which is what your comments appear to be.
Talk to me again when you've done a little more homework.
I think we're done.