I recall years ago when my kids were still in primary school, we received similar disclosures from the companies hired to do class pictures.
They claimed they owned the copyright on any pictures taken of our kids, we couldn't make our own copies and they could do what they wanted with the photos.
We declined and had our kids pictures taken instead at a local photographic studio without that crap.
Turned out one of the things they were doing with the school pictures was selling them to the stock-photo companies where they could be used in advertising.
So many of the comments here talk about technologies from the 80's an later that I have to give my story.
I remember back in 1969 sitting in front of the television in July watching the news on the first Apollo moon landing. When the space ship was returning to Earth I recall the anticipation of where it would actually splash down in the Pacific but not totally sure where.
Then in 1981 I watched as the Columbia space shuttle launched from Florida and 2 days later landed exactly on target in California.
And sadly in 2003 I watched the same shuttle burn up.
And then watched as the shuttle program was shutdown.
x) Abstracts work into reusable components
Close to impossible in C, as C is not object oriented. You are stuck with simple libraries like stdio and math etc.
See Cfront the first C++ translator that output C code for a C compiler. There is nothing fancy about class-based OO. Every method in your class is nothing more than a C method with an additional hidden variable this. The member attributes are the same as C structure attributes, the compilers simply recognize more protection levels and won't let code read private data directly. If you want data protection, define an opaque C structure and a collection of get/set methods that take a pointer to that structure as the first argument. Your OO code is doing exactly the same thing only hiding the details from you.
The one area of OO that C doesn't do as well is RAII more specifically the auto cleanup of a resource. Being able to run a cleanup routine when a structure leaves scope is not well defined in C, usually it is a compiler specific capability.
x) Abstracts interfaces into functional, communicable units
Completely impossible in C as C has nothing that resembles interfaces.
An application programming interface is nothing more than the definition of functions and/or protocols that can be called. C has had header files for a very long time that are just as much an interface definition as any OO based one.
It is a good movie, but there is a book I like much more called The Adolescence of P1. Was one of the earliest AI books I read and just seemed more plausible.
I remember years back when we used to discuss cross platform capabilities. This was around the time that Java was starting to be taken seriously, so last century.
There were some attempts at using a DOSBox like "container" to provide a common target, I recall IBM trying to go with Linux from mainframe to PC to provide a virtual host. Today we see that really coming forward with the Docker type containers.
But there was another approach that was talked about that would use C or C++ as the cross platform tool, but instead of deploying binaries there would be deployed to each target machine a "compiling tool". An application would then be deployed as either source code or pre-processed ASTs and then it would be converted to binary on the local machine as part of the installation process. I don't recall this ever really going anywhere but always seemed like an interesting approach to me.
The primary issue I see to overcome regarding package management for C or C++ is the difference that in the Java world Maven can simply grab a Jar file and, so long as there are no binary dependencies, for the most part it works.
In the C/C++ world you can't simply grab an.SO or.DLL and assume it will work because there is no one target environment like a Java virtual machine and the way the library was built might make assumptions about the host system that might not be the same as the one you're targeting.
So maybe what we need isn't just a Maven for C / C++ but an intelligently combined build and package management capability. A build tool that is configured with all of the intended platform targets, that can then resolve dependencies by either finding similarly configured pre-built libraries or can fetch library source from a repo, configure and build it using the configurations setup for the project. And to support this a consistent repo structure like what Maven uses so the dependency tool can find transitively dependent components easily.
Ideally the compilers would need to support cross-compilation so working on any platform, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. could properly generate binaries for the targets. Basically a Maven like capability that can turn around and actually compile the source code if needed.
What we do is first classify variations of bugs. During development testing cycles, any defect found in testing becomes a defect subtask, and is prioritized right along with any other work subtasks under our current feature.
After code is deployed into production, any reported defects are captured as a higher level defect ticket (not subtask) against the application/component, not necessarily a specific project effort. If the defect is a true production issue that must be corrected, necessary work subtasks are attached to the defect, it is corrected, tested and deployed as an independent work effort.
If the defect is either acceptable until the next release or working as designed but not intended (not really a defect), then either the defect ticket is migrated to become a new change request in the project pipeline or the defect is closed and a change request ticket is created referencing back to the defect as part of the story's requirements.
I look at this a bit differently then most folks. College students are paying to attend the university so from my perspective they have hired the school and the professors to perform a service. So I have absolutely no problem with referring to professors by their first name. When I'm paying for a service, I'm in charge.
The piece of the article that annoys me is the laziness in and lack of etiquette in communications. It isn't necessary to use abbreviations in emails which do not have character length limitations. But if you pay attention to pop culture or advertising you'll see continual attempts to introduce abbreviations as if that is something hip or cool.
Another problem you'll see is that the same thing is happening in posted articles on supposed main-stream news sites - use and overuse of abbreviations and regular grammar and or spelling errors. It doesn't appear that the web articles receive any form of editing or proof reading these days.
I'm one of those old timers that only went back to receive a college degree because the company I worked for flat out said, even with 7 years of history, without a college degree I couldn't be promoted any higher. That is one form of job place discrimination that is considered perfectly acceptable.
So in my late 30's I completed my degree, and one of the only classes that I felt I received any value from was a course on technical / business writing. The class showed that when you're writing either for presentations or training or documentation, the key was to focus the style and content for the intended audience. So the same document might be written in different ways if the audience was sales versus development, but don't use jargon or abbreviations for an audience that doesn't have the context to know what they mean.
That is the one text book I actually did not sell back after completing the class and I still have and sometimes refer back to it.
Sounds a bit like the Palm (later HP) WebOS where the underlying core was Linux but it used a version of node.js to provide the connection between the UI/Apps and the OS.
How could you forget Neverwinter Nights that gave more than a modding, it was a complete toolkit for the creation of whole new games? They published details of all data files and model formats, the community was awesome. Some modules were so good Bioware provided a forum for developers to sell them.
That was completely destroyed by Neverwinter Nights II where Atari decided to go with a gaming engine that used proprietary models and masked data file formats so that they could try to sell modules and addons themselves which failed miserably.
Would love to have a toolkit like that again with an enhance 3D engine and an improved scripting language. I spent many hours playing on custom servers and designing my own out.
This so frustrates me. We do not have to get CO2 levels down to 350ppm to be safe as you put it. CO2 levels rising are not a direct threat to your life, it just changes the distribution of flora and fauna across the planet and potentially changes coastlines and weather patterns.
CO2 becomes toxic at levels of 1%, at 10% it can cause respiratory paralysis which can lead to death. Current CO2 levels are around 387ppmv which equates to roughly 0.0387%. So suffocating in an open space due to atmospheric CO2 levels would require those levels to increase 30x what they are now or roughly 10000 ppmv and there is no science that says CO2 levels will increase that much.
Now, yes a storm or rise in sea level could change your coastline and wash away your house, but coastlines changes and storms have been happening every since weather patterns first formed on this planet.
So yes maybe anthropogenic sources of increased CO2 might be causing concentrations to rise faster than they would have without it. But it is not a direct threat to you, indirect and inconvenient perhaps, but it doesn't make you any less safe than you are now.
Colleges and Universities (at least in the US) exist to support colleges, universities and professors. And I have heard former professors say the same thing, not just people like me.
The university system does not prepare students for work in the real world, it simply teaches them some basic theory. It isn't until a person gets out of school and goes into an apprenticeship model (depending on the career path) that students learn anything useful. The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed. All the degree shows is the candidate is willing to waste 4-5 years in a classroom.
I hit a glass ceiling 10 years ago, the company I worked at (where I was considered one of, if not the top, technical leader) said I could not get promoted without a degree, so I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file. I had to show them during labs. And these were the same people that would apply for jobs I had posted claiming they had Master Degrees and were deserving of higher salaries. The head of the Computer Science department asked if I would consider coming back and teaching after I graduated.
What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.
Consensus governance will likely never work in diverse societies, there are just too many opposing views and opinions. The places where it does work tend to be very homogeneous (aboriginal tribes in Canada for example).
Some governments have limited forms of consensus but simply stated there are just too many people who are too lazy to get involved and become learned in the issues. They'd rather listen to platitudes and 30 second attack ads and pull a lever.
Actually I think the United States started out correct, where each State was supposed to be allowed to govern their citizens however those citizen decided. The union of states was only meant as a means of defining a single entity to the outside world, but each State was supposed to be sovereign. Prior to the war between the States (which was completely un-Constitutional, there was not and still is no prohibition in the Constitution barring a State from seceding, so by the 10th Amendment a State has that right, but I digress), we were referred to as These United States, afterwards we became The United States.
Looking at what is happening around the world where there are riots and protests by those who have lived off government redistribution that can no longer be sustained, I wonder if the problem is simply that large, diverse populations simply can not exist as a single nation, that maybe small city states where like minded people can congregate is not a better long term survival model?
Wait I'm confused, you make the point that A basic income has no preconditions for working, then you give a number for currently available handouts at around $600 and say that basic income in your view is $1000 (only about $400 more) but you also say if that isn't enough people could work for more.
So I'm confused, isn't this exactly how things are today? There is a group of people living off basic handouts from the government and a group of people that have decided they want more than the basic so they work for more. But now the first group is screaming how it is unfair the working group has more and the government should take it away and spread it out.
So maybe I'm missing something, but what you describe is exactly what is happening right now, except you left out the part where those on the basic level who don't want to work still want more.
As others have pointed out, the Preamble does not bestow any powers, it is merely an introduction.
Now, inside the Constitution in the actual details, that phrase also exists in the Taxing and Spending clause (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1), but is always taken out of context.
The text of the clause is:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Notice what follows the general Welfare -- of the United States (and this means the collection of States, not a federal republic).
Our nation was founded as a union of independent sovereign States. At the time of the writing each State had its own laws, own rules and many had their own currency. The Constitution was written to recognize those States were sovereign, but would come together collectively for defense and dealing with external nations. Prior to the civil war we referred to ourselves as these United States, after that war (which may also have been un-Constitutional since there is no prohibition against States leaving the union, so the 10th Amendment gives them the right to do so) we became known as the United States.
So the clause refers to the welfare of the States. There is absolutely no authority granted to the federal government to deal with welfare of the people. None of the so called entitlement programs is backed by Constitutional authority, neither are areas like education or EPA regulations that apply only to instate resources. Congress claims all of these powers under the Commerce Clause.
So no, the Constitution does not grant the federal government any say in the welfare of the citizens of the States.
Ok, so say Oracle does end up destroying the Java community and you get your wish that Java dies, what replaces it?
Java is huge in corporate development because Java provides a complete ecosystem. It is a supported platform, there are large numbers of trained developers, it has a huge pool of good quality external components available from the Apache projects for example. It works.
You can go from zero to a working webservice, complete with connections to a database in a couple of hours. With some decoration you can change that from being XML based to JSON based.
You can build 3D games, using OpenGL that perform remarkably well, so long as your target platform supports OpenGL (not a Java issue).
And you can do all of this in one language, with one development kit, some well known, well defined add-on libraries that you can deploy to multiple operating systems. Or you can use a number of other languages, if you prefer to code in a different style and don't like the wordiness of Java the language. Java the platform gives you this ability.
Call it the new Cobol if you like, be all smug. Doesn't matter to all the companies using it and developers making a living coding in it.
I would really like to know what could replace this? I have been concerned since the Oracle take over and have been trying, for example, to find an alternative to a simple webservice world.
Today I can download, unzip and fire up Tomcat and I'm ready to write code, or I can use Jetty and embed an HTTP server and servlet engine in my jar file and make it a single jar deployment. Yes I know, I have to install a JVM, which is a simple download and install. You do the same with Ruby, Python, Perl or PHP. With C/C++ you don't need a runtime, but you have to code for cross platform usability.
I've looked at Apache with modules and CGI, tried out Node.js and Seaside (Smalltalk). I've looked at RoR and some of what is available in the Python world. I'm even seeing what it takes to build a web server (using PocoLib) with a connected V8 Javascript engine for scripting (I'm aware of the V8CGI project that makes a module for Apache, but on Windows, I use the MinGW toolkit, not Microsoft tools, and I've not be able to successfully get that whole stack to build, Poco builds out of the box).
But none of these has the complete environment Java and Java frameworks offer.
So, for all of you wishing Java would go away, please, what is a complete replacement?
Slashdot Mirror
Definitely remember those days, and how so many people took it as a badge of honor to stand up to the slashdot effect.
I recall years ago when my kids were still in primary school, we received similar disclosures from the companies hired to do class pictures.
They claimed they owned the copyright on any pictures taken of our kids, we couldn't make our own copies and they could do what they wanted with the photos.
We declined and had our kids pictures taken instead at a local photographic studio without that crap.
Turned out one of the things they were doing with the school pictures was selling them to the stock-photo companies where they could be used in advertising.
MySpace 2.0
This sounds like it would make a good School House Rock episode.
So many of the comments here talk about technologies from the 80's an later that I have to give my story.
I remember back in 1969 sitting in front of the television in July watching the news on the first Apollo moon landing. When the space ship was returning to Earth I recall the anticipation of where it would actually splash down in the Pacific but not totally sure where.
Then in 1981 I watched as the Columbia space shuttle launched from Florida and 2 days later landed exactly on target in California.
And sadly in 2003 I watched the same shuttle burn up.
And then watched as the shuttle program was shutdown.
x) Abstracts work into reusable components Close to impossible in C, as C is not object oriented. You are stuck with simple libraries like stdio and math etc.
See Cfront the first C++ translator that output C code for a C compiler. There is nothing fancy about class-based OO. Every method in your class is nothing more than a C method with an additional hidden variable this. The member attributes are the same as C structure attributes, the compilers simply recognize more protection levels and won't let code read private data directly. If you want data protection, define an opaque C structure and a collection of get/set methods that take a pointer to that structure as the first argument. Your OO code is doing exactly the same thing only hiding the details from you. The one area of OO that C doesn't do as well is RAII more specifically the auto cleanup of a resource. Being able to run a cleanup routine when a structure leaves scope is not well defined in C, usually it is a compiler specific capability.
x) Abstracts interfaces into functional, communicable units Completely impossible in C as C has nothing that resembles interfaces.
An application programming interface is nothing more than the definition of functions and/or protocols that can be called. C has had header files for a very long time that are just as much an interface definition as any OO based one.
It is a good movie, but there is a book I like much more called The Adolescence of P1. Was one of the earliest AI books I read and just seemed more plausible.
I have all three, and I like watching them from oldest to newest. All of them are great.
So are we're going to be able to do what was in the Star Trek Next Generation episode The Chase or are we going to find it was already done to us?
I remember years back when we used to discuss cross platform capabilities. This was around the time that Java was starting to be taken seriously, so last century.
There were some attempts at using a DOSBox like "container" to provide a common target, I recall IBM trying to go with Linux from mainframe to PC to provide a virtual host. Today we see that really coming forward with the Docker type containers.
But there was another approach that was talked about that would use C or C++ as the cross platform tool, but instead of deploying binaries there would be deployed to each target machine a "compiling tool". An application would then be deployed as either source code or pre-processed ASTs and then it would be converted to binary on the local machine as part of the installation process. I don't recall this ever really going anywhere but always seemed like an interesting approach to me.
The primary issue I see to overcome regarding package management for C or C++ is the difference that in the Java world Maven can simply grab a Jar file and, so long as there are no binary dependencies, for the most part it works.
In the C/C++ world you can't simply grab an .SO or .DLL and assume it will work because there is no one target environment like a Java virtual machine and the way the library was built might make assumptions about the host system that might not be the same as the one you're targeting.
So maybe what we need isn't just a Maven for C / C++ but an intelligently combined build and package management capability. A build tool that is configured with all of the intended platform targets, that can then resolve dependencies by either finding similarly configured pre-built libraries or can fetch library source from a repo, configure and build it using the configurations setup for the project. And to support this a consistent repo structure like what Maven uses so the dependency tool can find transitively dependent components easily.
Ideally the compilers would need to support cross-compilation so working on any platform, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. could properly generate binaries for the targets. Basically a Maven like capability that can turn around and actually compile the source code if needed.
What we do is first classify variations of bugs. During development testing cycles, any defect found in testing becomes a defect subtask, and is prioritized right along with any other work subtasks under our current feature.
After code is deployed into production, any reported defects are captured as a higher level defect ticket (not subtask) against the application/component, not necessarily a specific project effort. If the defect is a true production issue that must be corrected, necessary work subtasks are attached to the defect, it is corrected, tested and deployed as an independent work effort.
If the defect is either acceptable until the next release or working as designed but not intended (not really a defect), then either the defect ticket is migrated to become a new change request in the project pipeline or the defect is closed and a change request ticket is created referencing back to the defect as part of the story's requirements.
I don't know, Love and Energy wouldn't be so bad, but maybe you're thinking about The Matrix?
I look at this a bit differently then most folks. College students are paying to attend the university so from my perspective they have hired the school and the professors to perform a service. So I have absolutely no problem with referring to professors by their first name. When I'm paying for a service, I'm in charge.
The piece of the article that annoys me is the laziness in and lack of etiquette in communications. It isn't necessary to use abbreviations in emails which do not have character length limitations. But if you pay attention to pop culture or advertising you'll see continual attempts to introduce abbreviations as if that is something hip or cool.
Another problem you'll see is that the same thing is happening in posted articles on supposed main-stream news sites - use and overuse of abbreviations and regular grammar and or spelling errors. It doesn't appear that the web articles receive any form of editing or proof reading these days.
I'm one of those old timers that only went back to receive a college degree because the company I worked for flat out said, even with 7 years of history, without a college degree I couldn't be promoted any higher. That is one form of job place discrimination that is considered perfectly acceptable.
So in my late 30's I completed my degree, and one of the only classes that I felt I received any value from was a course on technical / business writing. The class showed that when you're writing either for presentations or training or documentation, the key was to focus the style and content for the intended audience. So the same document might be written in different ways if the audience was sales versus development, but don't use jargon or abbreviations for an audience that doesn't have the context to know what they mean.
That is the one text book I actually did not sell back after completing the class and I still have and sometimes refer back to it.
Sounds a bit like the Palm (later HP) WebOS where the underlying core was Linux but it used a version of node.js to provide the connection between the UI/Apps and the OS.
I would just be happy if they would allow you to make permanent the setting to view the pages in desktop mode not in mobile mode.
Firefox at least allows you to alter the user agent so on a large tablet you get the desktop page, not Chrome.
You have to click a check box and reload on every page to get the desktop view.
Debian + XFCE4 is what I've always used.
But didn't we see that if they are using systems like this that a thief could steal the money by intercepting the transmission?
Please please please go after the "Is Kimberly" there Indian call centers. Every single freaking day we get at least one call from those annoying ----
How could you forget Neverwinter Nights that gave more than a modding, it was a complete toolkit for the creation of whole new games? They published details of all data files and model formats, the community was awesome. Some modules were so good Bioware provided a forum for developers to sell them.
That was completely destroyed by Neverwinter Nights II where Atari decided to go with a gaming engine that used proprietary models and masked data file formats so that they could try to sell modules and addons themselves which failed miserably.
Would love to have a toolkit like that again with an enhance 3D engine and an improved scripting language. I spent many hours playing on custom servers and designing my own out.
This so frustrates me. We do not have to get CO2 levels down to 350ppm to be safe as you put it. CO2 levels rising are not a direct threat to your life, it just changes the distribution of flora and fauna across the planet and potentially changes coastlines and weather patterns.
CO2 becomes toxic at levels of 1%, at 10% it can cause respiratory paralysis which can lead to death. Current CO2 levels are around 387ppmv which equates to roughly 0.0387%. So suffocating in an open space due to atmospheric CO2 levels would require those levels to increase 30x what they are now or roughly 10000 ppmv and there is no science that says CO2 levels will increase that much.
Now, yes a storm or rise in sea level could change your coastline and wash away your house, but coastlines changes and storms have been happening every since weather patterns first formed on this planet.
So yes maybe anthropogenic sources of increased CO2 might be causing concentrations to rise faster than they would have without it. But it is not a direct threat to you, indirect and inconvenient perhaps, but it doesn't make you any less safe than you are now.
Colleges and Universities (at least in the US) exist to support colleges, universities and professors. And I have heard former professors say the same thing, not just people like me.
The university system does not prepare students for work in the real world, it simply teaches them some basic theory. It isn't until a person gets out of school and goes into an apprenticeship model (depending on the career path) that students learn anything useful. The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed. All the degree shows is the candidate is willing to waste 4-5 years in a classroom.
I hit a glass ceiling 10 years ago, the company I worked at (where I was considered one of, if not the top, technical leader) said I could not get promoted without a degree, so I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file. I had to show them during labs. And these were the same people that would apply for jobs I had posted claiming they had Master Degrees and were deserving of higher salaries. The head of the Computer Science department asked if I would consider coming back and teaching after I graduated.
What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.
Consensus governance will likely never work in diverse societies, there are just too many opposing views and opinions. The places where it does work tend to be very homogeneous (aboriginal tribes in Canada for example).
Some governments have limited forms of consensus but simply stated there are just too many people who are too lazy to get involved and become learned in the issues. They'd rather listen to platitudes and 30 second attack ads and pull a lever.
Actually I think the United States started out correct, where each State was supposed to be allowed to govern their citizens however those citizen decided. The union of states was only meant as a means of defining a single entity to the outside world, but each State was supposed to be sovereign. Prior to the war between the States (which was completely un-Constitutional, there was not and still is no prohibition in the Constitution barring a State from seceding, so by the 10th Amendment a State has that right, but I digress), we were referred to as These United States, afterwards we became The United States.
Looking at what is happening around the world where there are riots and protests by those who have lived off government redistribution that can no longer be sustained, I wonder if the problem is simply that large, diverse populations simply can not exist as a single nation, that maybe small city states where like minded people can congregate is not a better long term survival model?
Wait I'm confused, you make the point that A basic income has no preconditions for working, then you give a number for currently available handouts at around $600 and say that basic income in your view is $1000 (only about $400 more) but you also say if that isn't enough people could work for more.
So I'm confused, isn't this exactly how things are today? There is a group of people living off basic handouts from the government and a group of people that have decided they want more than the basic so they work for more. But now the first group is screaming how it is unfair the working group has more and the government should take it away and spread it out.
So maybe I'm missing something, but what you describe is exactly what is happening right now, except you left out the part where those on the basic level who don't want to work still want more.
As others have pointed out, the Preamble does not bestow any powers, it is merely an introduction.
Now, inside the Constitution in the actual details, that phrase also exists in the Taxing and Spending clause (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1), but is always taken out of context.
The text of the clause is:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Notice what follows the general Welfare -- of the United States (and this means the collection of States, not a federal republic).
Our nation was founded as a union of independent sovereign States. At the time of the writing each State had its own laws, own rules and many had their own currency. The Constitution was written to recognize those States were sovereign, but would come together collectively for defense and dealing with external nations. Prior to the civil war we referred to ourselves as these United States, after that war (which may also have been un-Constitutional since there is no prohibition against States leaving the union, so the 10th Amendment gives them the right to do so) we became known as the United States.
So the clause refers to the welfare of the States. There is absolutely no authority granted to the federal government to deal with welfare of the people. None of the so called entitlement programs is backed by Constitutional authority, neither are areas like education or EPA regulations that apply only to instate resources. Congress claims all of these powers under the Commerce Clause.
So no, the Constitution does not grant the federal government any say in the welfare of the citizens of the States.
Ok, so say Oracle does end up destroying the Java community and you get your wish that Java dies, what replaces it?
Java is huge in corporate development because Java provides a complete ecosystem. It is a supported platform, there are large numbers of trained developers, it has a huge pool of good quality external components available from the Apache projects for example. It works.
You can go from zero to a working webservice, complete with connections to a database in a couple of hours. With some decoration you can change that from being XML based to JSON based.
You can build 3D games, using OpenGL that perform remarkably well, so long as your target platform supports OpenGL (not a Java issue).
And you can do all of this in one language, with one development kit, some well known, well defined add-on libraries that you can deploy to multiple operating systems. Or you can use a number of other languages, if you prefer to code in a different style and don't like the wordiness of Java the language. Java the platform gives you this ability.
Call it the new Cobol if you like, be all smug. Doesn't matter to all the companies using it and developers making a living coding in it.
I would really like to know what could replace this? I have been concerned since the Oracle take over and have been trying, for example, to find an alternative to a simple webservice world.
Today I can download, unzip and fire up Tomcat and I'm ready to write code, or I can use Jetty and embed an HTTP server and servlet engine in my jar file and make it a single jar deployment. Yes I know, I have to install a JVM, which is a simple download and install. You do the same with Ruby, Python, Perl or PHP. With C/C++ you don't need a runtime, but you have to code for cross platform usability.
I've looked at Apache with modules and CGI, tried out Node.js and Seaside (Smalltalk). I've looked at RoR and some of what is available in the Python world. I'm even seeing what it takes to build a web server (using PocoLib) with a connected V8 Javascript engine for scripting (I'm aware of the V8CGI project that makes a module for Apache, but on Windows, I use the MinGW toolkit, not Microsoft tools, and I've not be able to successfully get that whole stack to build, Poco builds out of the box).
But none of these has the complete environment Java and Java frameworks offer.
So, for all of you wishing Java would go away, please, what is a complete replacement?