Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 13:22:58 -0600 (MDT) From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Sean Eric Fagan <sef@kithrup.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sweet dreams are made of this... Message-ID: <199710141922.NAA08321@rocky.mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <199710141817.LAA22953@kithrup.com> References: <Pine.A41.3.95.971014094547.16712B-100000.kithrup.freebsd.chat@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co> <199710141817.LAA22953@kithrup.com>
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> > > >http://www.sun.com/announcement/letter.html > > This is, really, no real big deal, although Sun is trying to make it so. Actually, it *is* a *REALLY* big deal. Java has gotten some much 'press/hype/attention' lately as "the" best solution to many problems that the recent fragmentation of the language/support is very important to many folks who are considering using Java for their intra/internet solutions. > Sun is claiming a violation in their contract; they are, most likely, going > to win, because they do get to say what goes in "Java." Maybe, it depends on the conditions of the license they signed with M$. > However, that doesn't make Sun *right* -- they've been looking for a reason > to sue uSoft for a *long* time, and this probably thrilled them. And M$ has been looking for a chance to make Java into 'just another language', and not a cross-platform solution, which would mean that WinTel solutions are no longer the 'end-all' solution. > Netscape reportedly doesn't pass Sun's conformance suite either -- and a > good question is, does Sun's implementation pass Sun's conformance suite? Netscape doesn't claim to be JDK 1.1 compatible, and yes Sun's ipmlementation does pass the conformance suite. The conformance suite is defined as the passing the 'signature' test, meaning it provides the same functions with the same parameters and returns types as defined in the JDK. > What uSoft has done is not included a couple of classes, for their own > reasons. That's not smart, but I can't fault them, really. Not a whole > lot. Sorry Sean, but you obviously don't know the whole story. What M$ has done is to modify some core classes to have different signatures (meaning that if you rely on them for things such as Java serialization) things don't work. They've also made some M$ specific classes part of the java hierarchy, which means that programmers can un-knowingly make their programs non-portable (most notably in the Font area). *Plus*, they have refused to implement RMI and JNI, which is more than 'a few missing classes', it's part of the VM implementation. > Of course, I also haven't fallen for the hype that is Java these days. > It's interesting, but I dislike a bunch of things about it. It's better > than C++, but, really, what isn't? :) And it is lacking in some respects, > even when compared to C++. Please, let us in on your thoughts as to what it's lacking. I use Java exclusively at work, and I can name a few. 1) Stability - it changes more than FreeBSD-current. :) 2) A working debugger 3) Compatible VM/AWT implementations on the major platforms (Solaris/Win32) Even Sun's reference implementation aren't compatible with one another. 4) 3rd party 'browser' support for newer implementations (see #1) 5) Speed (JIT's are starting to make a difference here) 6) Decent support from 3rd party software. Since Java is still alot of hype, it's too easy to get a job as a 'Java programmer' w/out understanding all the issues that can kill you with multi-threading. It's not a walk in the park. It's strengths, IMHO. 1) I can be a unix weenie and developer software for Win32. This makes me happy, and my managers happy. 2) Dynamic memory allocation is a breeze, and now *most* of the significant hard-to-find bugs no longer exist. 3) Threads are pretty cool. :) 4) It's *alot* like C. 5) It's an OOP language. (I never really thought I'd consider this an advantage, but having done this for a year now, I am starting to see some advantage of writing in an OOP language vs. writing OOP style in a non-OOP language such as C.) 6) It's not C++!!! Nate
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