Has Sun Given Up on the Desktop?

Hey Marc, BradO here. Comments below:

"Marc Latham" <mlatham23@yahoo.com> wrote:
>As a developer and application designer I avoid writing or specing applications
>that use Java for 2 reasons 1) the applications run in intrepreted mode
and
>are as slow as molassas

Hmmm...not my experience, but possibly poorly developed.

>2) The base of developers writing in Java is so small
>that it is hard to get good developers at a reasonable cost.

Are you serious? There is a huge base of Java developers out there, and
in fact, a recent survey showed that Java is the #1 requested programming
languages by employers. I can't remember where I saw that survey, but I
recently read it. But in addition, I know of many Java developers who are
looking for work! I think compared to something like VB the cost of a developer
might be different, because the skill level required is greater. There were
many non-programmers that became VB programmers, which sounds great, but
was probably to its detriment in many ways. The cost of a VB programmer
will be less than a Java programmer on average.

>Also as a developer I don't want to ship my source code in an open format,
>I spend 2 years writing something and then have some big corporation steal
>it and use it no thanks. The best way to prevent code theft is not to expose
>the code. Also from a supportability issue if the users can open the code
>and modify it how the heck am I supposed to support them when the code they
>are running may not even match the original distribution.

Well, to someone really determined, there will nearly always be a way to
steal. There are decompilers for many languages on the Net, and Java is
no exception. Obfuscation, as another poster mentioned, is an option, but
that leads to the "security by obscurity" debate, which is a huge tangential
argument that you can engage in in many places on the Web. This is kind
of the Napster/RIAA/digital content/DMCA issue all over again -- how do you
solve the problem of theft when the item in question can ALWAYS be stolen?
Do you sink millions into a technology to protect you partially? Do you
withhold your product from your market entirely? Do you incent people to
not steal? Or do you do nothing and hope for the best? Good questions...if
you solve the problem, let the RIAA know... :-)

Cheers,

BradO

Hey Uwe, BradO. Comments below:

"Uwe W. Radu" <uradu@cdc.net> wrote:
>Pretty much. Just check out some of the flagship apps, such as Borland's
>JBuilder, which pushes Swing about as far as it will go. They're very sluggish
>applications, both in terms of overall response, as well as little GUI things,
>such as mousing over menus or toolbars and feeling like trying to run in
>honey. The GUI is not quite crisp and keeping up with experienced users.

I think it is hard to cite JBuilder as an example of Swing failure. Most
users who are satisfied with the functionality provided rave about it (and
I would as well, for what features it provides). And in addition, it is
raking in $1k-$5k/license (depending on edition purchased), so the community
must not be wholly disappointed.

>
>The other main problem is startup lag. Java apps have a lot of startup overhead,
>including the constant time to load the JVM, which becomes particularly
noticeable
>with small to medium-sized apps. Let's face it, such apps are the bread
and
>butter of corporate development: tons of custom programs to massage data
>or display odd reports to this or that manager or department. These apps
>might be run so frequently that having any significant lag can become very
>annoying after a while.
>

I continue to be fascinated by the "startup lag" issue. Sure, lag isn't
desirable. But this is a one-time hit, and it is minimal. Consider the
other performance hits we incur commonly and accept: loading of a web page,
downloads, refreshing virus definitions, etc. It isn't that I am trying
to justify lag, just showing a different perspective on it. Is this one
time lag (which can be minimized by shrewd design) enough to completely throw
out a fantastic technology, that solves huge problems in portability across
platforms? And let's not forget, we tolerate everyday, in some cases many
times a day, the ultimate violator of "startup lag" -- any version of MS
Windows. It is hard for me to take startup lag complaints seriously (and
still perform other tasks simultaneously) when we all fill our coffee cups
while Windows boots. (Ok, a bit of hyperbole, but you see the point...:-)

Cheers,

BradO

I tried in 2000 the Forte 4 Java tool produced by Sun and it was crappy at
most... Garbage collections that halted the app every 10 minutes on a system
with 256 Megs of RAM (that's 2 and a half years ago), slow response times
(does anyone remember the rule of 1/10 of a second?). Last autumn I tried
Forte v3 and I was amazed: even scrolling was much improved; the secret?
Some of the code (the performance critical parts, I guess) seem to have been
converted from Java to C (I'm talking about some internal classes that have
vanished from the source code of Swing from one version to the next one; the
same thing seems to have happened with Forte). Where's the performance of
the JVM? Where's the portability? Can Sun handle the task of converting (and
maintaining) the Java code to platform specific C code for every bottleneck
in it's APIs?
I wish we had a truly component-oriented GUI framework that was well
designed, performed well on any platform and let me focus on my application,
not on common problems faced by every GUI developer. I think it's not going
to be Swing, because the JVM as it is today, has yet to be improved when it
comes to performance issues (Swing it's reasonably well designed and Java
does work on many platforms); it might be .NET, because it has reasonably
good performance (the CLR performs way better than the JVM from many points
of view), .NET Framework is quite well designed although there's room for
improvement and it has the potential of becoming platform independent
(although MS will never support this).
As a developer, I try to keep pace with both of these worlds and do whatever
my customers want me to do. At this moment, when it comes to desktop apps, I
do reccomend .NET Framework since it outperforms Swing and, let's face it,
most of the people have Windows on their desktop.
Best regards,
Ovidiu.

<Q>
As a developer, I try to keep pace with both of these worlds and do whatever
my customers want me to do. At this moment, when it comes to desktop apps,
I
do reccomend .NET Framework since it outperforms Swing and, let's face it,
most of the people have Windows on their desktop.
</Q>

And MS thanks you for working to keep it that way. And I (and developers
like me) thank you for not providing competition to our applications.

It really isn't difficult to teach users how to keep often used applications
open and how to navigate to them.

"MarkN" <M@n.com> wrote in message news:3d870914$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> <Q>
> As a developer, I try to keep pace with both of these worlds and do
whatever
> my customers want me to do. At this moment, when it comes to desktop apps,
> I
> do reccomend .NET Framework since it outperforms Swing and, let's face it,
> most of the people have Windows on their desktop.
> </Q>
>
> And MS thanks you for working to keep it that way. And I (and developers
> like me) thank you for not providing competition to our applications.
Basic (MS, why not?) philosophy: go where the money is...

> Basic (MS, why not?) philosophy: go where the money is...

That is my point. Why not target a wider (and future) audience?

"Marc Latham" <mlatham23@yahoo.com> wrote:
>As a developer and application designer I avoid writing or specing applications
>that use Java for 2 reasons 1) the applications run in intrepreted mode
and
>are as slow as molassas 2) The base of developers writing in Java is so
small
>that it is hard to get good developers at a reasonable cost.

LOL that's funny. The number of Java developers just continues to grow as
does the demand for Java. Just do a nation wide search on Monster.com and
you will see that there are just about 2 Java jobs for every 1 VB job.

It seems that .Net has not created much in the way of NEW opportunities for
Microsoft developers. That is not to say that existing shops are not using
it, but it has not been the Java killer MS hoped it would be... not even
close.

Rob

"MarkN" <m@N.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Basic (MS, why not?) philosophy: go where the money is...
>
>That is my point. Why not target a wider (and future) audience?
>

Not to mention the VB market is dead.

"Uwe W. Radu" <uradu@cdc.net> wrote:
>
>> Surely the CLR is very similar to the JVM?
>
>No, not really. There is no VM in .NET (though planned, I hear), only a
JIT
>compiler. Secondly, .NET apps can be compiled two ways, either at run-time,
>or at installation time. I'd say common usage once .NET hits the masses
will
>probably favor the second approach for obvious performance reasons.

In the compile at runtime model you mentioned, .Net apps are compiled Just
In Time. So yes the CLR is very much analogous to the Java JVM which also
JIT COMPILES to native code.

Bruce,

There are third party compilers that do just what you say. The problem being
that Java performance just isn't that bad anymore. I'll take the default
distribution myself. It's great to have the all native option though.

Rob

"Bruce Attah" <bruce.attah@afang.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Uwe W. Radu" <uradu@cdc.net> wrote:
>I agree. It has always seemed obvious to me that this is the way Java should
>be distributed, but Sun doesn't seem to like the idea, for some reason.
Back
>in the dark ages, Pascal was originally succesful because it was distributed
>as a "P-code" compiler and a P-code virtual machine. Great portability was
>a big attraction, but then it gained a reputation for slowness, and C became
>more popular. Sun should learn from history. Portability at the source code/intermediate
>code level, coupled with speed on actual delivery is the way to win.
>
>What's more, if they think about it, the Java-to-native compiler-installer
>could have a few bells and whistles attached that would attract developers.
>What if the compiler implemented protocols to check the byte-code somehow
>(the signature concept could be fed a course of steroids, since installation
>is a relatively infrequent thing) to ensure that it was what it said it
was,
>or check that the user was suitably registered or otherwise qualified before
>installing anything? Users and developers would both love this.
>
>

> It seems that .Net has not created much in the way of NEW opportunities
for
> Microsoft developers. That is not to say that existing shops are not
using
> it, but it has not been the Java killer MS hoped it would be... not even
> close.
You're right... or not. Think about it this way: .NET is 7 months old (I'm
not talking about the marketing logo, I'm talking about the framework, the
development tools and so on). Where was Java 7 months after it's first
release version? Cleaning up the AWT mess? Swing wasn't even at the design
stage at that moment, to get back to the original point... .NET does all
Java does and it does it somewhat better (imo, surely you'll say a different
story).
If I'm right, you'll be learning .NET programming in a couple of years. If
not, then I'll switch entirely to Java (I already know Java so it won't be a
severe shock for me). So what?
Ovidiu.

>
> That is my point. Why not target a wider (and future) audience?
>
Why not work with both .NET and Java and adapt myself to my customers'
needs?

"Ovidiu Platon" <ovidiupl@microsoft-lab.pub.ro> wrote:
>>
>> That is my point. Why not target a wider (and future) audience?
>>
>Why not work with both .NET and Java and adapt myself to my customers'
>needs?
>
>

Replace 'needs' with 'wants' then ok. If the customer wants (demands) .Net
then I will give that to them.

For apps I have the choice in, I will [usually] use Java because I can target
a wider audience - and I need to. It will give my clients choice - they
can choose and change their operating system (client and server) and any
support software. They can pay for what they want for whatever comfort level
they want.

The offical release is that old(young). But .Net really is much older. It
had Java to learn from. How long has it really been in development? We
won't learn the truth but I suspect right about the time MS was trying to
fork Java.

And it doesn't do all that Java does. It does have some features Java doesn't.
Not anything Java isn't going to have or doesn't need. .Net may do everything
you 'need' to do and so seems to be able to everything Java does. For at
least one - it doesn't run on z/OS.


"Ovidiu Platon" <ovidiupl@microsoft-lab.pub.ro> wrote:
>> It seems that .Net has not created much in the way of NEW opportunities
>for
>> Microsoft developers. That is not to say that existing shops are not
>using
>> it, but it has not been the Java killer MS hoped it would be... not even
>> close.
> You're right... or not. Think about it this way: .NET is 7 months old (I'm
>not talking about the marketing logo, I'm talking about the framework, the
>development tools and so on). Where was Java 7 months after it's first
>release version? Cleaning up the AWT mess? Swing wasn't even at the design
>stage at that moment, to get back to the original point... .NET does all
>Java does and it does it somewhat better (imo, surely you'll say a different
>story).
> If I'm right, you'll be learning .NET programming in a couple of years.
If
>not, then I'll switch entirely to Java (I already know Java so it won't
be a
>severe shock for me). So what?
> Ovidiu.
>
>