MS, AT&T, IBM

[Phil Weber]

> Comments? (What if all the MS Mensan's had gotten
> behind Java & J2EE? Where would computing be today?)

Mark: I believe MS tried that with Visual J++, arguably the best Java
implementation for Windows at the time, and Sun shot them down. I wonder if
we would even have .NET today if Sun had been willing to compete, rather
than go running to the courts?
---
Phil Weber

[Phil Weber]

> So you trust MS with your private info?

Mark: What private info? All that's required to obtain a Passport is an
e-mail address and password.
---
Phil Weber

[Mark Jerde]

Phil,

> I believe MS tried that with Visual J++, arguably the best Java
> implementation for Windows at the time, and Sun shot them down. I wonder if
> we would even have .NET today if Sun had been willing to compete, rather
> than go running to the courts?

I think we discussed this awhile ago... ;-) That whole situation could have
gone much better for users...

Hey, as long as I'm dreaming, what if MS & IBM had finished OS2 together?
For the time it seemed to be a pretty good OS.

-- Mark

[Mark Jerde]

Phil,

> What private info? All that's required
> to obtain a Passport is an
> e-mail address and password.

I was referring to the wallet. From
http://www.passport.com/Consumer/default.asp

"Store information in .NET Passport wallet
that will help you make faster, safer online
purchases at any .NET Passport express
purchase site."

-- Mark

[Paul Linville]

I remember a talk given by Don Norman. (Worked at Apple, wrote the book "Things
that make us smart" web site at http://www.jnd.org) He pointed some of
the other technologies that where not as good but became the defacto standard.
VHS vs Beta. QWERTY keyboard. DC vs AC power. The LP Record vs the A
cylinder type media for recording sound.

The last one is interesting. The record had one simple advantage, it was
much easier to store. Could you imagine storing a couple dozen cylinders
without some kind of silly contraption taking up alot of space? But just
think how things might have been different if a solution had been found.
Might harddrives, CD's ect look different and behave different today?

I bring this up within this discussion because I believe Java succeded for
two reasons. The minor reason is it's portability. Yea, that probably got
the suites on board with the mysthical fantastic ROI. But if it had been
difficult to program/maintain it wouldn't have gone much further than a historic
side note to the web. What really made it shine, IMHO, is that it is easy
to program in. Garbage collection and full object orientation along with
good base classes make it usable to a wide varity of programmers. Add to
that the syntax that is very close to c/c++ and alot of press hype and you
have a winner.

C++, VB and the others all have there strengths and weaknesses but all are
more difficult to write AND maintain especially in the rotating developer
world we live in.

VB can be very hard to maintain since there are so many ways to do basically
the same thing.
The bang (obj!fieldname vs obj.fields("fieldname").value) and sub calling
are just two examples.)

And, as had been said before, (because many of us REALLY wanted it to happen)
if Sun and MS could have worked it out, things could be really good right
now. Or maybe not.

At any rate, I believe .NET will succeed not due to it's technical merits
alone. It will be how useful the majority of programmers (and, hopefully,
not just windows programmers) find it. The funny thing is what determines
it's success or failure might come down to something not even known at this
point.

I can see that one of the hyped features, the ability to use mulitple languages,
could actually hurt .NET. This could very easily cause a maintanence nightmare
if not handled correctly. Imagine a project with perl, fortran, cobol, vb,
c# and c++ managed with possibly a bit of ADA thrown in. Any body else see
a problem?


>The technology graveyard is full of many tools/technologies that were(and
>maybe still are) much better than their surviving [existing] counterparts.
> And considering that, since .Net is so much better than anything else,
beware!
>
>

[Rob Teixeira]

"MarkN" <mnuttall@Nospam.com> wrote:
>
>Not defending Sun, but I don't think (conjecture) that MS's purpose was
to
>get behind Java ('tried') as it was to keep developers tied to them and
Windows
>- a really good preventative measure.

Gotta agree on this one. I believe the whole J++ thing was really an attempt
at trying to keep Java programmers on Windows. Having said that, at the time,
the J++/Windows combo was the best GUI development support for Java.
So basically, the dev community got screwed due to bad actions on the part
of both companies. MS' agenda was to keep Java on Windows, and Sun, instead
of learning from MS and integrated/expanding Java, sought to stamp out the
changes outright, simply because it was a MS rivalry thing.

>>I wonder if
>>we would even have .NET today if Sun had been willing to compete, rather
>>than go running to the courts?
>
>Nope. As I gaze into my crystal ball I see we would have WindowsJava and
>Java.

Yep. MS wasn't willing to concede and neither was Sun, so most likely you'd
see two different products. On the other hand, you can see .NET as the natural
extension to that competition - IOW: the second product that was bound to
happen anyway.

-Rob

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 20:31:22 EST, Mark Jerde
<mark.jerde@spicedhamverizon.net> wrote:

>Comments? (What if all the MS Mensan's had gotten behind Java
>& J2EE? Where would computing be today?)

First, I welcome a viewpoint which roughly corresponds to my own.
Second, I do not dislike, loathe, hate, whatever, the individuals at
Microsoft, no matter what each and every one of them do, from the
lowliest tea boy to the chief himself. I'm sure that individually each
and every one strives to do a good job. But I loathe the way Microsoft
is insinuating itself like a veritable behemoth into all corners of
computing, now also to include games computing, and who knows what
next. I believe that monopolistic business practices tend to suppress
innovation, because no small startup feels as if it has a leg to stand
on when faced with such a mighty adversary as Microsoft, let alone
obtain any venture capital.

This is not good for consumers.

The internet is free. But Microsoft appears to be trying every way it
can think of to make people pay for transmitting or receiving data
over it. If there were a multitude of alternatives from which
consumers could choose, then by definition we wouldn't be talking
about 'functional monopolies'.

This is not good for consumers.

The only Promised Land I see is one dominated by Microsoft's .NET
hegemony, which may end up excluding anyone who refuses to sign up to
Passport or participate in .NET My Services. I believe the full
functionality of certain aspects of XP is available only after signing
up? Correct me if I'm wrong on this, because, surprise, surprise, I do
not have XP!

The Promised Land as envisaged by Microsoft is not good for consumers
as it will stifle what little choices they have left.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 22:05:40 EST, Mark Jerde
<mark.jerde@spicedhamverizon.net> wrote:

> Why can't we all get along? <g>

Because Sun and the others put quality at the top of their list and
not features. Ford had amazing success with the Model T. There were a
few things you could say about it. It was simple, therefore any garage
could repair it. It was cheap, therefore most anyone to afford one. It
was reliable, and they sold about 15 million of them.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:14:48 EST, Mark Jerde
<mark.jerde@spicedhamverizon.net> wrote:

>This is my viewpoint; this is my plea. Convince me otherwise.

The Bill Gates memo "We must do better" says it all:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-817343.html?legacy=zdnn

MM

[MarkN]

kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk (Mike Mitchell) wrote:
>On 18 Jan 2002 15:32:05 GMT, "Paul Linville"
><paullinville@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I can see that one of the hyped features, the ability to use mulitple languages,
>>could actually hurt .NET. This could very easily cause a maintanence nightmare
>>if not handled correctly. Imagine a project with perl, fortran, cobol,
vb,
>>c# and c++ managed with possibly a bit of ADA thrown in. Any body else
see
>>a problem?
>
>Well, yes, now that you mention it!
>
>MM

Me too. Well not for VS.NET and C# and VS.Perl and VS.Python since MS wrote
them or hired people to do it.

[balanbe]

kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk (Mike Mitchell) wrote:

>First, I welcome a viewpoint which roughly corresponds to my own.
>Second, I do not dislike, loathe, hate, whatever, the individuals at
>Microsoft, no matter what each and every one of them do, from the
>lowliest tea boy to the chief himself. I'm sure that individually each
>and every one strives to do a good job. But I loathe the way Microsoft
>is insinuating itself like a veritable behemoth into all corners of
>computing, now also to include games computing, and who knows what
>next. I believe that monopolistic business practices tend to suppress
>innovation, because no small startup feels as if it has a leg to stand
>on when faced with such a mighty adversary as Microsoft, let alone
>obtain any venture capital.

Thanks Mike. This makes some sense. I was confused when people bash Microsoft
for all the good things it brings forth. Now I get the point. We do not want
Mic to be everywhere.


>The Promised Land as envisaged by Microsoft is not good for consumers
>as it will stifle what little choices they have left.

I am not worried about it. Any promised land as envisaged by anyone, anyone,
other than Jesus is a trash bag anyway.

BB

[MarkN]

>[Microsoft Basic: 1976-2001, RIP]
Now if we could just easily get rid of this Zombie VB Classic code.

[MarkN]

"balanbe" <balanbe@balcha.eth> wrote:
>
>kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk (Mike Mitchell) wrote:
>
>>First, I welcome a viewpoint which roughly corresponds to my own.
>>Second, I do not dislike, loathe, hate, whatever, the individuals at
>>Microsoft, no matter what each and every one of them do, from the
>>lowliest tea boy to the chief himself. I'm sure that individually each
>>and every one strives to do a good job. But I loathe the way Microsoft
>>is insinuating itself like a veritable behemoth into all corners of
>>computing, now also to include games computing, and who knows what
>>next. I believe that monopolistic business practices tend to suppress
>>innovation, because no small startup feels as if it has a leg to stand
>>on when faced with such a mighty adversary as Microsoft, let alone
>>obtain any venture capital.
>
>Thanks Mike. This makes some sense. I was confused when people bash Microsoft
>for all the good things it brings forth. Now I get the point. We do not
want
>Mic to be everywhere.

Playing many different sports isn't bad. Dirty pool is.

[Karl E. Peterson]

Yeah, what's next? Quality? <rolling eyes>
--
[Microsoft Basic: 1976-2001, RIP]


"Mike Mitchell" <kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3c486246.2652815@news.devx.com...
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:14:48 EST, Mark Jerde
> <mark.jerde@spicedhamverizon.net> wrote:
>
> >This is my viewpoint; this is my plea. Convince me otherwise.
>
> The Bill Gates memo "We must do better" says it all:
>
> http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-817343.html?legacy=zdnn
>
> MM

[Kunle Odutola]

"Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote in message
news:3c4844c8$1@147.208.176.211...

> Gotta agree on this one. I believe the whole J++ thing was really an
attempt
> at trying to keep Java programmers on Windows.

Oh, I thought it was attempt to keep _Windows_ programmers on _Windows_
even when they used Java to develop their applications. Entirely sensible I
would have thought. After all, by refusing to de-merge the language and the
platform, Sun was trying to tie _Windows_ programmers who use to it's own
proprietary platform - the JVM.

> Having said that, at the time,
> the J++/Windows combo was the best GUI development support for Java.
> So basically, the dev community got screwed due to bad actions on the part
> of both companies. MS' agenda was to keep Java on Windows, and Sun,
instead
> of learning from MS and integrated/expanding Java, sought to stamp out the
> changes outright, simply because it was a MS rivalry thing.

Sun sought more than that. To Sun, software it just a way to sell more
hardware - it *needs* 100% Pure Java. I prefer .NET and later editions of
J++ that gave me the choice.

> >Nope. As I gaze into my crystal ball I see we would have WindowsJava and
> >Java.
>
> Yep. MS wasn't willing to concede and neither was Sun, so most likely
you'd
> see two different products. On the other hand, you can see .NET as the
natural
> extension to that competition - IOW: the second product that was bound to
> happen anyway.

Or a product that could be extended to do what either wanted. MS would have
been happy to get this but Sun wasn't for good reason since most JVMs (from
all vendors) run on Windows and developers would use those
extensions...erm...extensively. ;-)

It's a market share thing....

Kunle