Saw it coming

[Kunle Odutola]

"Kunle Odutola okocha.freeserve.co.uk>" <kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS> wrote in
message news:3cbd62d8@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Mark" <vb.@127.0.0.1> wrote in message news:3cbd586a$1@10.1.10.29...
> >
> > >We have been here before. VS.NET is cool and could do more.....I wish
it
> > had
> > >full J2SE suppor though ;-)
> >
> > Why? If VS.Net and .Net are so much better? And since everyone is using
> > Windows there is just no need to do anything else.
>
> As a general-purpose storage device, magnetic disks are so much better
than
> magnetic tapes. Random acess to any data on the disk in seconds

Erm...that should be something like...."Random acess to any data on the disk
instantaneously...."

[Jason]

Why would anyone want VS.NET to support J2SE? I think I can answer that.
There are things you want to run on multiple platforms. It is easier to
port these things if they run in Java.

However, Java's chief limitation is that it uses only the lowest common denominator
parts of the operating system. No registry support, no native windows GUIs,
no calls to the API.

If .NET supports Java, then you have the best of both worlds. You can write
platform independant code if you want or need to, and you can also access
all the power built into Windows.

Remember, Microsoft tried to do Java that tied into Windows, and Sun sued
them and won. Now Microsoft can't do that. FOR ME, THIS WAS A BAD THING.
I have used J++, and it has been extremely useful to me, even though it's
COM layer was half-baked. .NET has a fully baked COM layer, plus it supports
J#. This is pretty close to full J2SE support, at least enough to be useful.


Sun has declared Jihad on Microsoft. They refuse to allow Java to include
anything that would allow it to work better on any particular platform.
This limits what you can do with Java, and thus it does not fit 100% of my
programming needs (although it remains 100% pure, whatever that means).
I am not a religious man. I am a practical man. As a matter of practicality,
I'd love to see the Java standard implemented as completely as possible on
the .NET platform.

[Mike]

"Jason" <jason@creative_nospam_corp.com> wrote:
>
>Why would anyone want VS.NET to support J2SE? I think I can answer that.
> There are things you want to run on multiple platforms. It is easier to
>port these things if they run in Java.
>
>However, Java's chief limitation is that it uses only the lowest common
denominator
>parts of the operating system. No registry support, no native windows GUIs,
>no calls to the API.
>
>If .NET supports Java, then you have the best of both worlds. You can write
>platform independant code if you want or need to, and you can also access
>all the power built into Windows.
>
>Remember, Microsoft tried to do Java that tied into Windows, and Sun sued
>them and won. Now Microsoft can't do that. FOR ME, THIS WAS A BAD THING.
> I have used J++, and it has been extremely useful to me, even though it's
>COM layer was half-baked. .NET has a fully baked COM layer, plus it supports
>J#. This is pretty close to full J2SE support, at least enough to be useful.
>
>
>Sun has declared Jihad on Microsoft. They refuse to allow Java to include
>anything that would allow it to work better on any particular platform.

>This limits what you can do with Java, and thus it does not fit 100% of
my
>programming needs (although it remains 100% pure, whatever that means).

>I am not a religious man. I am a practical man. As a matter of practicality,
>I'd love to see the Java standard implemented as completely as possible
on
>the .NET platform.

Jason, think about you customer who probably will have to live with the
product you have made for many years.
By binding your applications to one platform or one database you prevent
your customer from the freedom of choice.
If in a few years time there will be Linux distribution as easy to use
as the windows platform many users will be prevented from making the
change because they have invested in applications that can only run on
one platform, and thereby lost the opertunity to save a lot of money.
Thats why Sun is protective with the Java Language and not just to spite

Microsoft.
And its not like sun trying to force everyone to use Solaris.

[Kunle Odutola]

"Mike" <micke.varn@mpab.se> wrote in message news:3cbeafe1$1@10.1.10.29...

> Jason, think about you customer who probably will have to live with the
> product you have made for many years.
> By binding your applications to one platform or one database you prevent
> your customer from the freedom of choice.

Customers are only concerned with tools that benefit them. If they find some
valuable software package that helps them in some way, they will buy the OS
that it runs on. Customers for the most part don't care to know what an OS
is really. Except one - Windows. MS has done a great job of ensuring that
Windows attracts developers in droves so, for most business problems,
Windows is a viable platform and the software that addresses the problems
almost certainly runs on Windows if it exists.

> If in a few years time there will be Linux distribution as easy to use
> as the windows platform

Ha! Ha ! Ha! -- that was a good one really. It's just that we've been
hearing it for years......

> many users will be prevented from making the
> change because they have invested in applications that can only run on
> one platform, and thereby lost the opertunity to save a lot of money.

If customers care, they will change or reject Windows solutions today. They
don't for the most part unless they already have a dependency on another
OS -- like companies that run on Unix who [have to] swear on Java/J2EE
today....

> Thats why Sun is protective with the Java Language and not just to spite
> Microsoft.

Sun needs to sell it's expensive hardware. The Java platform was [and still
it's] it's meal ticket. MS's attempts to separate the language from the
platform results in a lose of revenue for Sun's hardware business. J# and
other Java-on-.NET solutions are bad news for Sun's bottom line.

> And its not like sun trying to force everyone to use Solaris.

No. It gave up on that pipe dream. Allowing access to the source code,
giving it away for free and badmouthing Linux hasn't helped Solaris one
iota. Sun is now a Linux shop too.....shame, I would have preferred Sun to
back FreeBSD/OpenBSD [too].

Kunle

[Rob Teixeira]

"Mike" <micke.varn@mpab.se> wrote:
>
>Jason, think about you customer who probably will have to live with the
>product you have made for many years.
>By binding your applications to one platform or one database you prevent
>your customer from the freedom of choice.

Quite often, particularly in an IT situation, the customer or management
decides on the platform before you begin to do your work. That then becomes
a requirement for the effort. If their requirement is non-Windows, then Java
becomes one of the viable tools. If their requirement is strictly Windows,
there are reasons Java may not be viable.
Add to that the fact that management or the customer quite often mandates
the language as well (for maintenance purposes).

>If in a few years time there will be Linux distribution as easy to use
>as the windows platform many users will be prevented from making the
>change because they have invested in applications that can only run on
>one platform, and thereby lost the opertunity to save a lot of money.

I'll believe it when i see it

>Thats why Sun is protective with the Java Language and not just to spite
>Microsoft.

Well, that's one opinion.
However, when java sues to keep MS away from Java, then sues again for MS
to put java back, one gets the suspicion that Sun is mearly whining.
A large part of my company is a dept. that is a BEA alliance member, so Java
is a big thing there, and even they are clamouring about why Sun is being
so opposed to submitting Java as an open standard, being slow to comply with
other open standards that MS is participating in, and not including some
of the nice features found in .NET (that don't necessarily have to be platform-dependant).
I think it's quite clear if you go to a Java forum where Sun members participate
that Sun as a company *is* out to jab as many sharp objects as possible into
MS.

On the one hand, they may be protecting the consumer "choice" you speak of,
but at the same time, it's quite clear that they intend to rip as much business
away from MS as possible. Which is fine - after all, they are a business
in a very competative market, but they are bitter!
Interestingly enough, if Sun were dominant, some of their latest practices
would put them in the illegal predatory position MS is finding itself in.

>And its not like sun trying to force everyone to use Solaris.

Good. Because two quad intel pizzaboxes with Windows/SQL Server is still
WAY cheaper than the Solaris/Oracle alternative

-Rob

[Jason]

The bottom line, for me anyway:

Java is essential if you are targeting your app to run on as many platforms
as possible.

If you want to develop something that is as good as possible on Windows,
you don't use Java. You use VB or .NET or C++.

If you want to develop something on as short a schedule as possible, you
don't have a lot of time to test on multiple platforms anyway, and you need
the best RAD development tools you can get. You go with Microsoft.

If you want to develop something as cheaply as possible, Windows is a lot
easier to maintain than Unix of any flavor. The Wintel boxes are cheaper
than anything but Lintel boxes to purchase, and you have a lot more software
support on Windows (in my experience). A good team of developers can build
an application in less time if they target Windows exclusively than if they
have to live inside all the limitations of Java.

Windows is becoming more stable and more secure all the time. This is a
major deal for Microsoft, and they are making it happen. Many programs that
were written for DOS 20 years ago will still run on Windows 2000 today.
Microsoft is big on maintaining backward compatibility for applications (not
so much for languages).

The price you pay for developing for Windows is that you are forever tied
to Microsoft. In my experience, this has always turned out to be a safe
bet. For that price, you get a good product at a cheaper price.

The price you pay for developing in Java is time and money. This shows up
on the bottom line immediately. What you get back is platform independance,
which is sometimes more important than other times. What I have found, though,
is that even shops that are historically 100% Unix will install and maintain
some Windows boxes if it saves the company a million dollars and 6 months
to redevelop the software to run on Unix.

What I have also seen is that because Unix boxes are typically so much more
expensive than Windows boxes, they tend to get replaced less often. In an
industry where things double every 18 months, it does not take long for these
machines to seem very slow and outdated. For me, this means my customer
with a Windows box is very happy with the snappy performance of my product,
and my customer with a Unix box is complaining about performance problems.
Same software, written in Java. Runs better on a Windows machine. Sad
but true.

[Mike]

"Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote:
Well, that's one opinion.
However, when java sues to keep MS away from Java, then sues again for MS
to put java back, one gets the suspicion that Sun is mearly whining.
A large part of my company is a dept. that is a BEA alliance member, so Java
is a big thing there, and even they are clamouring about why Sun is being
so opposed to submitting Java as an open standard, being slow to comply with
other open standards that MS is participating in, and not including some
of the nice features found in .NET (that don't necessarily have to be platform-dependant).
I think it's quite clear if you go to a Java forum where Sun members participate
that Sun as a company *is* out to jab as many sharp objects as possible into
MS.

And yet, most other big software vendors like Oracle, BEA, Sybase, Borland
Apple, apache.org and many more seems happy with Suns effort and have managed
to succesfully create Java solutions, without getting sued.

[Ian R]

Because they developed with the language not developed the langauge.

"Mike" <micke.varn@home.se> wrote in message news:3cbfbadf$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote:
> Well, that's one opinion.
> However, when java sues to keep MS away from Java, then sues again for MS
> to put java back, one gets the suspicion that Sun is mearly whining.
> A large part of my company is a dept. that is a BEA alliance member, so
Java
> is a big thing there, and even they are clamouring about why Sun is being
> so opposed to submitting Java as an open standard, being slow to comply
with
> other open standards that MS is participating in, and not including some
> of the nice features found in .NET (that don't necessarily have to be
platform-dependant).
> I think it's quite clear if you go to a Java forum where Sun members
participate
> that Sun as a company *is* out to jab as many sharp objects as possible
into
> MS.
>
> And yet, most other big software vendors like Oracle, BEA, Sybase, Borland
> Apple, apache.org and many more seems happy with Suns effort and have
managed
> to succesfully create Java solutions, without getting sued.

[Kunle Odutola]

"Mike" <micke.varn@home.se> wrote in message news:3cbfbadf$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote:
> Well, that's one opinion.
> However, when java sues to keep MS away from Java, then sues again for MS
> to put java back, one gets the suspicion that Sun is mearly whining.
> A large part of my company is a dept. that is a BEA alliance member, so
Java
> is a big thing there, and even they are clamouring about why Sun is being
> so opposed to submitting Java as an open standard, being slow to comply
with
> other open standards that MS is participating in, and not including some
> of the nice features found in .NET (that don't necessarily have to be
platform-dependant).
> I think it's quite clear if you go to a Java forum where Sun members
participate
> that Sun as a company *is* out to jab as many sharp objects as possible
into
> MS.
>
> And yet, most other big software vendors like Oracle, BEA, Sybase, Borland
> Apple, apache.org and many more seems happy with Suns effort and have
managed
> to succesfully create Java solutions, without getting sued.

That's an interesting argument except of course that _more_ software vendors
(big and small) are happy with MS platform/development solutions. And not
one of them has ever been sued AFAICT -- not even Sun with it's WABI product
and products like PC-NFS that did far worse to MS platforms than Sun accused
MS of doing to Java.

Kunle

[Kunle Odutola]

"Mike" <micke.varn@home.se> wrote in message news:3cbfbadf$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote:
> Well, that's one opinion.
> However, when java sues to keep MS away from Java, then sues again for MS
> to put java back, one gets the suspicion that Sun is mearly whining.
> A large part of my company is a dept. that is a BEA alliance member, so
Java
> is a big thing there, and even they are clamouring about why Sun is being
> so opposed to submitting Java as an open standard, being slow to comply
with
> other open standards that MS is participating in, and not including some
> of the nice features found in .NET (that don't necessarily have to be
platform-dependant).
> I think it's quite clear if you go to a Java forum where Sun members
participate
> that Sun as a company *is* out to jab as many sharp objects as possible
into
> MS.
>
> And yet, most other big software vendors like Oracle, BEA, Sybase, Borland
> Apple, apache.org and many more seems happy with Suns effort and have
managed
> to succesfully create Java solutions, without getting sued.

Just noticed that you left out IBM and HP from that list. They have _very_
public spats with Sun over Java and J2EE. Neither was happy with the
eventual resolutions and both were very active members of the ECMA commitee
for C#/CLI.

Kunle

[Rob Teixeira]

Another sign that Sun is specifically targetting MS (and vice-versa of course).

-Rob

"Mike" <micke.varn@home.se> wrote:
>
>And yet, most other big software vendors like Oracle, BEA, Sybase, Borland
>Apple, apache.org and many more seems happy with Suns effort and have managed
>to succesfully create Java solutions, without getting sued.