From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 10a640,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid10a640,public X-Google-Thread: f79bb,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gidf79bb,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,953e1a6689d791f6 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public From: "Chris Trimble" Subject: Re: Eiffel and Java Date: 1996/10/29 Message-ID: <01bbc540$c2d26dd0$7f1018ce@barrington>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 192879579 references: <550sm2$sn1@buggy.news.easynet.net> content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: I am the walrus mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.sather,comp.object,comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.clos,fr.comp.objet Date: 1996-10-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: I see we meet again, Mr. Bon... I mean, Xelph... :-) Jean-Michel P. Decombe wrote: : I believe that Java is not the death of other languages. Java : demonstrates that it's possible to write a language which : is really platform-independent and "distributed". Java hasn't really proved the latter to me; it has yet to show real platform independence for more than trivial applets (and even a lot of those). Python and Tk offer far more powerful multi-platform solution than Java/AWT. Here's a good example... Netscape 3.0, on my NT 4.0 box, runs a Java applet well; NS 3.0, on my SGI Indigo2 R4400, runs it like an absolute dog. The true proof of Java's platform dependence came about two weeks ago. Marimba, the epitome of all Java startups, released their new software for just two platforms -- Win32 and Solaris. Am I supposed to buy that Sun's solution is really platform independent when their ex-rock-stars can't deliver for tens of millions of Windows 3.1 users and Macintosh users? : Nothing prevents Meyer from writing a new version of Eiffel, : totally portable and based on a Virtual Machine, then port : this VM on a large number of platforms, including a JITC, etc. Sounds like a good idea to me. Very good platform independence is possible if someone is willing to take the time. Is Eiffel desired on enough platforms it's not on already to warrant the port is the real question at hand. I kinda doubt the answer is a resounding yes. : Java is just the beginning of a new era, but it's certainly not the : language who will necessarily win in the end. Thank god. : For now, it's the only one to do what it does, thus it's the : "current" winner... YUCK! Java may have more books on the shelf right now, but I wouldn't even call it the current top dog language wise... it still isn't much more than a slightly better and less featureful C++ with really crummy standard packages. There are plenty of better solutions that can be had with Python or even just PERL or Tcl tying some C code together. Java, as a language, offers no advantage at all for the serious OO projects being done in Eiffel, Smalltalk or Ada. Plus, thanks to NeXT and WO/EOF/D'OLE, Objective-C seems to be a big contender for Java's potential static language market. And, hey, Objective-C is more dynamic than Java... even as a static language! :-) Java has no real home... it's neither very dynamic nor a very good static language. That is why its days are numbered. - Chris Ps - I've plugged Python twice in this post, but it is really worth plugging: http://www.python.org and news:comp.lang.python to find out more.