Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

["James P. White" <jim@pagesmiths.com>]

Silvio Calissi wrote:
> 
> Paul Johnson wrote in article <5u61fk$e23$5@miranda.gmrc.gecm.com>
> >Sun come along with Java, and suddenly it makes more progress in 1 year
> than
> >Eiffel has in its entire existence, despite being clearly inferior to
> >Eiffel on every ground that Eiffel has ever been criticized on.
> 
> Why did companies like SUN, MS, Borland, ... support JAVA instead of another
> (better) language. Do you think that they are stupid ? How can they be
> ignorant that this leads to the second historic mistake ?
> I really like to know some opinions on this.

*sigh*

Just to remind everyone again, a fundamental reason for Java's huge
current and future success is that Java is targeted to a platform
independent byte code delivered across networks in a secure manner (the
JVM - Java Virtual Machine).

A huge amount of debate rages around Java defeciency in not being the
perfect language.  It isn't, nor is it even possible to create such a
beast (remember the Tower of Babel?).  

And while Java as a language has some merits, it is a world beater and
destined for greatness because the JVM is the platform which enables the
age of the network (the one we are in the beginning of now) as x86/DOS
was for the IBM PC (which was the platform which enabled the age of the
personal computer which now history, and Intel and Microsoft won the
war).

An interesting footnote in this is the UCSD Pascal p-System which was a
platform independent system.  It was quite popular and enjoyed fair
success (without any marketing) and there was even a computer which had
a p-code CPU.  It's success came from being able to interoperate (at a
performance penalty) across all the popular platforms of the day (Apple
II, Z-80 CP/M [the x86/DOS of the day], DEC LSI-11, and quite a few
others).  It was wiped out by the IBM PC which made all those platforms
commercially uninteresting (and also spawned Turbo Pascal).

It remains possible that such a scenario could play out again.  The real
battlefield for this whole conflict is who will own the standard for the
winning platform in the 1billion unit installed base which is the
product of the network age (it will be dominated by set top boxes, smart
TVs, and NCs; personal computers as we know them will be less than 20%
of the entire market).  Microsoft has made all the right moves to
undercut the all-but-certain path that the JVM had for that and is
making great strides in shifting the direction back to Windows (CE that
is).  The WebTV is quite significant in this strategy and the outcome of
their $425million acquisition (it was supposed to be final but
apparently Justice is realizing maybe they made a mistake, which they
did in allowing it).  

But even with Windows CE being the OS winner, the JVM remains the
solution for application software because WinCE is CPU independent and
runs on the many different processors used in consumer electronics.  So
Microsoft plans to replace x86/DOS/Win with JVM/WinCE, and it is quite
likely the way it will turn out (naturally I would prefer a simple JVM
world, but then no one asked me...).

jim
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
James P. White                        Netscape DevEdge Champion for IFC
Director of Technology Adventure Online Gaming http://www.gameworld.com
Developers of Gameworld -- Live Action Role-Playing and Strategic Games
jim@pagesmiths.com        Pagesmiths' home is http://www.pagesmiths.com