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

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

[Jeff Brown]

In article <5tvvsj$lh2$1@news2.digex.net>, ell@access2.digex.net (Ell) writes:
> Brett J. Stonier (bretts@brightwood.com) wrote:
 
> The "better" does not always win out, witness VHS over Beta, other cars
> over the Tucker, etc, etc.

if someone mentions VHS over Beta one more time i think i will scream!
get over it!

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

[Patrick Doyle]

In article <5u2arn$gpt@sun585.failife.com.au>,
Jeff Brown <jeffb@unconfigured.xvnews.domain> wrote:
>In article <5tvvsj$lh2$1@news2.digex.net>, ell@access2.digex.net (Ell) writes:
>> Brett J. Stonier (bretts@brightwood.com) wrote:
> 
>> The "better" does not always win out, witness VHS over Beta, other cars
>> over the Tucker, etc, etc.
>
>if someone mentions VHS over Beta one more time i think i will scream!
>get over it!

  The trouble is not that people mention it.  The trouble is that
they are made to mention it by people who claim that better technology
will win out in the end.  Get mad at them.

 -PD
-- 
--
Patrick Doyle
doylep@ecf.utoronto.ca

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

[Robert Dewar]

<<  The trouble is not that people mention it.  The trouble is that
they are made to mention it by people who claim that better technology
will win out in the end.  Get mad at them.>>

But it is a bad example. The critical factor in the VHS victory was that
it came out with longer playing tapes earlier, at a time when tapes were
still quite expensive. True, the image quality was not as good, but that
was not what mattered most to consumers.

Thus this even it really much better cited as a simile for cases where
technical folk misunderstand customers needs, and concetrate on aspects
of what they see as quality which in fact are unimportant.

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

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

> The "better" does not always win out, witness VHS over Beta, other 
> cars over the Tucker, etc, etc.

For comp.land.ada, "Edsel" might bo over better  :-)

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

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

> > The "better" does not always win out, witness VHS over Beta, other
> > cars over the Tucker, etc, etc.
> 
> For comp.land.ada, "Edsel" might bo over better  :-)

Someone stole the 'g' from my keyboard.  :-)
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
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Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Brett J. Stonier]

Ell wrote:

> The "better" does not always win out, witness VHS over Beta, other
> cars
> over the Tucker, etc, etc.
>
> By hanging in there, doing there thing and opening people's eyes,
> perhaps
> the runner ups can "take the hill".  [Btw, for me Burger King does
> make a
> better burger.  That is until I give up meat.] I generally find it
> useful
> when I'm given another perspective versus the hegemonic, or dominant
> ones
> (which doesn't mean I necessarily agree however).
>
> Elliott
> --
> "The domain object model is the foundation of OOD."
> "We should seek out proven optimal practices and use them."
> See SW Modeller vs SW Pragmatist Central:
> http://www.access.digex.net/~ell

Since everyone is trying to give me a technological history lesson,
let's examine that for a second.  Has Burger King's or Pepsi's efforts
to defame their #1 competitors been successful?  Last I checked, they
are both still very much #2.  So, what we learn from this is that when
the #2 tries to dethrone the #1 by directly attacking it, it doesn't
seem to work well.

Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.  Did they attack the U.S. car
industry?  I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think they did.  They
made superior cars and sold them at a reasonable cost.  And they made a
huge dent in the U.S. car industry, knocking them off their throne of
dominance.  So, it seems to be possible to take the high road and still
win out.

This high road is not what I've been witnessing in these threads and
from Meyer.  I am interested in Java and play with it, but I am
certainly not so delusional as to think it has yet fully arrived, is
suitable for air traffic control systems, or will ever solve the world's
problems.  Yet when Eiffel proponents denounce it as a toy or a sham,
they insinuate that those who use it are not intelligent enough to make
the proper choice.  And this will cause resentment towards Eiffel among
Java users (quite a few people, these days!), which is (I believe) the
exact opposite of what they are trying to achive.

Brett S.
http://www.mtjeff.com/~calvin/devhbook

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

[Jon S Anthony]

In article <34059D8A.3F3B7FA4@brightwood.com> "Brett J. Stonier" <bretts@brightwood.com> writes:

> Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
> Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.  Did they attack the U.S. car
> industry?  I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think they did.  They
> made superior cars and sold them at a reasonable cost.  And they made a
> huge dent in the U.S. car industry, knocking them off their throne of
> dominance.  So, it seems to be possible to take the high road and still
> win out.

This is the _only_ way to win out in the end.  It may well be that
this won't be sufficient, but anything else is a sure-fire elixer for
absolute failure for the reasons you cite.  In this particular case
you site, I happen to know that indeed there were no such attacks.

The main reason why this might not be enough is two fold:

1) there needs to be "enough of a win"

2) the _customer_ needs to twig that there is such a win.

By 2) I don't mean the _manufacturer_ (coder, whatever), but the "end
user".

[some, imo, highly accurate stuff about BM and the E-Jihad, snipped]

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
OMI, Belmont, MA 02178, 617.484.3383 
"Nightmares - Ha!  The way my life's been going lately,
 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari

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

[James P. White]

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

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

[Paul Johnson]

In article <34059D8A.3F3B7FA4@brightwood.com>, bretts@brightwood.com says...
>
>Ell wrote:

>Since everyone is trying to give me a technological history lesson,
>let's examine that for a second.  Has Burger King's or Pepsi's efforts
>to defame their #1 competitors been successful?  Last I checked, they
>are both still very much #2.  So, what we learn from this is that when
>the #2 tries to dethrone the #1 by directly attacking it, it doesn't
>seem to work well.

Avis did rather well with "we try harder".  I don't think you can read 
too much into this.

>Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
>Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.

They were not competing in a standards war.

Imagine that the Japanese cars, for some strange reason, had to be 
right-hand-drive models whereas the US standard is left-hand-drive (I 
do hope I've got that the right way round).  How many cars would they 
have sold then?

>I am interested in Java and play with it, but I am
>certainly not so delusional as to think it has yet fully arrived, is
>suitable for air traffic control systems, or will ever solve the world's
>problems.

Some people are not as enlightned as you.

Also, I think you might forgive us some frustration.  Eiffel has been
around now for over 10 years, but is still very much a minority language.
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 criticised on.  
Aaarrrggghhhh.

>Yet when Eiffel proponents denounce it as a toy or a sham,
>they insinuate that those who use it are not intelligent enough to make
>the proper choice. 

So what do we do?  Shut up and be smug about how we know so much better?

Java, I notice, is being hyped as an improvement on C++ (which it is).
Why can't we hype Eiffel as an improvement on both?

Paul.

-- 
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+44 1245 242244         +-----------+-----------------------------------------+
Work: <paul.johnson@gecm.com>       | You are lost in a twisty maze of little
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Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Dennis Weldy]

 I would suggest this approach:
come up with a way to tie Eiffel to the Web. Were it not for the web, would
Java have such a large following?

Another query: is there an Eiffel compiler (EDK) which I can download?

Dennis


Paul Johnson wrote in article <5u61fk$e23$5@miranda.gmrc.gecm.com>...

>In article <34059D8A.3F3B7FA4@brightwood.com>, bretts@brightwood.com
says...
>>
>>Ell wrote:
>
>>Since everyone is trying to give me a technological history lesson,
>>let's examine that for a second.  Has Burger King's or Pepsi's efforts
>>to defame their #1 competitors been successful?  Last I checked, they
>>are both still very much #2.  So, what we learn from this is that when
>>the #2 tries to dethrone the #1 by directly attacking it, it doesn't
>>seem to work well.
>
>Avis did rather well with "we try harder".  I don't think you can read 
>too much into this.
>
>>Now, how about an example of superior technology that won out?  Take the
>>Japanese car manufacturers of the 80s.
>
>They were not competing in a standards war.
>
>Imagine that the Japanese cars, for some strange reason, had to be 
>right-hand-drive models whereas the US standard is left-hand-drive (I 
>do hope I've got that the right way round).  How many cars would they 
>have sold then?
>
>>I am interested in Java and play with it, but I am
>>certainly not so delusional as to think it has yet fully arrived, is
>>suitable for air traffic control systems, or will ever solve the world's
>>problems.
>
>Some people are not as enlightned as you.
>
>Also, I think you might forgive us some frustration.  Eiffel has been
>around now for over 10 years, but is still very much a minority language.
>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 criticised on.  
>Aaarrrggghhhh.
>
>>Yet when Eiffel proponents denounce it as a toy or a sham,
>>they insinuate that those who use it are not intelligent enough to make
>>the proper choice. 
>
>So what do we do?  Shut up and be smug about how we know so much better?
>
>Java, I notice, is being hyped as an improvement on C++ (which it is).
>Why can't we hype Eiffel as an improvement on both?
>
>Paul.
>
>-- 
>Paul Johnson            | GEC-Marconi Ltd is not responsible for my
opinions. |
>+44 1245 242244         +-----------+--------------------------------------
---+
>Work: <paul.johnson@gecm.com>       | You are lost in a twisty maze of
little
>Home: <Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk>    | standards, all different.
>
>.
> 

The language is beside the point (was: The great Java showcase)

[John G. Volan]

Paul Johnson wrote:
> 
> Also, I think you might forgive us some frustration.  Eiffel has been
> around now for over 10 years, but is still very much a minority language.
> 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 criticised on.
> Aaarrrggghhhh.

Here's my theory on why Java is exploding right now: It isn't the
language or any of its compilable features that's driving the
juggernaut.  Trying to compare the Java _language_ eature for feature
with any other language (be it Eiffel or Ada or C++ or whatever) is a
futile exercise and is entirely beside the point.  The real keys to
Java's success are:

(1) its model of execution, embodied in the Java Virtual Machine,
offering the tantalizing prospect of "write once, run anywhere," its
security model, etc., etc.

(2) the large set of standardized _libraries_ that come with Java
allowing you to easily do all sorts of nifty things on the Internet.

Or at least that's the hype. You can of course debate how well Java
succeeds in these two areas, whether Java byte codes really are portable
across competing JVM's, whether Microsoft or Sun will win the class
library wars, etc.  My point is that if you're fighting a language war
based on language features, you're missing the point.  

In short: "It's the Internet, stupid."

-- 
Internet.Usenet.Put_Signature 
  (Name       => "John G. Volan",
   Employer   => "Raytheon/TI Advanced C3I Systems, San Jose, CA",
   Work_Email => "jvolan@ti.com",
   Home_Email => "johnvolan@sprintmail.com",
   Slogan     => "Ada95: World's *FIRST* International-Standard OOPL",
   Disclaimer => "My employer never defined these opinions, so using " & 
                 "them would be totally erroneous...or is that just "  &
                 "nondeterministic behavior now? :-) ");

Re: The language is beside the point (was: The great Java showcase)

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

John G. Volan wrote:
> Here's my theory on why Java is exploding ....  The real keys to
> Java's success are:
> 
> [two factors that IMHO should be valued]

But (again IMHO) probably of greater influence overall 

 (3) It looks like C.  

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
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Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: The language is beside the point (was: The great Java showcase)

[Robert Munck]

On Tue, 2 Sep 1997 19:35:18 GMT, "W. Wesley Groleau x4923"
<wwgrol@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> wrote:

>John G. Volan wrote:
>> Here's my theory on why Java is exploding ....  The real keys to
>> Java's success are:
>...
> (3) It looks like C.  

Also smells like C.

Bob Munck
Mill Creek Systems LC

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

[Brett J. Stonier]

Paul Johnson wrote:

> Avis did rather well with "we try harder".  I don't think you can read
>
> too much into this.

Ah, but did they say "We try harder than those lazy Hertz guys."?  "We
try harder" is a positive statement that doesn't create defensiveness
and hostility.

> They were not competing in a standards war.
>
> Imagine that the Japanese cars, for some strange reason, had to be
> right-hand-drive models whereas the US standard is left-hand-drive (I
> do hope I've got that the right way round).  How many cars would they
> have sold then?

Exactly what do you mean by a standards war?  A fight to become the
standard programming language of choice?  I don't see that as a
standards war, like CORBA vs. COM, where one winning out precludes the
use of another.  Java getting really popular shouldn't keep people who
want to from using Eiffel.  Did you mean something else?

> So what do we do?  Shut up and be smug about how we know so much
> better?
>
> Java, I notice, is being hyped as an improvement on C++ (which it is).
>
> Why can't we hype Eiffel as an improvement on both?

No, if Eiffel is as good as you guys say, you *need* to hype it.  You
just need to do it more diplomatically.  I'd suggest something along the
lines of "Java is great for certain purposes, but Eiffel is better in
these situations for these reasons."  What I see come from Meyer and
others is more like "Java is a piece of crap, and Eiffel is the key to
the universe."  Cocky, sour grapes like that are not going to win *me*
over.  Most of the respondents to my original reply have given Java some
credit, saying things like "Well, Java's not evil; its a pretty good
language.  Its just that Eiffel is much better."  Run with *that*
attitude!

Brett S.
http://www.mtjeff.com/~calvin/devhbook

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

[Paul Johnson]

In article <5u6ovi$5kb$1@news2.digex.net>, ell@access4.digex.net says...
>
>Paul Johnson (paul.johnson@gecm.com) wrote:
>: In article <34059D8A.3F3B7FA4@brightwood.com>, bretts@brightwood.com says...
>: >
>: >Ell wrote:
>
>I did NOT write ANYTHING in this post.  <-- Except this.

Sorry about that.  The phrase "Ell wrote:" was written by "bretts", who's
post I was quoting.  I deleted Ell's text, but failed to delete the
attribution at the top.

Paul.

-- 
Paul Johnson            | GEC-Marconi Ltd is not responsible for my opinions. |
+44 1245 242244         +-----------+-----------------------------------------+
Work: <paul.johnson@gecm.com>       | You are lost in a twisty maze of little
Home: <Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk>    | standards, all different.