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

[paul.johnson@gecm.com (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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