Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

James Rogers writes:
> Marin David Condic wrote in
> 
> 
> > Add to that the presence of available class libraries and Ada comes up
> > short there as well. While Ada does have some standard libraries and
> > it has various open source libraries available out on the net and
> > vendors provide libraries of their own invention, its not the same as
> > someone looking at what Java provides just by virtue of being Java.
> > 
> 
> I would rephrase that. Java standard libraries do not exist due to the 
> intrinsic nature of the Java language. They exist because Sun Microsystems
> has poured millions of dollars into the development of Java standard
> libraries.
> 
> While Java is a very useful tool, it is good to remember that Java is
> owned by Sun. It is a proprietary product. Just ask Microsoft, who
> recently paid Sun $700,000,000.00 in the settlement of a lawsuit
> regarding Java.

Yes.  I would add that Java standard libraries cannot exist because
Java itself is not a standard; it is just a nonstandard specification
by some vendor.

At least by my definition, a "standard" is an official document
published by an official standards body such as ISO, ANSI, W3C, IETF,
or IEEE.

For Java and its libraries to become "standard", Sun would have to
submit their specification to the ISO.  They won't do that because
they'd lose control over the specification.  But, at the same time,
their PR department uses the word "Standard" all over the place, in
order to confuse the unwary and make them believe there is no vendor
lock-in with Java.  These are lies.

But all this is nitpicking.  Marin is right in saying that Java
appears to have more leverage to people who won't spend time choosing
the best tools for the job.  They would like an all-in-one,
one-stop-shop solution for most of their problems, and Java does
provide that while Ada doesn't.  Unless... you consider Debian :)

BTW, who needs a JVM when there is Linux running on all kinds of
hardware, from cell phones to mainframes?  Linux provides all the
hardware abstraction necessary, without the run-time cost of a JVM.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.