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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,f66d11aeda114c52 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,f66d11aeda114c52 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: nino@complang.tuwien.ac.look-in-sig (Marinos J. Yannikos) Subject: Re: Critique of Ariane 5 paper (finally!) Date: 1997/08/09 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 263108239 References: <33E503B3.3278@flash.net> <33E8FC54.41C67EA6@eiffel.com> <33E9B217.39DA@flash.net> <33EA5592.5855@flash.net> <33EB4935.167EB0E7@eiffel.com> <33EB754E.446B9B3D@eiffel.com> Organization: TU Wien E185/1 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel Date: 1997-08-09T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <33EB754E.446B9B3D@eiffel.com>, Bertrand Meyer wrote: >[...] >There is no such implication, which would be foolish. >Microsoft has said they would not support the Java Foundation >Class libraries. This does not mean they are not making >Java itself available; but it does break the myth of total and >automatic Java portability. Since the JFC are written in 100% Java, Microsoft couldn't prevent them from working unless they didn't offer "Java" (but something resembling it only, instead). However, to my knowledge, the dispute between Microsoft and Sun is focused on Microsoft's announcement to make sure that Java "works best or only" on their operating systems, thus intentionally breaking its portability. The article on news.com about this was strange, since the actual wording went similar to this: "we, Microsoft will make sure blah blah... but the death of Java's portability is inevitable anyway, i.e. they seemed to justify their plans with the inevitability of their effects (even though noone else had announced such intentions at that time). In any case, "total and automatic portability" is a bit vague, since it doesn't clarify whether you mean the design or the implementation. The design itself is mostly (sadly, not entirely, as some of the details in the Core API are implementation-dependent as far as I can tell) portable. I don't think that intentionally non-portable implementations can change that. (besides, in Microsoft's case, there's always the JDK and JWS for Windows from Sun to run JFC programs on) -nino -- Please change the last part of my address to "at" if you're replying by mail.