I find myself agreeing with nearly all the points about Java that Larry is making, so something may be wrong.... At 8:58 PM 6/4/96, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: ...
I suppose if I was over 40 and worked in a conservative wall street firm, I'd have a totally different view. maybe Java is all about a generation gap in computing. hey!! the first language that the "older generation" hates. sounds like a good reason to go after it, sort of like rock-n-roll and Woodstock suddenly being aged and uncool.
This can't be the whole story. I'm 44, and Java looks pretty damn exciting to me, too. Not exciting to stand elbow-to-elbow and be trampled the crowds at Moscone Center for Java One, but exciting enough to get the Metrowerks Java compiler for the Mac and half a dozen or so of the Java books (some of which are even pretty good--I most like "Core Java" and the Gosling book). I don't have the energy or time to write a Detweiler-length article about Java (though I think I did a month or so ago), but will say that I think the security problems are, first of all, no worse vis-a-vis the language itself than problems with any language. For me, the main attraction of Java lies not in the applets, but in the Net-centric model that makes, in theory (and hopefully in practice) a Macintosh roughly the equal of a Sun or SGI or Pentium. Until Java and associated programs and tools appeared, I was seriously thinking about getting a Pentium or Pentium Pro (shudder, even though I admire my former employer and current stock benefactor, Intel) and putting Linux on it. Now I feel more confident that the Mac is a viable competitor in a Net-centric world. Java may be the Great Equalizer (something Sun may come to regret). Perry has some valid points vis-a-vis the most naive uses of applets. Were I the security manager of Morgan Stanley, I would certainly not want traders downloading "kewl" applets and (possibly) causing Big Problems. So what else is new? Java as a language and as a platform-independent implementation is an achievement. As for Scheme and Smalltalk, both mentioned by Perry, I have both of these and of course neither has caught on a big way. I won't even speculate about the many reasons. And in some ways a more important comparison is to Perl and TCL, along with more obscure languages like Python and REXX. The welter of Net-oriented languages shows signs of being much-simplified by the wide adoption of Java. It will be interesting to watch the next several years of developments. -- Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."