Re: The Joy of Java
At 7:51 AM 4/27/96, Dan Busarow wrote:
At Usenix 96 in San Diego it was pointed out that applets are an abberation. This is a complete language designed to displace C++, Visual Basic and other OO languages. Thinking of Java as simpy a Web enhancement tool is short sighted.
Personally it is more attractive than C++ for product development and we are trying to get it on FreeBSD, SCO UnixWare and SCO OSR5. Using Java for applets _only_ is like fucking your mother... Most of us are not into it.
Ignoring the gross violation of the CDA, I agree. I think of it (and so do a lot of others) as: - a cleaned-up C++, with features of Smalltalk, Objective-C, and Lisp - a tool with built-in hooks for Net-centric computing - some safety features that distinguish it from C++ and the like - a bytecode/virtual machine approach that means the same code can be run on any platform for which a VM exists (the key to applets, but also the key to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15 years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS) Is it safe to run untrusted applets on your machine? Probably not. Running strange programs probably is never safe. I don't view this as something any new language is likely to solve, unless it's a language with such limited expressability as to be "safe and boring." As Perry has noted, financial institutions can ill afford to have applets being dropped into their main computers unless they are safe and secure. Not too surprising. But, then, they also have other security issues they constantly have to deal with that others don't. I suspect the safety issues will continue to crop up, but will be dealt with in other ways. The signed classes approach, the approaches used in E, etc. Netscape's limits on what applets can do, for example, may be extended in other ways (a kind of firewall approach?). To borrow a viewpoint, I don't expect the Java-based gargoyles in "True Names" to be "trustworthy"...TANSTAAFL. --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."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <ada79e9200021004908e@[205.199.118.202]>, tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote:
I think of it (and so do a lot of others) as:
[snip]
- a bytecode/virtual machine approach that means the same code can be run on any platform for which a VM exists (the key to applets, but also the key to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15 years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)
What a horrifying thought! UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good. And you're *advocating* Java? - -- Alan Bostick | They say in online country there is no middle way mailto:abostick@netcom.com | You'll either be a Usenet man or a thug for the CDA news:alt.grelb | Simon Spero (after Tom Glazer) http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMYe70+VevBgtmhnpAQHqSwL/fUn6cf7YD8fZygWqEt6EY6jBA3++oPK4 j03Q2oMundOrbNZhyyb5dLwpANIfBcf+iw+s20LephsTmIaM7Y161pmgNpeNbvs6 mPVTftkDZ2su3FevG2j1nEH7J0Umlbx4 =XEHR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
(No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this list anymore) abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) writes:
to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15 years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)
What a horrifying thought! UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good.
My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.) --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, dlv@bwalk.dm.com writes:
(No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this list anymore)
(but then, some of us have no life... )
My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)
Also remember that UCSD P-system was around $800 and CP/M-86 was over $100, while PC-DOS was somewhere under $50. This was the early-mid 80's, and the dealer had just hit the purchaser for $1200-$1500 for the computer with _no_ OS included. It's no surprise that the least expensive OS won. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy@cybrspc.mn.org PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey@cybrspc.mn.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMYg6vhvikii9febJAQFIYwQAhf/NINh9Qmdc2Et9gflbwg8Lg38e7FJQ znkK43Qz2ySYgPy6l9lkNeJqP0kCjAiObhLI8BWM88BU9/Q64Kp99qhoEnbZmxfy ezAmRpNNeviro+Cj0wvGElbwo7UQ3q8347BuWaOjXCTE5zyELifZPGONTd019oz1 NrmWo8Y9P10= =K9m8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)
When the first IBM PC came out, I ran QNX on it, a Unix clone from a company called "Quantum." It did full pre-emptive multitasking, had a nice C compiler, and shared code between tasks, all on a little 8088 with two floppies and no hard drive and 768k of ram. We even had "talk", and I could chat with people who dialed the modem I had hooked to my serial port, and they could log in and do work on my system at the same time I did. When MS-DOS first appeared, the quantum people kindly provided DOS emulation for QNX and I could simply type "DOS", and read DOS disks and run DOS programs. Ultimately, however, as new and "improved" versions of DOS appeared, with obtuse features, and almost every app using them, I finally bowed to the march of progress and installed DOS 3.1 on my system. A giant leap backwards into the dark ages. QNX is still around, by the way, and I believe its primary market is now embedded real-time systems, where its highly responsive and optimized kernel can be exploited. Whenever I think of how nice QNX was, I recall Bill Gates' comment about the true power in the software industry being not technical excellence, but being big and strong enough to set industry-wide standards and enforce them by fiat. It's now over 10 years later, and DOS still can't multitask. Obviously there's no accounting for taste. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $
"Dimitri" == Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
Dimitri> (No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this Dimitri> list anymore) Ditto. I've tried to apply some Java relevance though. Dimitri> abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) writes:
to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15 years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)
What a horrifying thought! UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good.
Dimitri> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM Dimitri> PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems Dimitri> right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM Dimitri> didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It Dimitri> won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two Dimitri> were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much Dimitri> better.) This is half incorrect. PC DOS was released with a lead time of about 9 months prior to the release of the other O/Ses. This was enough to give it a market share it has never looked back on. There was plenty of speculation in PC Magazine and Byte that this was *exactly* what IBM intended all along. It helped that the alternatives were delivered as virtual cripples with no support software as well. The P-System released for IBM PCs was less functional than the Apple ][ version that ran on 64 or 128k with bank switching, even by the time of DOS 2.0. About the only application it ever really had was Context MBA which was quickly overtaken by Lotus 1-2-3 & company. I wrote three disk device drivers for the Apple ][ UCSD P-System based on documentation of dubious origin, and hated every second of it. Much of the interface was hidden, and (on a 6502 remember) reserved all of the precious 0 page for its own use. It was a half-interesting idea, but definitely in the same class with PC-DOS -- How Not to Write an Operating System. The Java relevance would be that given the current lead in marketing Sun has, even if a technically superior solution arose right now, it might have enough of a disadvantage in lead to never catch up and become popular. Technically superior products don't always win, look at MS DOS/Windows/NT/95 and VMS, albeit from opposite ends of the technical superiority spectrum. -- steve@miranova.com baur Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour. Andrea Seastrand: For your vote on the Telecom bill, I will vote for anyone except you in November.
On Wed, 1 May 1996, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote:
My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)
I always had been under the impression that they charged a hundred dollars or more for CPM as opposed to DOS which was also a major reason for its popularity. Bruce Marshall
participants (7)
-
abostick＠netcom.com -
Bruce M. -
dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
mpd＠netcom.com -
roy＠sendai.cybrspc.mn.org -
Steven L Baur -
tcmay＠got.net