Linux and Java
Discussion
Plotloss said:
Yeah I can just see Bill Gates and co just throwing in the towel.
'Right lads, we're beat, we just cant compete...'
As if. "Adopt, adapt, improve" is the motto at Microsoft. Well, actually it's the motto of the Round Table if Python is to be beleived. Witness Microsoft Java, then J#, then C#.
Microsoft couldn't control Java - it was proprietary and not theirs - so they came up with something similar and easy to cross-train to.
I predict C# and .NET making a reasonable impact on some areas that Java would otherwise have been used for.
JonRB said:
Yeah I can just see Bill Gates and co just throwing in the towel.
'Right lads, we're beat, we just cant compete...'
"Adopt, adapt, improve" is the motto at Microsoft. Well, actually it's the motto of the Round Table if Python is to be beleived. Witness Microsoft Java, then J#, then C#.
Microsoft couldn't control Java - it was proprietary and not theirs - so they came up with something similar and easy to cross-train to.
I predict C# and .NET making a reasonable impact on some areas that Java would otherwise have been used for.
With SystemC (and stuff like it) in the wings, I can't see a future without C in some guise or another.
Maybe that is synonymous with Javascript, but Java is all about the byte code as well. If I were looking to the future trying to choose a suitable class of mnemonics, with perhaps video or higher order objective commnication and brokerage in mind, i'd not be thinking of JBC.
chrisjl said:
dilbert said:
With SystemC (and stuff like it) in the wings, I can't see a future without C in some guise or another.
Yes, C is here to stay, but why the reference to SystemC? It's a whole different kettle of fish, not intended (or suitable) for writing applications in.
Yes, but syntacticly the languages are similar, like C and Java, and since SystemC offers inherent concurrency, it seems likely that any of the emergent fine grain concurrent architectures will demand something of that nature.
There are few languages in the mainstream that offer the potential to migrate in future. Even if C dies in the short term, when fine grained concurrent architectures arrive on the scene, it's quite possible that SystemC will rise with them.
I'm talking about the time when a program can define it's own instruction extensions. These might be single cycle vector operators or single cycle database lookups. Who knows?
However it arrives, it won't make sense to have two different languages to do it. This is the reason SystemC exists, despite VHDL and such.
If a platform allows a program to do this, who needs java byte code?
C has vision. It had vision way before Java existed. The way I see it, Java is quite neat, but it's just a stopgap.
>> Edited by dilbert on Thursday 24th March 23:27
GreenV8S said:I've also been doing java commercially for 7 or so years and I can't see why not. In recent years java is just as performant as C++. Sun's JMF (Java Media Framework) is supplied to do just this sort of thing and contains class for use in video capture.
I know Java reasonably well (7 years, gee has it really been that long?) and it sure as wouldn't be my language of choice for video capture!
As for Java being write once and crash everywhere... what nonsense. The whole point of java is that it's an OO language that you can write in one environment (such as windows) and deploy to a different one (such as unix). I've written applications and web applications that have been deployed under different OSs that they have been written under and they have worked just fine.
As for it being slow and desperatly fussy... it's as quick as C++ and certainly as quick as c#. It's certainly not trivial given that it's an OO language but I don't think that it's over fussy. It's simpler IMO to the alternatives.
I agree that C# will be used in places where Java would have been used but I see that as being influenced by there being a lot of ex-C++ developers who predominantly coded under windows kicking about and not because it's better. Certainly any organisation who uses it is ill-advised, in my opinion, to lock themselves into a windows platform when there's no need but each to their own.
At the end of the day I'll code in whatever language people pay for but having done 6 years of commercial C I'd much rather use java to develop in and I'd much rather maintain someone elses code written in java than C. The thing I like about it is that it's powerful and transparent enough that I can focus on the design and not have to worry about working out some minutae of tha language.
Regards,
Mark
I'm not out to convince you that Java is the wrong choice for what you're doing, that is not for me to say.
But my experience of Java has been very different from yours. Maybe this is because we're using it for different things. I've had endless problems caused by poorly designed APIs and naive implementations, and I've come to hate thewits at SUN for the amount of grief they've caused me. These problems will only hurt you if you happen to rely on those features. But it is also not particularly scalable, and I think this would be a problem if you tried to do something memory and CPU intensive like video processing. Anyway, mustn't be bitter, Java is still probably a good thing to have on your CV.
But my experience of Java has been very different from yours. Maybe this is because we're using it for different things. I've had endless problems caused by poorly designed APIs and naive implementations, and I've come to hate the
wits at SUN for the amount of grief they've caused me. These problems will only hurt you if you happen to rely on those features. But it is also not particularly scalable, and I think this would be a problem if you tried to do something memory and CPU intensive like video processing. Anyway, mustn't be bitter, Java is still probably a good thing to have on your CV.i stopped hands-on coding back in the cobol days, apart from some rather baroque shell-scripting when i first got into unix.
however, people whom i do business with - who know about such things - all speak very highly of java, especially when in comparison to .net.
there are plenty of very robust java applications out there which would seem to testify to java's scalability and robustness. plus, its portability is a major attraction.
try out www.fluxcorp.com, for example.
however, people whom i do business with - who know about such things - all speak very highly of java, especially when in comparison to .net.
there are plenty of very robust java applications out there which would seem to testify to java's scalability and robustness. plus, its portability is a major attraction.
try out www.fluxcorp.com, for example.
egoboss said:
however, people whom i do business with - who know about such things - all speak very highly of java, especially when in comparison to .net.
No doubt these people have well founded reasons for their opinion. However I think there is also a cultural predisposition to the view that Microsoft = huge evil corporation and Java = warm fuzzy community owned technology. Many people seem to form an emotional attachment to the idea of Java, this seems to be more common among academics and other people who have been trained on it but never had to earn a living from it. Coming from a Unix background I hate the Microsoft monopoly with a vengeance but I have to say that when they set out to do something they generally seem to make a decent job of it. In comparision, Sun's efforts with Java look distinctly amateurish to me. I just wish they'd stop barraging us with new features, frameworks and APIs and sort out the stuff they already do, once and for all.
Example: memory management. As a programmer I don't like to lose control of important things like this, but OK Javasoft know best. I've lost count of the number of times they've redefined the JIT, profiling and debugging interfaces, all sort of remote JVM management features now, and a dozen or more different garbage collection algorithms to choose from. But still the default virtual memory ceiling is ridiculousy low and if your application is in any danger of running out of resources then it has to be hand-tuned for each machine it is installed on. Sorry, no: if you're going to take responsibility for something this important I expect you to do a decent job of it.
Sorry, this unexpectedly turned into a bit of a rant, I'll shut up now. I feel better for that anyway! D
GreenV8S said:
however, people whom i do business with - who know about such things - all speak very highly of java, especially when in comparison to .net.
No doubt these people have well founded reasons for their opinion. However I think there is also a cultural predisposition to the view that Microsoft = huge evil corporation and Java = warm fuzzy community owned technology. Many people seem to form an emotional attachment to the idea of Java, this seems to be more common among academics and other people who have been trained on it but never had to earn a living from it. Coming from a Unix background I hate the Microsoft monopoly with a vengeance but I have to say that when they set out to do something they generally seem to make a decent job of it. In comparision, Sun's efforts with Java look distinctly amateurish to me. I just wish they'd stop barraging us with new features, frameworks and APIs and sort out the stuff they already do, once and for all.
quite agree; sun seemed to lose the plot when they (in my opinion) wrongly disbanded their "sunsoft" subsidiary. was poor timing but sun was still deluding itself thinking it would take over the desktop as well as the back-end server markets. in the end, it simply compromised itself in both camps.
however, the java community seems more objective than the linux community. the linux crowd often seem to assume a holier-than-thou attitude with regards to microsoft. i converted an old sco xenix laptop of mine to suse linux recently and whilst it is ok it is hardly going to threaten the mac or m'soft world. plug and play is a pre-requisite nowadays; i am too old and life is too short to mess around with finding/downloading drivers, etc. for the first time ever i am seriously considering an apple - that imac g5 is the most beautiful design i have seen, pc-wise and the desktop ergonomics are a new benchmark.
i also find the anti-microsoft stance taken by some techies to be rather juvenile and hostile. for a huge global company they (microsoft) are pretty damn nimble and most of their products are bloody good.
a close friend of mine has made several million pounds from software (he's a nice guy also, the swine!) and whilst he had to develop in .net for commercial reasons, he far prefers native c and java.
oh, and at home he only uses apple.
sums it up, i suppose.
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