Posted on 01/11/2003 8:20:51 AM PST by ShadowAce
Actually, .NET has been ported to BSD Unix ("Rotor") and to Linux ("Mono"). The BSD port means you could run .NET on your Macintosh if you wanted to.
The real advantage for .NET is its just-in-time compilation of bytecode to platform-specific machine code as the bytecode is being interpreted. Subsequent executions of a loop, or re-entry to a compiled method, execute at machine code speed instead of interpretive speed. Java, in contract, is interpreted each time through. This makes it s-l-o-w.
Yet until I needed to run your demo, I had no reason to get any recent Java downloads. How is the Java client stuff ever going to achieve critical mass on the client machines?
You mean, before today, the most recent Java you've seen was 4 years old -- yet you make such pronouncements declaring .NET better?
Okay . . .
It is impressive. Very, very impressive. My clients are blown away every day.
I guess thats like in music, where some group does the club circuit for 10 years, then suddenly the public discovers them, and the press labels them an 'overnight sensation'.
Java can indeed do all the things you thought it can't. The true irony here is that I have indeed done some C# work, and am very familiar with it. I know of what I speak. Yet you've not seen any Java recently . . .
Somehow, you've never seen any of my comments on .NET? You are so wrong about my opinion it's rather odd you have such a strong opinion. I'll repeat:
I think it's a vast improvement over any other Windows-only technology -- especially VB.NET. But there are a few realities you are *not* owning up to:
I think that I, and you, and all other developers should continue to play with it (I built a 'Jeapordy' game for our Director of QA to use in a class). Use it for small tools and such, but NO mission critical apps, until it's been heavily tested for years.
That's only common sense.
Applets are indeed more powerful -- you should look into applets. You confidently say that they're less powerful, yet you've never even seen one before.
Funny.
I think that *if* MS sticks with it, in 3 or 4 years, it will be a serious competitor. I hope they do. If it improves, I'll use it more.
Until then, I'm a Java Bigot because I use both, and know which is better. You're a .NET bigot because -- well, I wonder why. You've not evaluated Java, and are so wrong about so much you claim about it . . .
And yes, it is ironic that Java devs are better at OOA/OOD. And it is ironic that Java devs like me do better with the new MS stuff than the folks who stuck with MS. MS comes to the Java folks, not the other way around. If I was a new developer, I'd notice that the *last* group of MS-only devs -- VB developers especially -- are having to learn an entirely new paradigm (pure OO, especially). If I was a new developer, I'd notice that and assume that sticking with Java was best, because MS will come to you, leaving the Windows-only folks behind.
It's so interesting how you can have such a strong opinion about Java with so little Java exposure. My personal belief -- that alone will kill .NET. I, and most Java devs, have used .NET. Most MS developers have never even looked into Java.
Advantage, Java.
Sounds like a great reason to NOT install the .NET framework. It's just another security breech waiting to happen.
A small subset, not the entire CLR, and they'll have to continue to keep up with the changes and bug-fixes of MS.
And besides -- does anyone here really trust MS to not destroy that initiative if/when it eats into their market share?
Java, in contract, is interpreted each time through.
Haven't seen any Java for 4 years, I suppose? JVM's have been JIT compiling since Java2, back in what, 97? 98?
Why is it the .NET advocates know almost nothing about Java?
That, I think, is our greatest advantage.
My sincere apologies, sometimes I just get worked up.
And again I ask - if this Java client stuff is so great, how come you're the only one I hear talking about it? How come all the tech articles slam Swing? How come the stock analysts have trashed Sun and BEA?
And you keep talking about all the .NET you've done, but in previous threads you keep getting Windows Forms mixed up with Web Forms and other obvious mistakes that demonstrate ignorance of the technology. A Jeopardy game? Write a real rich client data app using .NET Remoting over HTTP some day - with 3000+ of those rich clients deployed.
It's true, I've had too much fun learning and using .NET the last 2 1/2 years to pay much attention to Java. But hey, if it's so great why isn't so ubiquitous that I would have needed to look at it long ago? Surely you're not the only one who knows how to write this great client stuff that your customers like so much, and you talk about how it's been available a long time. So where is it? Who's using it besides you and your gaming sites.
When I did work with Java briefly (1998 or so), I was not impressed, though I understand it has come a long way. But people whose opinion I respect and who know Java well tell me the exact opposite of what you say - that Java, while good on the server, is very deficient on the client, and that's why we don't see any mainstream client stuff in Java.
And let me say again - I want Java to do well, because I want Microsoft to have some competition. But believing it to be far superior to .NET is the way to oblivion. Microsoft is the best in the world at stealing good ideas from other products and then making the whole thing cost effective. There's a lot of Java concepts in .NET, along with a lot of good ideas from other sources. Plus Microsoft has the advantage of building their framework into the operating system so that it's guaranteed to be on a large majority of machines in a couple or three years.
On the other hand, Java has to struggle with getting their runtime distributed, and (according to everybody but you) they are behind in technologies on the client. Their good story on the server (and Java has a pretty good story there) is not going to be enough. Plus the fact that because of the way Sun handles Java (the spec process), innovation is slower. So you guys cannot afford to fall very far behind, because it's such an uphill fight to make up ground against Microsoft. If the market ever gets the idea that Microsoft has taken the lead, you're sunk. And whether or not you want to acknowledge it, the market is getting dangerously close to that point, because Microsoft is supplying the ammunition to convince them. (See the most recent Pet Shop controversy for an excellent example.)
I'm genuinely glad that you're pleasing your clients and have five years of work lined up. But I can't help remembering - that's exactly the story I got from those PowerBuilder guys in 1994 - just before their market collapsed and Visual Basic became the dominant software development tool for corporate client-server apps.
Malicious code is always a danger, but the default security settings prevent code deployed from the Internet from the access it would need to do any damage. The code access security model in .NET is one of its most powerful capabilities. It's very flexible. And the security breaches that exploit buffer overruns are not possible in .NET because of strong type checking (Java also has that capability, I believe).
However, as with stuff that comes attached to emails today, if the code is copied to the local file system, it has the ability to do significant damage, even with default settings. That can be prevented, but at the cost of locking down the client system and causing a lot of inconvenience.
Um.
My friend, what you don't know is a lot. There's a reason Java has come to completely dominate server development. And .NET challenge there? Consider -- the vast majority of servers are running Unix or Linux. How long before .NET is competitive there? How many years?
You're familiar with the Pet-Store fiasco, where MS paid for a falsified report. That kind of stuff *kills* MS among developers who aren't MS-only. MS *has* to lie, because they're losing in head-to-head comparisons every day. Java pushes data like a champ -- *the* champ.
IBM has bet the farm on Java/Linux. They're by far the biggest torch-carrier of Java these days. You think IBM is going under? Sun can die, I'd actually like that. McSqueally is an idiot. But he's already made it clear if they go in four or five years, they'll release the Java licenses into the public domain. It's already fully open-source, so no big deal.
Java is currently the best tech for server-side data pushing, period. .NET *may* catch up, in 3 or 4 years, on Windows-systems only. But it's not even close, today. Heck, .NET server (now renamed, MS already backing off .NET, interestingly enough) isn't even out of beta yet!
If you 've been using .NET for 2 years, and you know so little of the current state of web development . . . advantage, Java.
You should get outside the MS cloud, and read some non-MS tech articles and reports. MS *will* lie to you, over and over and over again.
Look how much false info they've put into your head. You really think Java can't manipulate data on the client in literally any way you can think of? I don't address that for the same reason I won't argue with someone who claims the sun is cold.
You really don't know about Java's security model, the one so secure it's the industry leader?
You are in for an interesting awakening.
You remind me of one of those VB developers who claimed they'd bury Java years ago -- the ones now having to re-learn an entirely new paradigm.
Bottom line -- you have no actual knowledge of the current state of Java, or why Java has already dominated server dev and now is poised to take over the desktop.
Advantage, Java.
Coincidence?
I think not.
EBAY completed auctions:
Office XP Standard Edition About $125 (You only get 4 programs in the standard edition)
Corel Word Perfect 2002 Suite About $20
Lotus Smart Suite Millennium About $15 and very few bids
BTW I have Lotus Smart Suite '97. The 1997 edition. Bought it on eBay 4 years ago for ~$15. The word processor has a lot more foreign language capability, such as grammar and spell checks in Spanish, French etc., than MS Word. For 1997 MS Word (Office '97) you had to pay $100 for the Spanish language module. I realize businesses have their own requirements for office suites.
I also have Office '97 and 2000 for comparison.
I even have a copy of Corel 2000 office suite that I got 2 years ago at a flea market for $10
Fine. If you're so confident, go sink your retirement money into Sun stock. After all, according to you, it's a sure thing, right? If Java is going to take over the world, how could Sun fail to be valuable?
Of course, if you've been doing that the last three years, you've thrown 90% or so of your money away...
Did you even read my post?
Have you seen those IBM commercials about the magic pixie dust, the 'universal business adapter', etc?
Do you not even know what they're selling?
If and when .NET is tested, secure and superior, I will use it more. I use whatever is the best solution, regardless of vendor. But I base that analysis on actual knowledge of both.
Have a good career, friend.
I honestly wish you luck.
You may very well be correct about that. Sun can't seem to make any money from it.
But then what happens to Java's portability? Is IBM going to be interested in having it run on competing platforms? Maybe. But it certainly changes the game a lot.
The other important independent technologies that IBM has acquired (Lotus Notes, for example) have not had noticable success under their umbrella. I don't know if Java would have the same problems.
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