Lew said:
I recommend using Java 6 wherever feasible. The definition of "feasible" is
situational. I develop for 1.4 at work.
Home users have no reason to stay at an old version of Java. I would
definitely recommend to the home users that they upgrade.
And this is about the stickiest point in all this.
"Home users" are using Windows.
The developers are using Windows development environments,
be it Microsoft, Borland, etc.
The Visual Studio development environment does not
support even swing.
About the only trully compatible thing they support is AWT.
So, when you say: "i recomend to upgdate",
what do you mean by that?
To upgrade what?
Again, about the only thing i know of that produces
standard .exe file tha can be double clicked on to run,
is Visual Studio.
I do not believe there is such a notion in Borland or
Sun environment.
They just locked their horns with Microsoft and use
all these mega law suits to prove some point.
To whom?
To MICROSOFT?
Are they out of their mind?
Instead of working together and working out something
that works for everybody, they do just about all they
can to make sure THEIR view of the Universe is the
only one that has a validity?
What do you expect to happen to Java as such as a result?
Steve Jobs already made his point on Java as such by
saying:
"No one is developing for Java any longer.
It is too fat, too heavy weight, too much burden".
This is not the exact quote.
But don't undermine the very meaning and significance
of it.
When people of his caliber say things like this,
it is basically a death verdict.
Microsoft is just way too big to even bother about
Sun. Even though Sun can make them hurt a lil with
all those mega-sucking lawsuits.
And what does it achieve at the end?
Well, the licence to use JVM is extended to Microsoft,
and that is about all they need.
And you know how much Microsoft cares about JVM?
Guess.
They'll have their own version of MVM and it will
seamlessly support the standard approach users
are familiar with for at least a generation,
and that is:
The end product, the app, is a directly executable
program, just like any other.
It is delivered as .exe file and not a bunch
of class files, all sorts of flags, CLASSPATH
specification, and you name it.
The end user does not need to bother with ANY
of that stuff.
And that is about the most critical issue,
as it addresses of the very underlying philosophy
of java run time environment.
By simply double clicking on the app, user
expects it to run. Just about ALL he cares for
is to see the .exe file.
No paths, no flags, no directory structures.
NOTHING.
The whole idea as created, specified and stubbornly
supported by Sun, is flawed.
Do they expect the end user to switch to Unix/Linux?
How many generations is it going to take to achive
that "goal", if ever?
Are these people insane?
As a developer, I find the differences between 1.4 and 5 to be significant -
huge, really. I hate having to go back to 1.4. If there's any way to
baseline at Java 5+, I insist on it.
This is another interesting issue.
You see, people are used to the "latest and gratest" hype.
It is like a fasion of sorts.
Unless you have the latest jeans, you can't go out on
the street.
Why?
It became an obscession. And people are FORCED to get
the "latest and gratest", and most of them do not even
realize there is no benefit in all this fashion madness.
There is no really need for all these supersex machines.
Most of my apps have value not because of sexy buttons
and all other jazz. They have value because of their
functionality. Unless you develop some trans-galactic
distributed system, with real time updates on global
situation, in vast majority of cases, this version
desease does not deliver the good they promised.
Secondly, switching versions and getting obscessed
with obsoletion, what are you saying really?
That 2 + 2 is no longer 4?
That Add operation in your CPU is no longer "supported"?
Because you replaced it with trans-galactic orgasm?
Is hammer a hammer?
Is screwdriver a screwdriver?
Do you obsolete bread one day?
What is this madness?
Well, simple enough, so that you are constantly kept
sucked in, forever shelling out thousands of bux on
never ending updates to their supersex machines.
But the net gain is hardly in the range of 10%
in VAST majority of applications.
What kind of applications do you use anyway?
What kind of applications categories DO exist to date?
Amazingly, it hasn't change much for at least a generation.
It is editors, networking apps, databases, graphic, sound
applications and a few others.
That constitutes VAST majority of apps out there.
Even thouse RSS feeds are no miracle of ANY kind.
Java has to have the slowest adoption curve of any community. Java 5 is two
and a half years old already, hardly a spring chicken in IT terms. Are people
still playing the same video games introduced for Xmas of '04? Much less '02,
when 1.4 came out?
If a home user has Java at all, why would they use a five-year-old version?
Wouldn't it be straightforward for them to upgrade to at /least/ 5?
As far as I can see, Sun has MUCH deeper problems right now.
They have to decide to either support the MS worldview,
in whichever way they can manage it, or lock the horns
with Microsoft and decide to overturn the world.
The whole idea of JVM is flawed, just as Steve Jobbs
pointed out. It is the exact same idea as Pascal P machine.
Millions upon millions were wasted trying to manufacture
the harware chips that can run P code directly.
And the end result is?
Anybory heard of P-machine?
Again, unless a virtual macnine becomes a hardare chip,
users do not even know of, Java has as much of a chance
to be widely adopted by vast majority of mere mortals,
as for the hell to get frozen.
Whatever will be left of Sun, Microsof will by out
for a penny on a dollar, if they even bother.
Because it is worthless.
There isn't a SINGLE thing that is so revolutionary
in Java, that is not already known and exists on all
sorts of levels, from kernel up.
Yes, Java has its own flavor and some of those ideas
do make a lot of sense.
But do you in your clear mind believe that Java
is going to win over C++ and MFC type of things?
If with a simpliest app, you need to load at least
10 megs of fat, just to do 2 + 2, then what does it
tell you?
Well, it tells ME that the eintire approach is
FUNDAMENTALLY wrong. Things like on-demand loading
are known since at least a generation ago.
Things like libraries and DLLs in Microsoft's wordview
exist for as long.
Synchronization exists since pre-Unix times.
And the list has barely begun.
At least the enterprise folks can manufacture an excuse - though oddly many of
them are going ahead with last year's MS Office Suite and this year's .NET
framework while moaning that it's too soon to upgrade from '02's (or even
'00's) version of Java.
I, personaly, start shivering when any manufacturer
releases a new version. Because it is GUARANTEED
to be about 5 times fatter, and 5 times slower,
and that is if you are lucky.
Sometimes I have to go to some older versions of things,
and it always amazes me how much faster it runs and how
much leaner it is. It looks like for a single coca cola
can they put in their "new" version, you have to pay
for a tank, or even Rolls Royce.
What kind of "architectures" are these?
Microsoft is very deliberate on making sure that the next
version will be 5 times as fat and 5 times as slow.
Just compare Vista to XP.
You can't even start the stupid box unless you have 1 gig
of RAM just to boot.
And what have they given you for that?
A few more buttons?
That support a never ending race to hell?
With all those games, that program young children's
minds with the ideas of violence, blood, murder,
destruction?
Then what do you expect to get by the time that
child grows up? In his subconscious, he is a mature
murder, thief, conman, greedy politicion, utterly
dishonest entity, that does not even feel anything
when it pushes the REAL red button of nukelar
(that is how top brass pronounces it) anihilation.
Because he was programmed to have this worldview
from the 5 year old level.
Just to have a few more red buttons of anihilation,
you need to go to version 6?
Of what?
What do you expect to achieve with version 6 that
I can not achieve with much earlier version?
What kind of apps you write?
What do they do?
A trans-galactic tarot reading and predict the
next step in mankinds development?
Do you want me to tell you those steps, without
even using computer beyond using my good ole newsreader,
that i tried to change to something "latest and greatest"
for at least 5 times? And still, after seeing all those
mazes of buttons and "functionality", which is fundamentally
incorrect in the very architecture, I still go back to this
10 years old newsreader.
Can anyone recomend something better?
Which one?
I even promise to download that bloatware
and even try to run it, and even more than once,
just to make sure i did not miss any of those
"great" "features".
In combination with NewsMaestro, i am in the best shape
i need to be.
Good luck on the road to you know what...
--
Get yourself the most powerful tool for usenet you ever heard of.
NewsMaestro download page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=203356
Web page:
http://tarkus01.by.ru/
Note: You need to have JVM (Java Virtual Machine)
installed. Otherwise, the program won't run on some versions
of Windows. Just try to run the program and if you see the
main window, it means you do have it installed already.
Otherwise, a quick search on the Internet will find it
easily. The file size should be around 5 megs.
JVM is available in Microsoft or Sun (original creator
of Java language) versions.
You can visit sun.com to get it.
Or, you can try this one for starters:
http://www.java-virtual-machine.net/download.html
It should have links to sites that have it, I believe.
