From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 20:48:46 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Joy of Java
Message-ID: <199604270944.CAA07981@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>From my perspective, the biggest win of Java isn't the security,
though that's certainly important.  It's that it's a reasonably
powerful virtual machine that doesn't need to run on Microsoft
operating systems, though it can (except Win3.1, of course.)
That means that decent small application software can be written
that doesn't have to be locked into the far less secure/reliable
DOS/Windows/95 architectures, and can run on Macs and Linux and Unix,
a bit slowly, but with a lot less baggage.  (Maybe 16-bit code
is gone from NT 4.0, but it's not going to run on 386s!?!)

Yes, you may want to be careful with code that autoloads from web pages,
but you don't have to be quite as paranoid with Java from ftp sites
as you did with MS binaries, and you can be more comfortable with
applets like word processors and data-crunchers knowing they won't
be doing all the "helpful" things MSOffice likes to help you with.
#					Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215