From: Ray Cromwell <rjc@clark.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 95 11:51:19 PDT
To: patl@lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Netscape the Big Win
In-Reply-To: <199507201802.OAA22155@skyclad.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <199507201850.OAA06558@clark.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


[extension languages] 
> Java looks somewhat promising; with it, perhaps Netscape can become a
> platform-independent system for writing packages to manipulate and
> display hypertext.  It would be like an Emacs for hypertext, but with
> a crufty extension syntax and no source code.  And a user base 1000
> times as large...

  The "crufty" extension syntax, is a simplified and improved C++, with all
the features any lisp extension has, minus closures. For user interface
work, and applications existing in a larger environment, object 
oriented languages are superior. LambdaMOO shows lots of evidence for this.
Sun, by choosing a C++ syntax for Java, gains a tremendous advantage by
allowing C/C++ programmers to translate their experience to Java
programming rapidly. In fact, I wish Java had actually been the real
C++. C++ suffers from not having garbage collection, and from overreliance
on pointer manipulation. Now, if only someone can convince Sun to add
operator overloading to Java for the final release..... (really useful
for BigInt programming)

(netscape may not release source code, but the full source code to hotjava
is available)   
-Ray