From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 18:23:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Java
Message-ID: <adda454f07021004283a@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I find myself agreeing with nearly all the points about Java that Larry is
making, so something may be wrong....

At 8:58 PM 6/4/96, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
...

>I suppose if I was over 40 and worked in a conservative wall street firm,
>I'd have a totally different view. maybe Java is all about a generation
>gap in computing. hey!! the first language that the "older generation"
>hates. sounds like a good reason to go after it, sort of like rock-n-roll
>and Woodstock suddenly being aged and uncool.

This can't be the whole story. I'm 44, and Java looks pretty damn exciting
to me, too. Not exciting to stand elbow-to-elbow and be trampled the crowds
at Moscone Center for Java One, but exciting enough to get the Metrowerks
Java compiler for the Mac and half a dozen or so of the Java books (some of
which are even pretty good--I most like "Core Java" and the Gosling book).

I don't have the energy or time to write a Detweiler-length article about
Java (though I think I did a month or so ago), but will say that I think
the security problems are, first of all, no worse vis-a-vis the language
itself than problems with any language.

For me, the main attraction of Java lies  not in the applets, but in the
Net-centric model that makes, in theory (and hopefully in practice) a
Macintosh roughly the equal of a Sun or SGI or Pentium. Until Java and
associated programs and tools appeared, I was seriously thinking about
getting a Pentium or Pentium Pro (shudder, even though I admire my former
employer and current stock benefactor, Intel) and putting Linux on it. Now
I feel more confident that the Mac is a viable competitor in a Net-centric
world. Java may be the Great Equalizer (something Sun may come to regret).

Perry has some valid points vis-a-vis the most naive uses of applets. Were
I the security manager of Morgan Stanley, I would certainly not want
traders downloading "kewl" applets and (possibly) causing Big Problems. So
what else is new?

Java as a language and as a platform-independent implementation is an
achievement. As for Scheme and Smalltalk, both mentioned by Perry, I have
both of these and of course neither has caught on a big way. I won't even
speculate about the many reasons.

And in some ways a more important comparison is to Perl and TCL, along with
more obscure languages like Python and REXX. The welter of Net-oriented
languages shows signs of  being much-simplified by the wide adoption of
Java. It will be interesting to watch the next several years of
developments.


-- Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."