Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Java vs MS Common Runtime

Author:Paul Snively
Posted:7/26/2000; 2:43:28 PM
Topic:Java vs MS Common Runtime
Msg #:19147 (In response to 19141)
Prev/Next:19146 / 19148

Timothy O'Hear: Thanks a lot for the feedback Paul, unfortunately I'm still stuck with "people using Java seem pretty happy with it, and it’s definitely hip, on the other hand a lack of high-profile applications isn't particularly reassuring".

You're quite welcome, and no question. Java started off being extremely closed; you couldn't even interact with the native platform's clipboard, for crying out loud! And as more and more desktop software saw the value of being drag-and-drop driven, Java continued to languish without native drag-and-drop integration until very recently. People wanting/needing to do serial I/O in Java are only now experiencing some relief. And so on. Java was (and, to a very large degree, still is) far too insular, and Dave Winer's point about Frontier having no option, at the time, in interacting with Java short of porting to it is right on, and is precisely the dilemma faced by anyone who already had a software product at the time Java was being pushed as a client-side solution.

Timothy: Which are the languages you prefer over Java?

Oz
E
Objective Caml
Common LISP
Scheme

The common threads here seem to be a firm foundation in basic computer science principles, extremely general and flexible conceptual structuring tools, a high degree of orthogonality in language design, and an excruciatingly high degree of paradigm blending (in Oz's case, I'd go so far as to say "paradigm eradication.") Another trend--made explicit in Oz and E--is extreme concern for correctly dealing with security issues (in fact, that is E's primary raison d'etre).

It's a pretty outlandish list, and reflects the facts that I was a computer science student and that, thus far, these are strictly for personal projects. On the other hand, Paul Graham wrote some shopping-site construction software that he then sold to Yahoo for $20M, and did so in Common Lisp, so the fact that the above languages are not at all mainstream does not mean that one cannot make a living from them... :-)



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