The future of Java

Interesting article on the future of Java:

http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0

--
And loving it,

-Qu0ll (Rare, not extinct)
_________________________________________________
Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com
[Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:34:11 +1100, "Qu0ll" <Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>
>http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0

Sun has been an unusually generous company. I have often puzzled why a
corporation would give away so much.

Oracle has a much more rapacious philosophy -- lock the customers in
then apply the screws upping annual fees.

There is bound to be some friction between these two philosophies.

I hope the deal falls through. Mergers are almost never good for
customers.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
Finding a bug is a sign you were asleep a the switch when coding. Stop debugging, and go back over your code line by line.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009, Roedy Green wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:34:11 +1100, "Qu0ll" <Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0
>
> Sun has been an unusually generous company. I have often puzzled why a
> corporation would give away so much.
>
> Oracle has a much more rapacious philosophy -- lock the customers in
> then apply the screws upping annual fees.

Although they're good to developers - developer licenses for their
products (the ones we use, which includes the big database, anyway) are
free. It's a sensible strategy: make it easy for developers to get
involved and build loads of stuff, then charge people who actually need to
use it.

This is exactly why Sun pushed java in the first place: they wanted
developers to write software in a language that would run on their
servers. Presumably, because they thought there was a threat that
Microsoft would get in with some proprietary language and lock them out,
or because they wanted to invade the space then held by IBM.

> There is bound to be some friction between these two philosophies.

Yes. Sun were happy to give away the software for the production side -
you could get a production-quality software stack from Sun for free,
including OS, JVM and app server. If Sunacle applied their model to java,
then we'd see a free JVM and app server suitable for development, but not
for deployment - for that, you'd have to pay. Perhaps we'll see Sunacle
switch resources away from OpenJDK, and start maintaining a for-pay branch
which gets all the new performance goodies. Or just refuse to support the
free JDK in production environments; often, that's enough to persuade a
corporate user to stump up for a paid version.

tom

--
If it ain't broke, open it up and see what makes it so bloody special.

Roedy Green wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:34:11 +1100, "Qu0ll" <Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0
>
> Sun has been an unusually generous company. I have often puzzled why a
> corporation would give away so much.

Mostly because they could not make money from it.

> Oracle has a much more rapacious philosophy -- lock the customers in
> then apply the screws upping annual fees.

Oracle has lots of free stuff as well.

Oracle makes money from highend software.

SUN makes money from hardware.

Neither gives away what they make money on.

> There is bound to be some friction between these two philosophies.

Not different philosophies just different business areas.

I will not rule out conflicts between SW and HW parts of the
new combined company though.

> I hope the deal falls through.

That would be extremely bad for Java.

SUN would be toast if the merger falls.

Their finances were not that good before (else they would
not have been put up for sale!) and now IBM and HP has lured
away a slice of customers.

Arne

Qu0ll wrote:
> Interesting article on the future of Java:
>
> http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0

I think it is more of a summary of what is known than actually
providing new angles.

Arne

"Arne Vajhøj" <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote in message
news:4b073951$0$277$14726298@news.sunsite.dk...
> Qu0ll wrote:
>> Interesting article on the future of Java:
>>
>> http://infoworld.com/d/developer-wor...d-978?page=0,0
>
> I think it is more of a summary of what is known than actually
> providing new angles.

Perhaps, but I still found it interesting.

--
And loving it,

-Qu0ll (Rare, not extinct)
_________________________________________________
Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com
[Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:48:47 -0500, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Their finances were not that good before (else they would
>not have been put up for sale!) and now IBM and HP has lured
>away a slice of customers.

Just a short while ago Sun was cash rich. Are you just assuming it was
put up for sale, or did you read somewhere they did that? I guess it
is not like putting it up on Craig's List. Possible buyers are well
aware of when Sun was financially vulnerable to takeover.

Years ago I read that computer companies often do well in recessions.
Companies try to save money by firing people and replacing them with
computers. I figured Sun should weather the recession.

On the other paw, I have read the Internet as a whole has had a
slowdown which would hurt Sun. They pretty well need constant
expansion to keep the server sales going.

Sun now sends me at least one email a day hoping to drum up sales.
That is much more aggressive than before.

Sun's behaviour over the years has been exemplary. They have been
honest with customers. They have not betrayed them the way
corporations often do. They have been generous. Their products are
good quality. I hope there is some way they can continue much as
before.

Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.
Others would add to that list, particularly NetBeans.

--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
Finding a bug is a sign you were asleep a the switch when coding. Stop debugging, and go back over your code line by line.

Roedy Green wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:48:47 -0500, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>> Their finances were not that good before (else they would
>> not have been put up for sale!) and now IBM and HP has lured
>> away a slice of customers.
>
> Just a short while ago Sun was cash rich. Are you just assuming it was
> put up for sale, or did you read somewhere they did that? I guess it
> is not like putting it up on Craig's List. Possible buyers are well
> aware of when Sun was financially vulnerable to takeover.

SUN's had a loss of 2.2 billion dollar in FY 2009.

It is public that SUN negotiated with both IBM and Oracle. According
to gossip then HP were also approached.

> Years ago I read that computer companies often do well in recessions.
> Companies try to save money by firing people and replacing them with
> computers.

Sure. Those making money from cheap Linux and Windows system may do
fine.

But the market for high end systems and storage are not that well. And
IBM and HP seems to be doing better than SUN in that market.

> Sun's behaviour over the years has been exemplary. They have been
> honest with customers. They have not betrayed them the way
> corporations often do. They have been generous. Their products are
> good quality. I hope there is some way they can continue much as
> before.

There are still people that will never forgive SUN for the
SunOS 4->5 isuues.

> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.

SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.

Arne

Roedy Green wrote:
>> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
>> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
> not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.

Small loss.

I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions of Oracle DB
and IBM DB2.

--
Lew

Lew wrote:
> Roedy Green wrote:
>>> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
>>> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.
>
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
>> not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.
>
> Small loss.
>
> I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions of
> Oracle DB and IBM DB2.
>
That's roughly my take on it as well. Choosing from PostgreSQL, SQL
Server or Oracle XE for my local work on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X lets me
do everything I need to do to support my company's clients. In fact I
use SQL Server on the odd .NET project only to keep acquainted;
otherwise I'd pare my choices down to Postgres and Oracle XE. Nothing
against Derby - I just haven't had occasion to use it now for some years.

AHS

> Perhaps we'll see Sunacle switch resources away from OpenJDK, and start maintaining a for-pay branch
> which gets all the new performance goodies. Or just refuse to support the
> free JDK in production environments; often, that's enough to persuade a
> corporate user to stump up for a paid version.

Oracle already got a for-pay JVM with lots of performance (and
management) goodies when they bought Bea. Well, at least I've heard
JRockit were *that* good, but I haven't tried out yet. Therefore it's
much more interesting what'll happen to both of the JVM's. Will they
be kept separate? Will Oracle try to combine them?
We'll see...

In article <he9d9o$vf0$1@localhost.localdomain>,
Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:

> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:08:32 -0500, Lew wrote:
>
> > I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions
> > of Oracle DB and IBM DB2.
> >
> How do you rate H2 against Derby and HSQL? I see that it can use
> PostgreSQL JDBJ drivers, so how close are the Postgres and H2
> dialects of SQL?

In embedded mode, H2 starts up and runs queries more quickly than Derby;
I haven't used HSQLDB. My testing is limited, but I haven't found any
counter-examples to the author's claims:

<http://www.h2database.com/html/performance.html>

H2 client-server performance is good, and portability is no worse than
most. In a JDBC application developed with H2 and intended to be
portable, PostgreSQL proved to be easiest target, while MySQL was the
hardest; Oracle and Firebird were in between.

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

"Arved Sandstrom" <dcest61@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9CXNm.54457$PH1.35011@edtnps82...
> Lew wrote:
>> Roedy Green wrote:
>>>> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
>>>> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.
>>
>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
>>> not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.
>>
>> Small loss.
>>
>> I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions of
>> Oracle DB and IBM DB2.
>>
> That's roughly my take on it as well. Choosing from PostgreSQL, SQL Server
> or Oracle XE for my local work on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X lets me do
> everything I need to do to support my company's clients. In fact I use SQL
> Server on the odd .NET project only to keep acquainted; otherwise I'd pare
> my choices down to Postgres and Oracle XE. Nothing against Derby - I just
> haven't had occasion to use it now for some years.

The beauty of using Derby of course is that it just installs as part of your
application. No separate or specialised installers required.

--
And loving it,

-Qu0ll (Rare, not extinct)
_________________________________________________
Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com
[Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me]

Qu0ll wrote:
> "Arved Sandstrom" <dcest61@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:9CXNm.54457$PH1.35011@edtnps82...
>> Lew wrote:
>>> Roedy Green wrote:
>>>>> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
>>>>> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.
>>>
>>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
>>>> not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.
>>>
>>> Small loss.
>>>
>>> I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions of
>>> Oracle DB and IBM DB2.
>>>
>> That's roughly my take on it as well. Choosing from PostgreSQL, SQL
>> Server or Oracle XE for my local work on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X lets
>> me do everything I need to do to support my company's clients. In fact
>> I use SQL Server on the odd .NET project only to keep acquainted;
>> otherwise I'd pare my choices down to Postgres and Oracle XE. Nothing
>> against Derby - I just haven't had occasion to use it now for some years.
>
> The beauty of using Derby of course is that it just installs as part of
> your application. No separate or specialised installers required.
>
I certainly run across it a fair bit - for example, Sonar, which I use a
lot, has embedded Derby by default.

AHS

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009, Qu0ll wrote:

> "Arved Sandstrom" <dcest61@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:9CXNm.54457$PH1.35011@edtnps82...
>> Lew wrote:
>>> Roedy Green wrote:
>>>>> Even if they are swallowed in the blender, I would like to publicly
>>>>> thank them their part in providing me Java, MySQL and Open Office.
>>>
>>> Arne Vajh?j wrote:
>>>> SUN did not provide you MySQL. SUN just acquired the company
>>>> not long ago. And have lost most of the original people since then.
>>>
>>> Small loss.
>>>
>>> I rate MySQL far, far below Postgres, Derby and the free versions of
>>> Oracle DB and IBM DB2.
>>>
>> That's roughly my take on it as well. Choosing from PostgreSQL, SQL Server
>> or Oracle XE for my local work on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X lets me do
>> everything I need to do to support my company's clients. In fact I use SQL
>> Server on the odd .NET project only to keep acquainted; otherwise I'd pare
>> my choices down to Postgres and Oracle XE. Nothing against Derby - I just
>> haven't had occasion to use it now for some years.
>
> The beauty of using Derby of course is that it just installs as part of your
> application. No separate or specialised installers required.

This is also true of H2 and HSQL, no? You just add their JARs to your
application, and it gains the ability to make and use their databases
wherever it goes. Of course, with Derby you don't even need to add a JAR,
but that's such a trivial thing to do that it hardly seems like a
significant advantage.

tom

--
The revolving disc of plagues is particularly fun. -- greengolux