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We all thought Sun Microsystems's Java would solve a lot of problems. Java was a cross platform programming language meaning that you could write a program once that would run (potentially) on any computer. The prospects were great and industry giants like Microsoft, IBM and Netscape licensed it. But Sun have kept tight tabs on its trademarking, making life a little difficult, but fair enough, it is theirs. IBM have thrown vast sums of money and resources at it, having soon spotted its huge cost-saving potential in the corporate market, IBM's home turf, which they are keen to defend. Sun have now tried to refer Java to an international standards committee so that Java will be an internationally recognised standard. This seems to be good but in reality there are problems. These are twofold, the first being that Sun want to retain a certain amount of development, licensing and trademark control over Java. So is it really open? Secondly international standards ratification takes far too long, it never catches up with the pace of development in the software world. Its fine in the slightly slower paced hardware world and we wouldn't be where we are today without international standards. But take a look at HTML, if Netscape and Microsoft didn't push it forward without waiting for the standards committee we'd still be without many of the features we take for granted. It would probably be better for Sun to have made Java a de facto standard and pushed it forward themselves. Wait a second though, I still haven't talked about the biggest problem yet. I'm kidding, right? Wrong. Microsoft haven't played their card yet. Introducing J/Direct from Microsoft aka Big Spanner in the Sun Java Bandwagon works. Why? Basically J/Direct is a programming interface which allows Java programmers to directly access the unique parts of Windows that other operating systems don't have. This gives programmers the chance to better integrate their software into Windows and also offers some performance benefits. So what? Well any Java written with J/Direct only runs on Windows and no other platforms. So one of the main purposes of Java, is effectively wiped out. Simple, don't use it. If only it was as easy as that but the thing is programmers just can't resist making their software faster, its in their DNA. Also seeing as Windows is the largest platform who cares is a few UNIX nerds can't use it anyway? As you can see Sun have one big problem which they've been trying to counteract with their clever little 100% Java campaign. But they're gonna need more than that to beat the big Bill in Redmond, you can be sure of that. |
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© 1997 j-dom media. contact us. |
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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him] |
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