How Microsoft could inadvertently kill java

vorbis

Since I seem to be using .NET this year, I've noticed a few things about it. The main thing is that like VB its far easier to create GUIs in it than java. This effectively means most new Windows desktop gui applications will probably be coded in it. Then I got to thinking (a hard process) what if the framework was ported to all major operating systems. Theres already mono on linux. Put simply, .NET would then offer the most productive method of creating applications. For Microsoft the apps would still have to be made on Windows as thats where the best tools for it would be.
This would probably be fatal to java. Javas main impact has been in the server market. However pretty soon, native communication (in Java's case RMI) will be needed as client side apps demand richer and more interactive content. Webservices will probably be too slow. What could very likely end up happening is that backends would be redesigned in c# simply to communicate natively with majority of frontends running on .NET. Voilá, complete elimination of Java.

damnyanks

"How Microsoft could inadvertently kill java"



"How Microsoft could kill java"





Think the latter is more true

Töpher

hmmm... odd that. i know last year in college (first year comp sci - i know, i'm hardly experienced lol) that anyone with xp or xp pro at home could not get a java compiler to work. so they were planning on killing java! its all a conspiracy i tells ya! or like blah! *ignore this post*

vorbis

well I can get java to work quite easily under XP. I know Ms are tring to kill Java. My point was that how they actually do could be almost by accident. I don't believe they ever designed .NET to be cross platform. It just could turn out that way.

scojones

i can't see it running on video players and nokia phones. java is free.

Hobbes

Free is the main point. Also the lack of being locked into MS is very appealing to a lot of companies now.

some of the J2ME stuff I have been looking at is very impressive for the sizes they are creating.

As for UI? *shrug*. Get a better IDE/UI editor. You can make Java Apps look and feel like window apps with very little work involved.

Not sure what is out for Eclipse but WSAD (which is basically souped up version of eclipse) has a nice GUI editor.

Just take a look at Eclipse for an example. Its GUI is java and they have tools to build on that framework. (www.eclipse.org). All free.

vorbis

some people seem to be missing the point a little. I have looked at and used eclipse. I think its quite useful. It actually uses IBM's SWT package instead of swing for the gui. Its better than Swing's windows look and feel. However, its still a lot of work and code to even code a simple responsive GUI in it. Thats the main point. If .NET programs could run on everything, I would definetly prefer coding an application in VB.NET or c# simply because it would be quicker. Any speed based programs would still be C++ though.

secret_squirrel

the point of .Net is to sell Windows platforms...hence MS will never allow it to be ported to other OS's without huge reluctance.

Look how grudgingly they support the mac.

And you also forget .net take up has been relavitely slow, compared to previous versions of VB.

[edit] although there would be no 'inadvertent' about it, thats what .Net was designed to do. [/edit]

Evil Phil

Java is for more mature than .NET and, tbh, I can't see anybody investing in *nix and then running Microsoft on it. .NET from what I can tell is modeled on the Java platform and sure you can develop gui's quicker in VB.NET than you can in Java but that's only gui development (and its the other way around for a Java programmer). I don't think MS will kill Java, not when the likes of IBM, Oracle and the *nix houses are throwing their weight behind it.

Both Java and the .Net framework are free .Net is designed for building Business apps in a windows environment (be that webservers, client/server etc) and its not in Microsofts interest to port it to other OS's, particularly free OS's.

vorbis

evil phil in a lot of companies such decisions will be made by what is quicker. As for GUI design in order to create a JTextArea with a popup menu for cut copy and paste I had to subclass the JTextArea class to add those features. A textbox in c# comes with these as standard. Its things like that that make a difference. On the same note the guy next to me was throwing together a simple form for his app. Took only a coupl of minutes yet would have taken a hour in java for the same functionality.
Ironically given my posts, the main language I've learnt and used is java. However for me its failed in its wora notion. Its only now good for backends and thats not enough.
As for mobile apps, the moment they become anyway complex they will invariably end up being some form of c natively compiled for the specific mobile.

Evil Phil

No, such decisions are usually made by what provides the best solution, not what puts a gui on the screen in the shortest amount of time. I have worked on projects what provides the quickest results was the approach. These decisions have always been made by business types with no engineering background and those projects have always gone over budget, missed deadlines and were very expensive to maintain due to rolling bug count. In short this is a poor decision.

Vb.net is more suitable to a RAD approach then Java but the RAD approach isn't the only way to skin a cat. And when a company is developing a large enterprise solution with heavy back end processing then GUI development is a minor factor in the approach needed. Java has proved itself in the server world, .NET has yet too. If its only good for backends then thats plenty good. To suggest that because the .NET platform lends itself to RAD with ease it will kill something as established as Java is simply naive.

Hobbes

Originally posted by vorbis
Took only a coupl of minutes yet would have taken a hour in java for the same functionality.

How is he doing it? You do know there is a GUI based SWT designer for eclipse. Pretty much the same thing. There is no way it should be taking an hour.

Are you saying you are writing the GUI by hand in java?

As for mobile apps, the moment they become anyway complex they will invariably end up being some form of c natively compiled for the specific mobile.

I would go take a look at some of the J2ME stuff that is coming out lately. Very impressive, small and fast. Native code to the mobile is not the way to go, as it has larger overheads then say J2ME. Were one app can suit many phones is a better way to go.

scojones

microsoft are pretty much abandoning vb.NET afaik, keeping c# of course.

regi

its not in Microsofts interest to port it to other OS's, particularly free OS's

I'm pretty sure that there's a .NET framework for FreeBSD. But then again, FreeBSD isn't hampered and chained by the GPL, which I think is MS's primary target of anger.

yossarin

just on the phones point:
Javas J2ME is really taking off, while the MS sendo smartphone has died a death.

I also heard that rumour about .Net sjones - that it was being "rebranded" (i.e. bits quietly dropped). does anyone remember J++ ?

Evil Phil

Yes I believe there is one for FreeBSD, there's also a Quake 2 .Net (believe it or not). I got the impression it was a marketing ploy but I could be wrong. My feeling with the .Net framework is that they're heading for 'Write it in anything, run it on .Net' and that we'll see development languages being ported to the framework rather than the framework being ported to other OS's. But thats another discussion.


I remember J++ and actually tried to work with it. We abadoned it for the MS SDK for Java which was much better (and free).

scojones

OK so back to the topic, what's being said here is "ms created this funky ass framework/language environment/languages/whatever, but of course it's expensive, because of that people are creating ports of it (go-mono.com) so it can be ran on opensource oses. So this is bad because now it can compete with java on all fronts and may inadvertently kill java."

That's never going to happen. For one, mono is not an ms product. Two - java is way more developed and has ALOT more functionality than mono has / will have for a number of years, so tbh the only threat is mono, not the actual MS .NET - because as i stated earlier that will never ever ever ever be ran on video players or mobile phones because .NET is not free.

However mono may be ran on mobile apps some years down the line, but i doubt that. Java is safe, and if mono does cripple Java it has nothing to do with microsoft.

Evil Phil

Actually the .NET framework is free, but yes, Java is safe from .NET.

vorbis

haven't had a chance to use the swt plugin yet. Any gui work I've done up to now has been swing. I've looked at the demo of it. It looks decent yet is still a long way off c#. For some unknown reason, Ms seem to be the only company to make programs that allow for easy GUI building. I'll admit an hour was a bit of an exaggeration but not by much.
As for J2ME, tbh I don't know much about it. The apps currently developed are not quite WORA but they're close. Its certainly an area with potential though.

scojones

I knew someone would say it. But you know what i mean!

vorbis

sjones whats this hangup with java in video players. I've yet to see any language in a video player. Mono doesn't have to have fancy functionality per se, if its capable of merely running apps create in visual studio, then straight off theres a quicker way to design cross platform applications. There's also the possibility of Ms full porting the clr (their jvm thingy i think) to other major OS's. If that happens chances are most developers would simply develop their applications on windows to run cross platform. Its what java was supposed to do (except for the windows part) except it trailed off a bit. Its only my opinion but I think that could be a fatal weakness as backend software design is ultimately decide by the requirements of the frontend.

scojones

I should have said Oak then, mr smarty pants .

Hobbes

Originally posted by vorbis
If that happens chances are most developers would simply develop their applications on windows to run cross platform.

Actually MS has never been cross platform friendly. Stating it as such just means some kind of funky lock in later down the line or the lack of updates to non microsoft OS (playing catchup, which is how they tend to lock people in).

Its what java was supposed to do (except for the windows part) except it trailed off a bit.

I am not sure what you mean by that?

TBH, I haven't played with .NET enough to form opinion of it, but it irks me listening to people saying this is better then that (not directed at you Vorbis!). To each thier own. However I will say that nearly all the FUD going around by java is based on MS incantation of it or can be debunked pretty quickly.

Evil Phil

Originally posted by vorbis
... as backend software design is ultimately decide by the requirements of the frontend.

How so? Just because you can produce a Gui quicker in .Net than you can in Java (and I have my doubts) doesn't mean that the backend software has to be written in .Net. With the advent of XML either can be written in anything on any platform, it doesn't matter. I have imported data from a VAX system, in VB6, via XML. 'Twas easy too.

I don't think this statement holds much water. Interface design is dictated by usability and has no influence on the back-end of a system.

A lot of developers I know, in fact a lot of developers on this board, don't develop on any Microsoft platform and have no interest in doing so. What they work with currently is doing just fine.

vorbis

of course they can communicate. Using an xml protocol such as SOAP they can communicate just fine. The main sticking point is that non native communication (one language to another) is far slower than native communication. Its not much of an issue now but invariably something comes out that'll need the extra speed.

Evil Phil

You're going to have to elaborate on that last one, I don't see it as a main sticking point in fact I don't see it as anything but a minor one. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

And you didn't explain how frontend requirements dictate backend software design or how that will turn .Net into a Java killer. I'd even say at this point that you're starting to clutch as straws.

A few points
The reason it can be so tricky to create GUIs in java is because they generally use complex layout managers. While this makes them complex to program it does let them appear on platforms on which they were not designed without problems like clipping. Absolute positioning does not take into account font size and platform specific component sizes. So straight away .NET may have difficulties if the application is ported.

I disagree with your assessment of webservices. For the majority of applications web services works just fine. As long as complex interactions between the server and client are not needed the over head is pobably acceptable. If not normal TCP connections would work nicely. Absolutly no need for the cleint and server to be developed with the same language.

Originally posted by vorbis
Since I seem to be using .NET this year, I've noticed a few things about it. The main thing is that like VB its far easier to create GUIs in it than java. This effectively means most new Windows desktop gui applications will probably be coded in it. Then I got to thinking (a hard process) what if the framework was ported to all major operating systems. Theres already mono on linux. Put simply, .NET would then offer the most productive method of creating applications. For Microsoft the apps would still have to be made on Windows as thats where the best tools for it would be.
This would probably be fatal to java. Javas main impact has been in the server market. However pretty soon, native communication (in Java's case RMI) will be needed as client side apps demand richer and more interactive content. Webservices will probably be too slow. What could very likely end up happening is that backends would be redesigned in c# simply to communicate natively with majority of frontends running on .NET. Voilá, complete elimination of Java.

HaVoC

Didn’t read the full thread so this maybe covered already

i thought that java gui where impossible as in college we where always thought to use layouts didn’t even know the existence of xylayout dam college anyway imo using that layout you can create layouts just as quick as vb maybe abit slow but you get more control

xp has some problems with java as it comes with microsoft vm or something so u have to go and download the sun one i'm running xp and i had to go through some hopes to the vm working.

I have heard that some developers are keeping vb 6 as they want to keep the ability to make an exe.

Also as siad someone said u can always use vb for a gui and java code under the bonnet

jdeveloper is suppose to be good java tools and free an other good thing about java is free tools and lots of them

Evil Phil

I wonder how long it would take to develop a gui using the .Net SDK rather than Visual Studio.Net?

Hobbes

Originally posted by HaVoC
i thought that java gui where impossible as in college we where always thought to use layouts didn’t even know the existence of xylayout dam college anyway imo using that layout you can create layouts just as quick as vb maybe abit slow but you get more control

The layouts are designed so your UI can auto adjust easily to different operating systems and languages.

You say it is easy to create a UI in VB? Try converting the same program into 27 different languages and see which one is quicker.

xp has some problems with java as it comes with microsoft vm or something so u have to go and download the sun one i'm running xp and i had to go through some hopes to the vm working.

Yea a much older version. It is like saying Windows 3.1 has problems with windows programs recently created and blaiming it on the vendors who created the windows program.

I have heard that some developers are keeping vb 6 as they want to keep the ability to make an exe.

Defeats the purpose really. However you can make EXEs from java projects.

But a better system is a self executing jar file. Much better as it will auto execute on most operating systems while those it won't just requires a command line switch.

tendofan

Emm... I like .NET and Java. They're both useful and powerful technologies, and the .NET framework is pretty elegant and a much much cleaner than the basic Win32 API.
My experience with .NET is greater than with Java, but any of the Java IDEs I've used just haven't felt as consistent and complete as Visual Studio, (though Eclipse is pretty impressive) and my impression may be down to unfamiliarity with the IDE as much as anything else. What is _really_ nice about C# & VB.Net (and to a lesser extent that unloveable illegitimate child Managed C++) is that localisation is handled automatically and very cleanly, and being able to write a component in one language, and use it from another, with no SOAP/proxy-stub over head is very nice. (Ok ok, ignoring COM interop, which pretty off interops only grudgingly...)

Right now, apart from some cool, but niche stuff from the likes of Tao, Java is the closest thing to WORA we have, but last I checked, it wasn't all _that_ close either - as differences in JVMs can still screw you over. (Please correct me if I'm wrong...)

The Mono project is a step towards cross-platform .NET, but it's far from complete and as it was pointed out, there's a lot more to knocking up GUIs in a platform independent way than one might first think.

I think that ultimately, the choice between the two technologies will boil down to
costs (hardware, software, development, training and maintenance) and project
requirements, pretty much the same as with any technology, and I think there's plenty of scope for both of them to coexist for quite some time.

Tendofan.
- I do go on sometimes....