The Java Thread

[Lightyear]

Hi guys and girls (or girls and guys),

I would like to start a serious discussion with all the people who have used Java before (and all the people who like Java). I'm a Java developer myself.

What do you guys think about Oracle buying Sun ?

I think that Oracle has the whole chaing now (Java, Oracle DB... etc), and I think that we will be seeing more of JDeveloper and less of Eclipse (BEA...etc) soon. I just hope that Oracle doesn't make "Microsoft" out of itself by making Java proprietary, that's the worst fear.

Any thougths ?

[fernandotcl]

Java won't be made proprietary any time soon.

First of all, Java is simply the definition of a language, and the Java VM is the reference implementation. In an hypothetical situation where Java open source development is stalled, there are lots of other Java virtual machines and compilers out there, many/most of them open source.

Then now since not long ago, the standard Java implementation is pretty much 100% GPL, except for parts which Sun didn't hold the copyright for. So it's not easy to simply revert to closed source, there could have been legal trouble or maybe they would need to rewrite some new code which is GPL'ed. Not to mention how bad Java would look to open source directories.

Last, but not least, there's a lot of stakeholders involved. The comitee that defines the future of the platform is composed by several big shot companies. A lot of companies depend on Java on open source platforms, perhaps not directly supported by Sun/Oracle (think about embedded systems, for example). It would be extremely hard to make it proprietary technology.

In other words, I just don't see that happening at all. Now with regards to MySQL, the situation is much more uncertain. Maybe development will stall. But that's ok, MySQL sucks anyways.

[stratoplayer]

MySQL doesn`t suck. Though postgresql does rape it violently every day of the week and twice on sundays...

[fernandotcl]

MySQL doesn`t suck. Though postgresql does rape it violently every day of the week and twice on sundays...

Yet in turn, it's a toy when compared to Oracle.

[stratoplayer]

MySQL doesn`t suck. Though postgresql does rape it violently every day of the week and twice on sundays...

Yet in turn, it's a toy when compared to Oracle.

Duh, but Oracle is the big daddy of databases, plus... they charge for the license, so screw them.

[fernandotcl]

Duh, but Oracle is the big daddy of databases, plus... they charge for the license, so screw them.

Yea, who cares about software quality anyways? Performance? Scalability? That's nothing compared to not having to shell out money!

[stratoplayer]

Two words


Open Source

Learn it, live it, love it.

But anyways, you're making it sound like Oracle is the one true DB that works. Sure it's the best, by a long shot, but being a student with an almost non-existant budget I can't afford to be picky.

[fernandotcl]

I am an open source advocator myself. But I'm a rational person as well and I can recognize good software even when it's closed source.

Of course Oracle isn't the best way to go for most setups. Heck it's overkill for most setups. That doesn't mean it doesn't kick the shit out of PostgreSQL and MySQL any time.

Gotta love open source zealotry.

[AAAAAAAAAA]

I've worked with java but i've become more of a C/C++/C# guy.

Open source is massively overrated...I don't think software should necessarily be free.

Not many open-source programs really dominate their area, because this strange idea that developers will spend months laboring to create flawless, innovative software while receiving only a pat on the back in return is simply not a practical business model. In fact it ISN'T a business model to begin with.

[fernandotcl]

Open source is massively overrated...I don't think software should necessarily be free.

I actually prefer open source software to closed source software in general, but I agree, it's not always the best solution and being closed source isn't a bad thing from a business perspective at all (it's often the only way or the most practical way, actually).

Not many open-source programs really dominate their area, because this strange idea that developers will spend months laboring to create flawless, innovative software while receiving only a pat on the back in return is simply not a practical business model. In fact it ISN'T a business model to begin with.

Well I agree that most open source solutions aren't the best solutions out there, but I'm pretty confident you can profit from open source in some circunstances. Yes, it's not a business model, but there is a great amount of successful business models based on open source systems (take a look at how profitable hosting companies are, for example).

I think it's the best choice for some areas, but for most real world applications (boring stuff such as the stuff you're likely to develop at work if you're a developer, unless you work for Google or other big companies active in the open source community), open source is pretty much ruled out. Maybe we'll face some kind of revolution by the next few years with the proliferation of software as a service systems, but in my opinion open source, closed source and software as a service will all have a dent of the market share for themselves, directly or not. They'll coexist in the foreseeable future.

[Syren.S]

about Google, this is what they said when Chrome is born.

sure, we could ship a proprietary browser and hold it in, but google LIVES on the internet. It’s in our interest to make the internet better and without competition we have stagnation. that’s why we’re open sourcing the whole thing. we NEED the internet to be a fair, smart, safe place. we owe a great debt to other open source browser projects –especially, MOZILLA and WEBKIT. this is our contribution, and we hope people will take some of these ideas, too; challenge them, build on them, and keep moving the web FORWARD.

actually I am quite moved by these words. full of humility as well as pride.

[fernandotcl]

Chrome was born because Google wants to make more serious inroads into the desktop (think Google Gears), not because Google wants to be nice to the open source community or because they want to give stuff back to the community.

Those are good words. From a PR POV, at least.

[AAAAAAAAAA]

Well, I would say its more probable that Google Chrome is Google's attempt to further their domination of all-things-web. I'm far too cynical to believe they're trying to create competition for the good of humanity. I'm with Fernando on this one..

[JensJohansson]

Chrome was born because Google wants to make more serious inroads into the desktop (think Google Gears), not because Google wants to be nice to the open source community or because they want to give stuff back to the community.

Those are good words. From a PR POV, at least.

But they always do their domination in such an irrestistible way!! And their motto is "don't be evil". I'm still on the fence.

The software design esthetics of google crome really are droolworthy. And it's open source so hopefully no funny stuff.

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/med_00.html

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

[fernandotcl]

It is great indeed, it's revolutionary, we all love it. But it wasn't created to please the open source community.

[icecab21]

Isn’t Google part of the open source community? They don't create stuff to please themselves?

[fernandotcl]

They create stuff to make money, as all companies do. Some times that means they're going to release open source stuff, but some times it means they will keep their source code closed. That doesn't mean they don't benefit from open source too, but they release open source software because it's profitable for them, not because they "hope people will take some of these ideas, too; challenge them, build on them, and keep moving the web FORWARD"...

[icecab21]

I think the company is more of a “lets make money making the world a better place” kind of company. I just have a hard time thinking about them going “fuck, this helps people, but we make money on it so let's to it anyway”

[stratoplayer]

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

No shit, it takes longer than IE to start up, sure it beats the snot out of it everywhere else but still, it takes too long and consumes too many resources.

[CES]

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

That was the main reason I switched from FF2 to Opera 9 (which in hindsight was more of a sidestep than a step up)

Now though I use FF3 to test CSS/PHP stuff (Opera really, really hates CSS) and Opera 10 for everything else. The comments and looks I get for daring to not use FF or IE are fantastic.

[stratoplayer]

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

That was the main reason I switched from FF2 to Opera 9 (which in hindsight was more of a sidestep than a step up)

Now though I use FF3 to test CSS/PHP stuff (Opera really, really hates CSS) and Opera 10 for everything else. The comments and looks I get for daring to not use FF or IE are fantastic.

I used to use something called Camino (kinda based of Safari and FF) on my MacBook, worked faster than both but a bit glitchy and unstable.

I'm still praying for Chrome to hit Unix systems...

[AAAAAAAAAA]

To the end user, what's so good about chrome again? The fact that its incrementally faster?

And it is true that firefox's memory usage isn't ideal, but ram is so cheap these days...for a relatively new computer (last 3 years or so) its not an issue at all, in my opinion.

[miditek]

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

Anybody ever tried Opera? It's really not too bad at all.

[CES]

How many of us have not cursed firefox' memory hogging?? I'm just saying.

Anybody ever tried Opera? It's really not too bad at all.

RTFT maybe?

Opera 9 had a memory leak far worse than FF2 and Opera 10, being a beta has this fantastic idea of randomly crashing/closing all tabs and best of all, you can't open a .txt file without it going insane.

[eagledreamr]

Talking about the internet...I just noticed that Jens' website is down...The following message appears:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.panix.com/~jens

The following error was encountered:

* Connection Failed

The system returned:

(61) Connection refused

The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.

Your cache administrator is webmaster.
Generated Wed, 06 May 2009 18:40:50 GMT by squid1.nyc.access.net (squid/2.5.STABLE10)

what happened?

[fernandotcl]

Works fine here.

[Ragehead91]

Works fine here.

+1

[JensJohansson]

To the end user, what's so good about chrome again? The fact that its incrementally faster?

And it is true that firefox's memory usage isn't ideal, but ram is so cheap these days...for a relatively new computer (last 3 years or so) its not an issue at all, in my opinion.

I have bad firefox habits, it's probably more that in my case. Opening tabs/ whole windows, closing them, opening new ones, hibernating the computer, repeat the above, which results in me sometimes not ever exiting cleanly out of firefox for weeks.

I also like the thought that one of the core ideas is to have it optimized to run javascript efficiently. I've been around since javascript 0.00 or whatever it was called in 1973 (AssScript?) and can see how it could potentially be a bad thing how all this new stuff the last 36 years was tacked on to plain static HTML rendering. A start from scratch sounds somehow refreshing..

Still on the fence. I use FF and have chrome installed but didnt try it much. I use plenty of FF extensions and other weirdness so switching would come with that threshold...

[eagledreamr]

Works fine here.

Ah, now it works...