Skip to comments.
Microsoft takes new tack on Java (Microsoft once again makes a 'Windows-only' Java)
CNet ^
| October 9, 2001, 1:55 p.m. PT
| By Mike Ricciuti and Wylie Wong
Posted on 10/11/2001 9:31:58 AM PDT by Dominic Harr
 |
|
|
|
Microsoft takes new tack on Java
Microsoft plans to make available this week a test version of a new tool intended to attract Java developers to the company's .Net Web services plan. The tool, Visual J#.Net, won't allow programmers to build standalone Java applications. Instead, it will let programmers use the Java language to write code that works only with Microsoft's forthcoming .Net plan, said Tony Goodhew, a product manager at Microsoft. In January, Microsoft announced its intention to build the tool, along with other tools to let programmers migrate older Java applications to .Net, the company's wide-ranging plan for moving business computing onto the Web. .Net includes tools for developers, server software aimed at large companies, and a fee-based Web services plan aimed at individuals called .Net My Services. Most parts of the plan won't be available until next year. The limited capability of Visual J#.Net lets Microsoft sidestep licensing issues with Java's creator, Sun Microsystems. The two companies have been sparring over Java for years. Sun sued Microsoft for $35 million in 1997, saying Microsoft breached its contract by trying to extend Java so it would work differently on Windows computers. A Sun representative warned Tuesday that Java developers using Visual J#.Net will fall prey to a Microsoft lock-in strategy. "The Java language is one thing and the Java platform is another. The language and Java Virtual Machine technology gives Java its cross-platform compatibility and ability to run on any platform," Sun spokesman David Harrah said. "But from what I've seen described (in regard to Microsoft's plans), Java the language is like any other language they've talked about," Harrah said. "It can perhaps be used inside .Net, but that doesn't mean you get the same value from this that you get from the Java platform. You are restricted to where .Net can go and get locked into Windows." Goodhew was quick to point out the differences between Visual J#.Net and full-strength Java tools from Sun, IBM and other companies. "We are not building a Java tool here," he said. Visual J#.Net will only work with Microsoft's forthcoming Visual Studio.Net, a bundle of the company's development tools for building Windows and .Net applications. As part of a settlement of the years-old lawsuit in January, Microsoft lost its license to use the latest version of Java technology in its products. The company is permitted to use an older version of Java in products for the next seven years.
| Gartner analyst Mark Driver says a new tool from Microsoft aimed at attracting Java developers to its .Net Web services plan will ultimately be ignored.  see commentary
|
|
|
However, Microsoft in July decided to remove Java Virtual Machine (JVM) software from its Windows XP operating system and Internet Explorer Web browser. And Microsoft announced last year that its current Java development tool, called Visual J++, will be discontinued in favor of a new tool and development language called C#, which in many ways mimics Java. Microsoft developed C# internally.
Microsoft sees its C#, Visual Basic and, to a lesser extent, C++ tools as crucial to its .Net strategy. The new Visual J#.Net tool is seen by analysts as a way to retain existing Visual J++ developers and entice them to build .Net applications.
Forrester Research analyst Chris Dial said Microsoft used its license for an older version of Java to develop Visual J#.Net.
"It's the bastardizing of Java in a sense," Dial said. "They are using an older version of Java that they have a license for, but it's not the current Sun specification. It doesn't support Java 2 Enterprise Edition."
Java 2 Enterprise Edition is Sun's specification for Java software built by Sun and other makers, such as Oracle, IBM and BEA Systems.
In many ways, Microsoft's .Net plan and Sun's J2EE strategy are similar. The key differences: Microsoft favors one operating system--Windows--and allows development in multiple languages, including Visual Basic, C++, C#, and now Java itself.
Sun allows development on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Unix, Linux and mainframe operating systems, using a single language: Java. Sun says Java is more appealing than other languages because of its ability to run programs identically on many different computer systems--such as those using Apple Computer's Mac OS or Microsoft's Windows--without having to rewrite the programs for each OS. But to run the programs, typically in a browser, the PC must have a copy of the JVM.
In addition, while .Net is a product and marketing strategy tightly controlled by Microsoft, J2EE is a software specification, defined largely by Sun and implemented in products from Sun and Java backers such as IBM, Oracle and BEA.
Many companies are just beginning to investigate building Web services applications, which make the passing of data between computers much easier, using one of the two strategies.
Dial asserts that Microsoft's new Java message is aimed at top executives or IT systems managers who make decisions on which programming model to use.
"This is aimed less to developers, but more to people who are trying to make decisions on .Net or Java," Dial said. "They think, 'I trained people on Java. I can't go to Microsoft.' To them, Microsoft is saying we support Java. The intermediate and more advanced Java developers are wise to this."
Microsoft said Visual J#.Net will be available for download in a test version later this week from Microsoft's Web site. The test version will only run on the second beta release of Visual Studio.Net.
Final release of Visual J#.Net is expected in the middle of next year. Visual Studio.Net is expected to ship later this year. Goodhew said a coupon allowing developers to receive a copy of Visual J#.Net will be included with the shipping version of Visual Studio.Net. No pricing has been announced.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Sun allows development on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Unix, Linux and mainframe operating systems, using a single language: Java. Most people don't know this yet, but 'modern' software is platform independent. That's how the internet works.
And that's specifically what Microsoft is trying to prevent. If software out of the box works on Windows, Linux, Apple *and* Unix . . . then the single biggest reason to use Windows goes out the 'window'.
To: tech_index
ping
Comment #3 Removed by Moderator
To: Dominic Harr
Visual J++ had HALF the Java developer market before Sun sued it out of existence. No successful software is platform independent. People who use Windows want Windows software. People who use the Mac want Mac software. If a platform is worth writing software for, it is worth writing that software in the platform's native environment and tool-set and APIs. Java is, in effect, the native Web server programming langauage for the BEA, IBM, and Sun application servers. In the .Net environment, all languages are basically the same: Same intermediate language (MSIL) same garbage-collected memory allocation, same runtine environment, etc. For developers, they use the same IDE, same debugger, same profiler, etc. In other words, you are not writing VB, or C++, or C#, or J#, you are writing in your favorite syntax but the semantics are identical from language to langauge. You are coding Windows. C# was designed at the most "native" of these language choices, mainly becuase it has no legacy compatibility issues, unlike C++ and VB. This is as it should be. Apple will do the same with their Objective C tools in OS X.
4
posted on
10/11/2001 9:53:25 AM PDT
by
eno_
To: Dominic Harr Bush2000 Innocentbystander
If software out of the box works on Windows, Linux, Apple *and* Unix It's good to have dreams I suppose.
Instead of suing Microsoft, Sun should have paid Microsoft for making the JVM actually run fast on at least one platform. Maybe the Microsoft programmers can help Gosling get the JVM to run faster on Solaris too.
Ah, who needs the JVM. Web Services actually delivers what Sun never could. The network is the computer.
Comment #6 Removed by Moderator
To: Incorrigible
Ah, who needs the JVM. Web Services actually delivers what Sun never could. The network is the computer. OK...I'm scratching my head. Aren't Java/EJB/servlets running most web services back ends?
7
posted on
10/11/2001 10:28:40 AM PDT
by
B Knotts
To: Dominic Harr
WHO KNEW?
None of us saw this coming... (/sarcasm)
Comment #9 Removed by Moderator
To: Dominic Harr
Only the first release of .NET will be Windows-specific. C# and the .NET CLR have been submitted to ECMA as open standards (something Sun has yet to do with Java) and I expect .NET will be available for Linux and several major Unix platforms within a year or two. There are already 25 languages with existing or announced support on .NET.
.NET = Programming in any language, on any operating system, using ECMA standard tools. The panic is beginning in Silicon Valley.
To: Dominic Harr
I'd love Java if it weren't so friggin' slow. Give me a Java-like language, with 80-100% of C++ performance, and yowza! I'm definitely interested in C#...
To: Ya'll; freedomcrusader; innocentbystander;eno_
- If a platform is worth writing software for, it is worth writing that software in the platform's native environment and tool-set and APIs.
Many don't yet understand the benefits of a 'platform-independent' language, agreed. But the financial payoff for the developers is astounding -- more customers, fewer programmers needed, fewer 'business analysts' needed, fewer headaches all around . . . Java is a better OO implementation than C++, it writes far faster and debugs far faster.
Faster to market, better end product, lower development costs, works on more machines. Same reasons C beat out Assembler and Cobol, once upon a time, yes?
And the payoff to the user, obviously, is an actual choice of OS platforms. No more "I like to play the newest games, so I have to buy Windows".
- I can always tell when you are scared.
Is that what they call it when someone like me makes a large salary writing the software ya'll claim can't be made?
I'd prefer the MS-only crowd continues to not get it. Continue to claim Java is slow. Continue to claim Java isn't platform independent, and that there's no benefit to platform independence anyway.
My industry thanks you.
- Only the first release of .NET will be Windows-specific.
If you believe the Microsoft marketing claims. Forgive me if I remain highly skeptical of this possibility . . . past experience is too strong.
- Give me a Java-like language, with 80-100% of C++ performance, and yowza!
With the 'JIT' (Just-in-time) compilers we now use, which compile the Java into native machine code and then execute it just like C++, that's what we've got. I write the stuff every day. It's just too 'cutting edge' for most of ya'll to have seen. Top flight Java development is largely limited to corporate internal right now.
It'll filter down to the home user in about 6 months to a year, I think.
Comment #13 Removed by Moderator
To: Dominic Harr
If software out of the box works on Windows, Linux, Apple *and* Unix . . . then the single biggest reason to use Windows goes out the 'window'.I guess that's the reason why people use Frontpage to produce content that can only render properly on IE.
Microsoft used to practice "embrace & extend"... now it's Eric Cartman; "screw you guys, I'm going home." ;-)
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson
