Subject: Re: why Java plug-ins? (long)
From: [email-masked] (robert hood)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 15:13:46 -0700

> > On Thu, 18 Apr 1996 [email-masked] (Ty Sarna) suggests:
> > 
> > > If I'm right, they intend to use Java as a Rexx/BML replacement.
> > 
> > I know very little about Java. Can anyone speak to why it is well suited for
> > use as a plug-in generating language? How different is it from C++?
> Java is platform independent, highly object oriented and quite similar to 
> C++ so people profient in C won't find the switch to hard to do.
> 
> I think the platform independence is the biggest thing here. You don't 
> need to recompile the code (correct me if i'm wrong here) for a new 
> platform. 

I'm frequently amazed at the tendency of humans to fall prey to marketing.
Java is merely another in a long line of scripting languages that ALL share
the same advantages:  they are platform independent, and you don't need to
"recompile" the script for it to run on whatever platform its virtual machine
supports.  That is essentially WHY scripting languages were invented (their
interpreted nature also lended well to rapid prototyping and feedback).  Java's
sole claim to fame is that it has been integrated into Netscape (and soon into
Internet Explorer), and the whole there-goes-the-neighborhood explosion of
the Internet/Web has pushed it into the spotlight for those who are easily
impressed by software technology.

What are the other claims?

  "Java protects programmers from pointers!"

      Spare me.  I've yet to see a scripting language that offers C-like
      pointers.  Besides, if you aren't an expert C programmer, you shouldn't
      be messing with pointers anyway.

  "Java is more secure that other scripting languages!"

     Secure how?  Is its security driven by its application?  Everybody
     say "yes".  No matter what scripting language had been chosen for the
     task of integration into Web programming, it too would have to have had
     the same levels of security because of the particulars of the application.

Java is not some "new" thing.  Unlike technically-savvy homosapiens, scripting
langauges have been around since the dawn of computers.  Indeed, Java is
bloated in its syntax and slow in its execution compared to its contemporaries
(can you say Perl? or even Bourne or Korn shell?).

One area where Java really fails is in its excessive syntax.  Let's face it:
Java was designed FOR programmers BY programmers.  And not just programmers,
but C++ programmers.  Although most all scripting languages require some
familiarity with programming principles (loops, conditionals, etc.), with Java,
its complexity rivals that of a real C++ program.  Imagine how much easier
it would have been for the end-user to have used a BASIC- or Pascal-like
derivitive (Smalltalk? Lisp?) for the Internet scripting language instead
re-inventing a C++ system.

Perhaps this whole issue has simply become a matter of status (if you can't
talk conversationally about Java at your local Internet Coffee Shop, then who
the hell are you?), and less an issue of practicality.  Why use a scripting
language that is as complex as the language used to write it?  Where is the
advantage over other existing interpreters?

Render me confused,              |||
Bob                            ^(===)^
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