ActiveXcrement is nothing more than Microsoft's latest rendition of their decade-old component model with some enhancements which better optimize its use between computers over slower connections. The vacuum-works responsible for this technically naive, brittle and needlessly complex garbage collection is now on course to turn the entire system into a support structure for Visual Basic, the language embedded in virtually every Microsoft product. Other languages, C++ for example, are to be used primarily for the development of software components for use in Visual Basic. This is not a joke, that's their goal.
Given the incoherent, brittle and complex nature of the infrastructure, they need something like Visual Basic as a sort of rug under which they can sweep their mess. What they hadn't bargained on was a well-thought-out system based on modern, object-oriented principles designed for a secure, networked environment. Java will crush Visual Basic in the long run because everything people like about Visual Basic can be implemented with ease in Java. None of the components used by Visual Basic were written in Visual Basic, there are very few commercially viable Visual Basic applications, and the language itself is a renowned horror. So why is it so popular? The ease-of-use of the interactive development environment. And that is precisely why the whole Frankenstein-like morass is so vulnerable. The same environment can be developed for Java but it will have a homogeneous, object-oriented, sercure, networked infrastructure underlying it. It will be Java all the way down, no more switching gears. Certainly there will be higher-level language built on top of Java, but that's another issue. |
