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Technology Stocks : BORL: Time to BUY! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerry Pince who wrote (6894)	10/25/1997 10:33:00 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10836

What Is Java? And Why Should You Care? "Technically, Java's just a programming language, but one with a far-reaching goal: to allow programmers to create one copy of a program users can run on almost any computer and operating system." Now, that may be a definition I can buy. It's certainly better than, "Well, its a language and OS all balled into one". In effect, a JVM is a device driver for Java programs. Again, sounds like an apt description to me. By the end of 1997, IBM will ship a universal virtual machine that will provide support for three languages: Java, BASIC and Smalltalk. What?!? It can't be!!! After all, BASIC and Smalltalk are just plain-old languages (not great ones, at that) -- and THEY can benefit from this Java thing, too???? Sounds like to me this JVM is not a VM at all, but some kind of runtime!! Could it be? That's it!!! The VM is just a runtime, translating some pcode that happens to be compatible amongst three languages -- Java, Basic, and Smalltalk!!! Tell me it can't be right. VM just a runtime? No, no way. So a year or two from now, we could see code written in c++ (or c++ builder, for that matter), that is compiled into pcode, downloaded over the internet just like Java, and even executed on a Java VM??? This article comes as a total surprise to me. All this time I was thinking this Java concept was something radical and totally new, and now it turns out it works with any old language -- EVEN BASIC!!! Interesting.

To: Gerry Pince who wrote (6894)	10/25/1997 3:01:00 PM
From: Kashish King	Respond to of 10836

Lou Grinzo makes some good points in his discussion about Java, however, he has swallowed the Microsoft hook, line and sinker and has managed to convince himself that being a contributing editor to Windows Magazine and being the author of a cheezy (extra-cheeze) book on Windows programming makes him an expert. In fact, his blind assertion that Java is technically a programming language only holds water if you ignore his comments on Java Beans, the Virutal Machine and the growing number of standard classes. Somebody please write Mr. Grinzo and ask him how it is that languages which have nothing to do with Java are being used to both generate and access the Java platform. In fact, Java is a language, but the language is only a part, albeit an important one, of the picture. Soon, people like Mr. Grinzo will wake up and smell the coffee because he is clearly on the right track with the rest of his comments.