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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andy M. who wrote (5454)	11/11/1997 5:55:00 PM
From: jim A	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

I own SUNW long, and use to own NOVL (which still has the largest installed base of Network software, albeit eroding quickly because of NT). It apears to me that the same may be occurring here with SUNW as it begins its NT challenge. What if JAVA ad the Network computer don't take off? Every company that has challenged MSFT head-to-head has perished, and i'm starting to think the same may happen to SUN. I'm thinking of buying more, but not quite sure what my rationale is. Convince me beyong JAVA and NC.

To: Andy M. who wrote (5454)	11/11/1997 6:50:00 PM
From: uu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Andy: You state: > if the thread can have a substantive discussion of the merit, or > lack of merit, of the claims made in the survey. Sure, but how can a substantive discussion be made if the article raising the question is so single minded and takes matter out of context that no intelligent discussion can be done! All the issues you raised after reading the article are indeed valid, but then any new technology has its own problems. It is the concept that is of importance and as long as the underlying promises and benefits the technology offers provide a dramatic improvement to the way we live (both at a busniess level as well as personal) then everything else is solvable. Just remember Windows when it first came out, and the problems it had. The technology did not just disappear but rather improved upon over the years. Windows 3.1 was a great improvement over the previous version, and Windows 95 was even a better improvement. And now NT 4.0 and 5.0. Similarly Java continues to be a very young technology and yes it has its own problems but because of the unique promises it gives it will continue to live and to be improved. But lets examine the issues you raised after reading that idiotic biased article (in my opinon of course). 1. need to test on multiple platforms This is very vague and coming from a developer (as the article claims) this does not mean anything but (as I said) a very poor excuse from conservative developers to avoid learning and accepting the new technology! Java's foundations are based on write once run everywhere. If there are problems with this notion they are addressed and are solved in the next versions. 2. incompatibilities between JDK 1.02 and JDK 1.1, different virtual machines, different tool kits. Perhaps in some areas. However JDK 1.1 is perhaps similar to Windows 3.1 was to its previous version. I do recall things were a lot different in 3.1 than how Windows applications worked using the previous APIs, etc. But did that stop people not using Windows 3.1 and go back to the mainframe computers?! 3. lack of open standards Who would say this but only the hard core conservative developers who are simply looking for poor excuses not to learn the new technology and change their ways of doing things! Java does not lack open standards, it is the hard core conservative developers that <b.>lack open mind for acceptance of the new technology! Java is well defined and accepted by the industry (and here it is meant busniess entities and not neccessarily the individual developers!) And sure someone like Microsoft may cause you believe otherwise, but the fact is that even they have accepted the standards as defined by Sun. Their version of Java is supposed to be the same (or at worst an extension) to Sun's Java. And it is appears at this time not to be the case by force they will soon be adopting every single standard defined by Sun's Java! 4. poor performance. Yes, this is true! However this is something that is being resolved as we speak and should be resolved very soon. Also this will not be a block against Java for what Java can deliver to the mass consumer as well as business markets. Performance is the number one priroty of things to be done by Sun and it is aggressively being looked at. and finally: 5. "It costs more to write Java applications" [according to one developer] Being a developer myself and having worked with Java for over 3 years now it is beyond me what this statement means and the so called developer who said that meant to say. Well let me put it this way the developer who said that really meant to say the following: hmmm...hmmmm...I am just too used to what I already know and have a hard time learning the new technology so the heck with it and I am going to bring up any excuse I can to not go through the trouble of learning the new stuff!" Take my word, most experienced software engineers and especially if they have worked on Windows (despite what they want you to believe them as being flexible) are hard core conservative developers who simply do not want to change their way of doing things! But as I said in my post techstocks.com , in my opinion only of course, this time around it is different and their preference is not only ridiculous but absolutely irrelevant! Regards, Addi Jamshidi

To: Andy M. who wrote (5454)	11/11/1997 8:59:00 PM
From: Krishna A. Ubrani	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Addi's long reply was great, here is my shorter version: 1. need to test on multiple platforms Sure, there are a few differences, it is not bulletproof yet, as the JVM implementation depends on the platform. These are being worked out constantly to fulfill the promise of write once run anywhere, but the time spent is hardly significant, compared to non-java, where there is a need to completely PORT applications from one platform to another, even among many Unix flavors, TEST the ported software, and maintain the multiple platform-dependent sources. Java has some flaws, but it has to be seen in perspective, and it may not be suitable in all applications, for example if cross-platform is not a big concern. 2. incompatibilities between JDK 1.02 and JDK 1.1, different virtual machines, different tool kits. Addi has answered this adequately. 3. lack of open standards Like what? Sockets? TCP/IP? CORBA? Which open standard does Java not support, or which one of it's supported protocols is proprietary? 4. poor performance On the server side, yes, and these are being worked out. 5. "It costs more to write Java applications" [according to one developer] This is not fathomable. Costs more compared to what? C++? Windows? A very unusual claim, but possible in theory. Definitely not the general opinion. By every count, it is easier to learn, implement, and debug. -Krishna