Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Idomeneus who wrote (10768)	4/3/1998 12:40:00 AM
From: George von Dassow	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 213176

<<I have to disagree somewhat with you, because I think Rhapsody is a very big part of Apple's strategy.>> The apparent disagreement is merely a matter of the directions from which we are arguing. I concur wholeheartedly with your point about targeting developers and do not mean to downplay Rhapsody; I'm merely responding to that segment of sentiment that expects a big sales boost or stock price boost in the near term when it comes out. I think there are some things that merit more attention than they're getting: I pricked up my ears listening to Jobs' Seybold talk when he focused on four software technologies (QuickTime, ColorSync, AppleScript, and WebObjects) and promised to pursue a cross-platform development effort with each. Of course that is accomplished already with the first and last, to a certain extent. Take this kind of thing along with the colored boxes + linux running on top of Mach, the increasing sophistication of Java VMs (which Apple is no slouch with these days), doesn't this remind one of the old promise of "middleware"? Except that this combination really seems to be going somewhere. It also reminds me in some ways of the component software promise... again, though, this version seems to be getting somewhere. I don't know much about ColorSync or AppleScript, but the more I work with QuickTime the more I am impressed with it (especially the latest release). I'm pretty impressed with WebObjects, too, though not as a developer: I use it every day when I trade with eSchwab. <<both versions of Java (Sun's 100% version, and Microsoft's version) will run natively in Rhapsody--there will be no virtual machine per se, because it'll all be built into the operating system, effectively eliminating a step, and running Java faster (natively).>> I don't think that's possible. Java is compiled to byte code that absolutely must be run through an interpreter... I can't think of any way around that. The only way to "run natively" in the sense I think you mean is to use a Java compiler that produces native machine code, not byte code. Such things exist. If you take this approach, then you have to compile a version for each machine - no more downloading pre-compiled code to arbitrary platforms, etc. - essentially like C or anything else but without the porting difficulties. Not only that, but I'm pretty certain you wouldn't be able to use some of the neater features of Java (like runtime class loading and so forth) that are behaviors of the virtual machine unless the Java-to-native compiler actually embedded the virtual machine in your compiled code (ouch!). - George