Richard Davies wrote: The UK has a good crop of technology pioneers in cloud computing - for example ElasticHosts, FlexiScale, Flexiant, OnApp - and also some strong government initiatives such as G-Cloud.
We will have to see whether this kind of technical leadership converts into swift mass-market adoption or not.
If you ever questioned the usefulness or power of blogs, let me remove any remaining doubt you may have with this story. I have my own blog, http://alan.blog-city.com, and I use it primarily as a public scratchboard, noting thoughts and various observations regarding our industry through the eyes of a Java developer. What I find great about the blog is that it enables others to chip in with their thoughts and ideas. You'll discover that all of us at JDJ have blogs you can follow.
Now, I thought we had long passed the stage of always defending Java from the old legacy arguments we were throwing around some five years ago. I was under the impression we had moved on from there and were engaged in more meaningful debates. I was proved wrong this month. The first item that came up on my radar was a press release from a company announcing their joy that they had removed Java from their B2B Web site and how the efficiency and speed of their site was suddenly catapulted forward. This demanded closer inspection. Thank goodness I did; they were talking about JavaScript, not Java!!! Letting out a yelp, I quickly blogged my comments, e-mailed the originator of the press release, and within 30 minutes we had a retraction and an apology for the confusion. My fear was the countless "drones" who would have picked up on this, not read it properly, and used it as fodder for assuming that Java was down and out.
Okay..."calm down, Alan"...I thought to myself, innocent enough mistake, easily made in the excitement of constructing a press release! Rational and technical people wouldn't make this mistake, would they? Well, I was about to be proved wrong again, but this time from a source I didn't expect. While at my sister's I was browsing through the well-known title Computer Shopper, (UK edition). This title is seen everywhere, and manages to creep onto the majority of IT managers' desks due to its large supplier advertising. The editorial in this title has gotten meatier over the years, but you wouldn't particularly buy the magazine because of it.
There was a piece written by Mike James (a well-established Computer Shopper writer) regarding Java development. Sadly, the information he was basing all his facts on was at least five years out of date. Such classic hollers as "because it's interpreted it has a tendency to be slow"! Excuse me? It didn't get any better, with major errors regarding the pricing of Java, performance, and his general feel for the language. Remember the piece was not written as an editorial; it was meant to be an informative piece, full of startling facts, not personal opinions. The problem isn't so much that Mike James hasn't a clue what he is talking about when it comes to Java, but the fact that many people in middle management will read this and believe it - thus continues the cycle of stuff and legend.
The question is: What can we do? Many leading Java dignitaries have suggested that we need to form a marketing coalition that will present a clear and united front. I didn't think much of it, believing the language to be strong enough to stand on its merit, but maybe we need to address this. Here at JDJ we'll be doing our bit. We're establishing a working group of Java movers and shakers, under the guidance of our newly appointed chairman Joseph Ottinger. Their task: to tackle head-on the issues facing Java in the forthcoming year.
Joseph is a strong personality and should keep things in order; I'm looking forward to working with him on this. We'll report how things are going next month.
Until then, enjoy our Linux focus issue and please check our Calvin's really enlightening article on Linux/Java threads.
About Alan Williamson Alan Williamson is widely recognized as an early expert on Cloud Computing, he is Co-Founder of aw2.0 Ltd, a software company specializing in deploying software solutions within Cloud networks. Alan is a Sun Java Champion and creator of OpenBlueDragon (an open source Java CFML runtime engine). With many books, articles and speaking engagements under his belt, Alan likes to talk passionately about what can be done TODAY and not get caught up in the marketing hype of TOMORROW. Follow his blog, http://alan.blog-city.com/ or e-mail him at cloud(at)alanwilliamson.org.
In the January 13, 2003 InfoWorld Jack McCarthy has an article "Counting on Linux" (link provided) in which he recounts anecdotal reports from CTOs regarding their favorable experience using Linux to cut costs and add functionality.
All fine and good, except that in the fourth paragraph in the "Money Talks" section on page 45 he completely miscasts Java in terms of its place in the computing environment: "Alex Zoghlin says Chicago-based Orbitz saved millions of dollars in 2002 using Linux to replace expensive hardware, including Sun Microsystems' Java application servers using Sun's Solaris software."
Clearly, Mr. McCarthy does not distinguish between the computer, the operating system, and software environments - Java. This may be an understandable error in a lay person, but is unacceptable in a publication bearing InfoWorld's commendable "LEAD WITH KNOWLEDGE" motto.
This is an insidious error, one that in its prominent placement in a widely read publication can do immeasurable harm.
An interested decision maker could very well read this and think "Aha! So Java is expensive, and by dumping it I can save lots of money."
The aggregation of this type of misinformation leads to a distinct undercurrent of ill-feeling towards the subject, in this case Java.
I believe that it is the responsibility of the strong voices in the Java community, Java Developers Journal included, to contact the authors and editors of this type of misinformation and provide a correction to the material, and encourage the correct representation of Java in the future.
Always remember the harm that whispers can do.
In the January 13, 2003 InfoWorld Jack McCarthy has an article "Counting on Linux" (link provided) in which he recounts anecdotal reports from CTOs regarding their favorable experience using Linux to cut costs and add functionality.
All fine and good, except that in the fourth paragraph in the "Money Talks" section on page 45 he completely miscasts Java in terms of its place in the computing environment: "Alex Zoghlin says Chicago-based Orbitz saved millions of dollars in 2002 using Linux to replace expensive hardware, including Sun Microsystems' Java application servers using Sun's Solaris software."
Clearly, Mr. McCarthy does not distinguish between the computer, the operating system, and software environments - Java. This may be an understandable error in a lay person, but is unacceptable in a publication bearing InfoWorld's commendable "LEAD WITH KNOWLEDGE" motto.
This is an insidious error, one that in its prominent placement in a widely read publication can do immeasurable harm.
An interested decision maker could very well read this and think "Aha! So Java is expensive, and by dumping it I can save lots of money."
The aggregation of this type of misinformation leads to a distinct undercurrent of ill-feeling towards the subject, in this case Java.
I believe that it is the responsibility of the strong voices in the Java community, Java Developers Journal included, to contact the authors and editors of this type of misinformation and provide a correction to the material, and encourage the correct representation of Java in the future.
Always remember the harm that whispers can do.
#16
Waco commented on 16 Jan 2003
so, should it rather have been
!"JavaScript".equals("Java")
Well, Java is slow... its halfway in between an interpreted and a compiled language, so there is overhead in the dynamic link process. Then, every method in Java is a virtual method, unlike in C++ where you decide which is virtual and which is not (which helps a lot in performance if you know what you are doing). You can write a C++ program that leavs Java in the dust, but so can you write a C progrgam that leavs the C++ program in the dust, and an assembly pro can probably write something that leaves all these in the dust, and so on... its all a matter of managing complexicity, and the tradeoff is performance. I would take Java over ANY bastardized M$ language any day. The worst offender Visual BASIC, which should have been killed long, long time ago, but M$ keeps pumping more money into keep it going.
#15
Francis Fish commented on 14 Jan 2003
It's OK embedded in HTML doing validation and avoiding round trips to the server. Of course, you have to do the validation again on the server so that you don't get into GIGO land, but it gives the end user a better experience.
#14
Mike commented on 11 Jan 2003
JavaScript.equals(Java) == false
That's how you would have to write it in Java, since there is no operator overloading in Java.
By the way, Java != C++, either!
#13
Harry Mitchell commented on 11 Jan 2003
Having the steering committee is a great idea. Java, as well as the steering committee must be supported by people and companies with money to burn if you ever want to reach the masses. There is a lot of opposition from people who really don't know any better and get all of their information about Java from the wrong sources. Java lobbyists must read and respond to all of these incorrect, non-java information sources to counter the wrong information being spewed by ignorant people who think they are helping. This is a daunting task, but Java developers have to be good lobbyists as well as developers because our prosperity depends on it.
#12
Frank Hill commented on 11 Jan 2003
A collaboration to promote Java is definately needed to reach the non-technical masses. Microsoft did not beat out MacIntosh with better technology, but with better marketing. If you don't get the word out, it may as well not be.
#11
Ray commented on 10 Jan 2003
Let me start by stating I am a big Java fan. It's portability is unsurpassed. It's ability to be Web-enabled is surpurb. Here at the Bank, we have run Java code on a PC, FTP'd the exact code to the mainframe or midrange computer, and run it there, no tweaking, no re-compiling.
That said, Java is currently too slow for online, high transaction volume, mission critical applications. IBM recognized this after much complaining and hand-ringing by their customers and developed such products as High Performance Java, basically a Java compiler. This product was quickly dropped as many features of Java could not be made available, and the portability was lost. Their more recent efforts have been in the realm of persistant JVM's so all the overhead of building and tearing down the JVM for each transaction does not take place. These efforts progess, but significant performance advances in these types of technologies take several years to maturely implement.
Even with all this effort todate, real-life experiences here at the Bank demonstrate that Java does not currently have the processing speed to function in environments where customer activity rates are in the thousands per second, even when running on mainframes with multiple shared processors which alone process in the hundreds of millions of instructions per second.
As industry front-runners like IBM and Sun continue efforts to improve Java, this fact, and reputation, of Java being slow will vanish, and we programmers will be better able to take advantage of its fortes - enterprise portability and Web-awareness.
No, it doesn't. The engine uses a JIT-compiler, and you can even pre-JIT your assemblies.
For those who like to argue over these kind of platform differences (not me, personally), let the arguing continue.
#9
Greg commented on 10 Jan 2003
As others have stated in reply to this article your headline does not read correctly.
Furthermore, one of your points in the article is that someone WHO DOESN'T KNOW JAVA will read the headline...what sticks out is the Javascript = Java. Perhaps a better symbol to use would have been the equals sign eith the slash through it,
Javascript ≠ Java
#8
mARK commented on 10 Jan 2003
That headline would read much more clearly as "Javascript != Java!!!". As written it is easily misread, and isn't even syntactically correct!
#7
Jim McElmurry commented on 10 Jan 2003
I have had the honor of being contracted in three positions now where this error about java and javascript has been made. The people that I was dealing with assumed that java and javascript where the same, but were further mistaken in that what they really needed was an ASP developer that knew VBscript. Not much can be more depressing to a career programer than to arrive on site prepared to code in the language you love, and have it mistaken for a microsoft scripting langauge. To add insult to injury, have you ever tried to explain the differance to these same people? The blank stares are overwhelming as you try to explain that even though they have the same word 'java' in their names that are indeed differant.
#6
Jack commented on 10 Jan 2003
I've heard the argument that interpretive technologies are too slow for over 20 years now. These days I think most of the Java antagonists come from the Microsoft camp. And now that .Net uses a common, interpretive runtime engine I don't see that this camp has a valid argument anymore.
#5
Dan commented on 10 Jan 2003
Whew.
Judging by the headline, I thought you were trying to say that JavaScript *does* equal Java.
#4
Aarron Presley commented on 10 Jan 2003
JavaScript is the fastest part of our web apps. You can make it slow by crappy coding, but otherwise it is quite fast.
Chris Gerrard wrote: In the January 13, 2003 InfoWorld Jack McCarthy has an article "Counting on Linux" (link provided) in which he recounts anecdotal reports from CTOs regarding their favorable experience using Linux to cut costs and add functionality.
All fine and good, except that in the fourth paragraph in the "Money Talks" section on page 45 he completely miscasts Java in terms of its place in the computing environment: "Alex Zoghlin says Chicago-based Orbitz saved millions of dollars in 2002 using Linux to replace expensive hardware, including Sun Microsystems' Java application servers using Sun's Solaris software."
Clearly, Mr. McCarthy does not distinguish between the computer, the operating system, and software environments - Java. This may be an understandable error in a lay person, but is unacceptable in a publication bearing InfoWorld's commendable "LEAD WITH KNOWLEDGE" motto.
This is an insi...
Chris Gerrard wrote: In the January 13, 2003 InfoWorld Jack McCarthy has an article "Counting on Linux" (link provided) in which he recounts anecdotal reports from CTOs regarding their favorable experience using Linux to cut costs and add functionality.
All fine and good, except that in the fourth paragraph in the "Money Talks" section on page 45 he completely miscasts Java in terms of its place in the computing environment: "Alex Zoghlin says Chicago-based Orbitz saved millions of dollars in 2002 using Linux to replace expensive hardware, including Sun Microsystems' Java application servers using Sun's Solaris software."
Clearly, Mr. McCarthy does not distinguish between the computer, the operating system, and software environments - Java. This may be an understandable error in a lay person, but is unacceptable in a publication bearing InfoWorld's commendable "LEAD WITH KNOWLEDGE" motto.
This is an insi...
Waco wrote: so, should it rather have been
!"JavaScript".equals("Java")
Well, Java is slow... its halfway in between an interpreted and a compiled language, so there is overhead in the dynamic link process. Then, every method in Java is a virtual method, unlike in C++ where you decide which is virtual and which is not (which helps a lot in performance if you know what you are doing). You can write a C++ program that leavs Java in the dust, but so can you write a C progrgam that leavs the C++ program in the dust, and an assembly pro can probably write something that leaves all these in the dust, and so on... its all a matter of managing complexicity, and the tradeoff is performance. I would take Java over ANY bastardized M$ language any day. The worst offender Visual BASIC, which should have been killed long, long time ago, but M$ keeps pumping more money into keep it going.
Francis Fish wrote: It's OK embedded in HTML doing validation and avoiding round trips to the server. Of course, you have to do the validation again on the server so that you don't get into GIGO land, but it gives the end user a better experience.
Mike wrote: JavaScript.equals(Java) == false
That's how you would have to write it in Java, since there is no operator overloading in Java.
By the way, Java != C++, either!
Harry Mitchell wrote: Having the steering committee is a great idea. Java, as well as the steering committee must be supported by people and companies with money to burn if you ever want to reach the masses. There is a lot of opposition from people who really don't know any better and get all of their information about Java from the wrong sources. Java lobbyists must read and respond to all of these incorrect, non-java information sources to counter the wrong information being spewed by ignorant people who think they are helping. This is a daunting task, but Java developers have to be good lobbyists as well as developers because our prosperity depends on it.
Frank Hill wrote: A collaboration to promote Java is definately needed to reach the non-technical masses. Microsoft did not beat out MacIntosh with better technology, but with better marketing. If you don't get the word out, it may as well not be.
Ray wrote: Let me start by stating I am a big Java fan. It's portability is unsurpassed. It's ability to be Web-enabled is surpurb. Here at the Bank, we have run Java code on a PC, FTP'd the exact code to the mainframe or midrange computer, and run it there, no tweaking, no re-compiling.
That said, Java is currently too slow for online, high transaction volume, mission critical applications. IBM recognized this after much complaining and hand-ringing by their customers and developed such products as High Performance Java, basically a Java compiler. This product was quickly dropped as many features of Java could not be made available, and the portability was lost. Their more recent efforts have been in the realm of persistant JVM's so all the overhead of building and tearing down the JVM for each transaction does not take place. These efforts progess, but significant performance advances in thes...
Marcelo wrote: .Net uses a common, interpretive runtime engine
No, it doesn't. The engine uses a JIT-compiler, and you can even pre-JIT your assemblies.
For those who like to argue over these kind of platform differences (not me, personally), let the arguing continue.
Greg wrote: As others have stated in reply to this article your headline does not read correctly.
Furthermore, one of your points in the article is that someone WHO DOESN'T KNOW JAVA will read the headline...what sticks out is the Javascript = Java. Perhaps a better symbol to use would have been the equals sign eith the slash through it,
Javascript ≠ Java
mARK wrote: That headline would read much more clearly as "Javascript != Java!!!". As written it is easily misread, and isn't even syntactically correct!
Jim McElmurry wrote: I have had the honor of being contracted in three positions now where this error about java and javascript has been made. The people that I was dealing with assumed that java and javascript where the same, but were further mistaken in that what they really needed was an ASP developer that knew VBscript. Not much can be more depressing to a career programer than to arrive on site prepared to code in the language you love, and have it mistaken for a microsoft scripting langauge. To add insult to injury, have you ever tried to explain the differance to these same people? The blank stares are overwhelming as you try to explain that even though they have the same word 'java' in their names that are indeed differant.
Jack wrote: I've heard the argument that interpretive technologies are too slow for over 20 years now. These days I think most of the Java antagonists come from the Microsoft camp. And now that .Net uses a common, interpretive runtime engine I don't see that this camp has a valid argument anymore.
Tobi McFarland wrote: Maybe we can start by making sure that all the CS teachers in the world are on the same page. I was in a Java class a year ago that was being taught by someone that also said Java was "slow"-for the same reasons mentioned in this article.
UGH!!!
In a surprise move Tuesday Oracle wheeled out its Big Data Appliance.
That’s the one it said in October would be ready sometime in the first half. Only nobody believed it meant early in the first half. Heck, it’s not even clear anybody thought Oracle could make the first half...
Rackspace Hosting, the service leader in cloud computing, on Thursday announced its acquisition of SharePoint911, an industry leader in SharePoint consulting, training, and "JumpStart" services within SharePoint. The unification of both companies provides capabilities to deliver ...
Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, on Thursday announced it's working with Microsoft to market school IT labs and one-to-one computing solutions that allow a cost effective delivery of innovative IT enabled education. These solutions are available throu...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have techn...
Nimble, the social CRM platform has announced the launch of Nimble 2.0, billed as the “most social” CRM platform on the market today. Nimble was designed entirely with social CRM in mind and is the first social business platform that empowers companies with the ability to get clo...
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In a surprise move Tuesday Oracle wheeled out its Big Data Appliance.
That’s the one it said in October would be ready sometime in the first half. Only nobody believed it meant early in the first half. Heck, it’s not even clear anybody thought Oracle could make the first half...
Rackspace Hosting, the service leader in cloud computing, on Thursday announced its acquisition of SharePoint911, an industry leader in SharePoint consulting, training, and "JumpStart" services within SharePoint. The unification of both companies provides capabilities to deliver ...
Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, on Thursday announced it's working with Microsoft to market school IT labs and one-to-one computing solutions that allow a cost effective delivery of innovative IT enabled education. These solutions are available throu...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have techn...
Nimble, the social CRM platform has announced the launch of Nimble 2.0, billed as the “most social” CRM platform on the market today. Nimble was designed entirely with social CRM in mind and is the first social business platform that empowers companies with the ability to get clo...
