Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 101 Reasons Why Java is Better than .NET (Reloaded)
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | # Public Domain APIs - Any Java public apis are part of the public
> | domain, .NET apis are proprietary and can open the door to a law suit.
What about the Mono project? Does this mean that Icaza is actually
introducing Mono as a Trojan to give Microsoft patent rights over Linux
distributions which include Mono?
I doubt it, but it would be nice to get that cleared up one way or
another.
> | # Standard Library Source Code Availability - Java source code for the
> | core libraries are available in every J2SDK distribution, .NET sources
> | can only be seen by resorting to illegal means.
> `----
Again, I'm not sure what the status of Mono would be. I know that Mono
is still a very limited subset of Microsoft's .NET. IIRC, Icaza got
support and permissions from Microsoft for the portions that are
included in mono.
On the other hand, Mono could be much like WINE. There is enough of a
framework included to allow you to run Microsoft libraries, but you
must have the proper Microsoft licensed software to run these
libraries. The XP license was sufficient to run Microsoft libraries
under both WINE and MONO. The Vista License not explicitly states that
all Microsoft libraries can ONLY be use with Windows Vista. This looks
like another direct challenge to the antitrust ruling and the courts in
general, but then it's pretty obvious that the Judge can't do anything
unless the DOJ or the Compliance officer or the Technical committee
agree that the Judge needs to do something. And since the Compliance
officer also works in the Microsoft marketing department (instead of
being 100% dedicated to monitoring compliance with all state, federal,
and international laws - as was originally required in the settlement).
And Microsoft chose 2 out of the 3 members of the "technical
committee" - which means that the one "trouble maker" always gets voted
down.
In effect, Microsoft is above the law, which means lawlessness will
prevail. Microsoft will continue to violate the law, and the only
means of retaliation will be illegal acts. Vigilante Justice has
already taken the form of flooding the market with OSS software,
revising the GPL to force all contributors to relinquish ALL rights,
including patent, copyright, and trademark rights - but ONLY for the
GPL version. Commercial versions used by companies like Microsoft
under a proprietary license could still be fully liable for all patent,
copyright, and trademark violations.
There seems to be indications that many of the viruses spread, are
often retaliatory actions against Microsoft as well. And now, there is
the threat of cyber-terror by exploiting back-door vulnerabilities
which Microsoft has insisted on maintaining as "strategic software
features". But now, instead of benign attacks by script kiddies, there
appear to be threats to wipe out banking systems, insurance records,
investment records, and medical records, as well as disrupting power
grids, and destroying critical information - through "terror viruses".
Microsoft has set the stage for their own destruction. Imagine what
would happen if terrorist moles working within the united states, or
within other countries were to begin to deploy viruses which
mass-distributed viruses which wiped out the financial records of every
PC user in the United States, perhaps after capturing the account
access information and writing electronic drafts to themselves through
laundering operations.
Such an attack could easily be staged within the next 12-24 months, and
it looks like Vista would still be completely vulnerable.
> http://www.helpdesk-software.ws/it/29-04-2004.htm
>
> Now there's the GPL factor as well.
>
> Related:
>
> Developers Embrace Java, Drop Visual Basic
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Use of Visual Basic has dropped 35% since the spring, says a
> | poll of more than 430 North American developers done by research
> | company Evans Data.
> | [...]
Even those who are using Visual Basic have now shifted to a more
"portable" dialect which is compatible with OpenOffice Basic, and OSS
version of Basic. Many companies and consultants are beginning to back
away from the "Microsoft Only" solutions, even in the Visual Basic
arena.
> | Developers have abandoned Microsoft's Visual Basic in droves
> | during the last six months, and they're using Java more than any
> | other development language, according to a recently published
> | survey.
> `----
> http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196600515
I get nervous with a small sample of 450 developers - with no
indication as to whether they are junior, senior, manager, or even
professional developers. One month you could have 450 Java devlopers
participating, and next month you could have 400 VB developers
participating.
VB is losing share.
In general, it looks like most developers have decided that a "Windows
Only" solution that might only be valid for 2-3 years is not a good
long-term strategy. They have decided that a "multiplatform" solution
such as Java, Perl, Ajax, or portable C or C++ using glibc - is a
better long-term strategy which can easily be implemented, managed, and
maintaned across all versions of Windows, Linux,and Unix (including
OS/X). We are also seeing growth of Ruby (especially on Rails), and
even Python has been quite popular lately.
All of these approaches can be implemented in both Windows and Linux
and OS/X as well as most other versions of UNIX.
> Study: Developers Favor Linux
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | "Regardless of what kind of developer you are, you're still trying to
> | make a living, and target the operating system that?s controlling the
> | market."
> |
> | However, in the most recent survey, the developers' forecast of their
> | target platform has changed. For the first time, these developers said
> | that in the next 12 to 18 months they expect to be developing more Linux
> | apps than Windows apps.
> `----
>
> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3645766
Perhaps this is because the Linux API set is not only available on
Linux, but also on OS/X and Windows as well. The glibc library, the
xlib library, and the openGL library, or all well supported and now
available for all of the major platforms in OSS formats. Because they
are shared object libraries, they can be called by proprietary
software.
This approach is also becoming much more popular in projects where
client customization becomes a critical factor for success. The "one
size fits all" solution is very rarely ideal, since it means that
businesses must often forgo key strategic operating procedures because
they are not supported in the "shrink wrapped" solutions.
> How many Microsofties does it take to implement the Off menu?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Every piece of evidence I've heard from developers inside Microsoft
> | supports my theory that the company has become completely tangled up in
> | bureaucracy, layers of management, meetings ad infinitum, and
> | overstaffing.
Sounds about like IBM back in 1991. The reasons above were exactly why
Bill Gates claimed that he needed to "Divorce" IBM. And now that Bill
is retiring, Microsoft is becoming exactly the same mess that IBM had
become during the days of OS/2 1.2.
> | The only way Microsoft has managed to hire so many people
> | has been by lowering their hiring standards significantly...
> `----
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/24.html
> TIOBE Programming Community Index for November 2006
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Java 20.400%
No surprise there. Write once, run everywhere. SunSoft has really
been getting much better at delivering on this promise. Most ofthe big
frameworks such as Jakarta, Struts, Jboss, Swing, and the other core
functionalities can now be called and will work properly regardless of
which platform is being used, so long as the JVM is loaded for the
platform. Sun, HP, and IBM have worked very hard to maintain
compatibility between the JVMs and to make sure that key standards are
maintained and uniformly implemented. Sun still leads the way,
introducing new technologies, but generally if one codes to the older
technologies, the new JRE and JDK sets will still function well.
> | C 17.198%
Ironically, one of big shifts here is that more and more C programming
is done with GCC, which has been implemented on everything from Windows
and Linux appliances to Z series mainframes, on both the Linux/Unix
platforms and the proprietary platforms. cygwin is available for
Windows, and I believe IBM even has a gcc compatible compiler for MVS.
On the other hand, more and more C programming effort is focused on
writing plug-ins for other frameworks and languages rather than writing
entire applications from scratch in C.
> | C++ 11.055%
C++ has become more popular, especially since LSB-3 has resolved so
many of the name mangling issues related to library versions. Nearly
all versions of C++ have struggled with this issue, and the LSB
standard has established ways to maintain backward compatibility from
version to version while still making it possible to extend existing
classes and implement new classes in new versions of the same library.
> | (Visual) Basic 9.470%
VB got a nice little boost recently because Open Office now implements
a portable subset of VB for integration of VB scripts with the
OpenOffice applications. OO even goes further in that it permits VB
scripting with the presents application as well as the calc and writer
applications.
> | PHP 9.209%
> | Perl 6.228%
> | Python 3.641%
> | C# 3.023%
> | JavaScript 2.310%
JavaScript got a nice little boost with AJAX which has boosted the
popularity.
In addition, standards have been established, and all of these
standards are public.
> | Delphi 2.252%
> | SAS 2.210%
> | Ruby 1.717%
Ruby hasn't been all that popular until recently, with the introduction
of Ruby on Rails.
It's moving up fast.
> | PL/SQL 1.223%
PL/SQL is the Oracle specific version of SQL.
I would have liked to see an aggregate score for all SQL.
> | D 0.684%
> | ABAP 0.637%
> | Lisp/Scheme 0.586%
> | COBOL 0.564%
COBOL is going to be interesting. There is so much legacy code written
in COBOL.
The problem is that most of the complex business rules are written in
COBOL and
translating those rules has been a problem. Get it wrong and you end
up like Enron and
WorldComm. Get it almost right and you could still end up the target
of a public SEC investigation.
> | Ada 0.546%
I remember when ADA first came out. It was supposed to produce "bug
free" programs
almost in spite of the programmers. Seems like the only big uses for
ADA are nuclear missles (let's hope the never need to test that), spy
sattellites (hopefully that's going pretty well), and a few "Star Wars"
projects that couldn't be redeployed in C.
> | Pascal 0.516%
> | Visual FoxPro 0.431%
> `----
> http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index
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