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The Apache/Sun Relationship Worsens
Posted by
Hemos
on Thu Feb 21, 2002 09:25 AM
from the gotta-loosen-your-grip-on-java dept.
from the gotta-loosen-your-grip-on-java dept.
d6y writes "Over on the O'Reilly weblogs there's an entry on the relationship between Sun's Java Community Process and Apache. Sun have been rubbing people up with wrong way (the problems of licensing open source J2EE containers; stuts v. JavaFaces; log4j v. JDK 1.4 logging....) and I hope this gets sorted out real soon.
See also the original VNUNet article and Apache's position paper."
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Apache/Sun (Score:5, Informative)
While it does matter in the aesthetic that Sun is restricting certification of open-source J2EE platforms, fortunately Sun has not taken drastic positions of 'shutting down' JBoss or anything like that. This letter [jboss.org] from Marc Fleury seems to clarify the exact issue with JBoss.
This seeming 'rivalry' between Sun & Apache is not as clear-cut; Many of the Jakarta contributors are Sun employees and engineers. (Tomcat/Catalina is used as the 'reference implementation' for the Servlet/JSP specifications.) For more on this, check out the former 'open source guy' at Sun: James Duncan Davidson [x180.net]
Re:Apache/Sun (Score:5, Informative)
Outside of Tomcat, IBM has been the biggest commercial vendor contributing to Apache, including core items Xerces, SOAP, and Log4J, and in each case Sun has refused to let Apache be the de facto standard (inspite of that being what i believe most java developers want), and has instead put out alternative APIs which its embedded with the JDK, thus locking everybody w/ 1.4 down to a standard that now has little room to grow.
And in some cases the 1.4 bundled version is inferior to the Apache effort (yes, Crimson was/is better than Xerces 1.x because of IBM's redundant i18n overhead, but its NOT better than 2.0; and jdk1.4 logging is definitely not nearly as good as log4j).
But as M$ has shown, people will stick with whats bundled, even if inferior, 'cause "its just easier that way"...
...& all java developers will suffer.
Also, yes Tomcat is the "reference implementation" and all that, but that's because Sun has also released the code for watchdog, which is the standards-compliance testing tool for Servlets. What Apache and O'Reilly want to see is a similar effort to release the standards-compliance tests for other J2EE software specifications like EJB, and they consider it hypocritical for Sun to hold onto those tests in exchange for as much money as they charge for them.
Parent
Re:Apache/Sun (Score:2)
Sun has refused to let Apache be the de facto standard (inspite of that being what i believe most java developers want), and has instead put out alternative APIs which its embedded with the JDK, thus locking everybody w/ 1.4 down to a standard that now has little room to grow.
Look -- nobody is locked down to anything. If develoeprs see more benefit in using Apache software packages for logging or xml parsing, there is nothing stopping them from packaging those along with their application and using them instead.
Re:Apache/Sun (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like nobody looks for alternatives to M$ Office or M$ IE, because its already bundled by OEMs onto just about every P4 box going out the door...
its take developers of considerable experience, and influence over their manager / respect from their manager, to introduce tools to a development environment that on the surface seem redundant to the tools already at hand. right now, many of us have that experience, and the awareness of the better tools, but in a year that might not be the case...
Parent
Re:Apache/Sun (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tomcats future? (Score:2)
If apache decides to abandon their Jakarta projects that doesn't mean these projects die. It just means that they will continue under a different flag (and there are enough interested parties to make this happen).
IMHO it would be bad for the apache foundation since most of its showcase projects (excluding the webserver) are the Jakarta projects. No doubt a significant part of their funding is related to these projects.
Really necessary for a big Sun stamp of approval? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Really necessary for a big Sun stamp of approva (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Really necessary for a big Sun stamp of approva (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'll take Tomcat/Catalina + MySQL + Velocity + PoolMan over most Java app servers, and only feel that J2EE benefits extremely large apps with the need to connect to legacy systems.
If the open source community starts to shun Java because of what Sun is doing, it will leave a huge hole and kill the momentum that has built up over the past 5 years or so.
How many of us Java developers began web-development by downloading Tomcat? How many of us love Struts and Velocity and don't want to lock our skillsets into proprietary solutions from BEA or IBM?
Sun needs to draw then walk a fine line between keeping the major app server purveyors happy while keeping the playing field open for those of us who want to use the technology, but don't have $50K handy for a single CPU license.
Parent
This has been around for a while now... (Score:5, Informative)
That's what happens with proprietary "standards" (Score:5, Interesting)
People who write to and use these platforms get what they deserve, and, presumably, what they want.
One thing I don't understand, but I'm sure that many people in the \. community do:
Is there any point to non-certified but highly compliant implementations? I'm sure the lack of certification would scare away commercial users, but what about others? Are they worth the trouble? Would they even want to use the stuff?
Re:That's what happens with proprietary "standards (Score:2, Insightful)
Only if your customers care. Certification is a way of convincing people that something is compliant without making them find out for themselves whether it's really compliant. It's like the difference between having a diploma, and having a transcript that lists all the classes necessery for graduation with passing grades. The diploma is a simple way to show, "Yes, I've graduated".
Re:That's what happens with proprietary "standards (Score:2)
JBoss is real-world deployable - believe it (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the certification, more and more it comes with too high a cost. The price tag on the other "compliant" packages is way, way out of scope, and returns only minor additional results for us. You must also view certification from Sun's point - how much have they charged other major players for certification? How would those companies react if Sun now certified *for free* an open-source J2EE container given away *for free*. Where, for example , would BEA's pricing put them? Grossly overpriced, perhaps?
Sun is caught in a rough position. If they reverse their position and certify JBoss, they run the risk of alienating current partners. If they don't certify them, open source communities will continue to take jabs at their so-called support for open projects.
In the end, we don't really care. By our analysis, JBoss returns the best ROI of any of the J2EE containers. Certification is just a respectful (and expensive) nod from Sun. It doesn't define the real-world value of a product.
Parent
Re:JBoss is real-world deployable - believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
But on the other hand, I don't really have a problem with Sun not certifying it, and I don't really understand what all the fuss about it is. It's simple -- certification is a major cash cow for Sun. All the money they spend developing standards like EJB gets recouped when IBM, BEA, etc. pay to have their app servers certified. JBoss, since it's free, can't afford that. And who cares? I trust that JBoss works because I deploy EJBs and Servlets written to the standards and they Just Work. If you're in a bigger organization than I am that's spending $millions on your infrastructure so you don't just trust JBoss out of the goodness of your own heart, you have two options. 1)Test it yourself or 2)Pay IBM or BEA or someone else because they certify that they've tested it for you.
What exactly is the big problem? Sure, Sun isn't the second coming or anything, but they provide well-written open standards that are unencumbered by patents that open source projects can implement. What the hell is wrong with that?
Parent
The Sun/OSS relationship (Score:5, Interesting)
From a strategic POV, Sun is being increasingly cannibalized in the low end market by Linux and BSD solutions, and at the same time forced to include stuff for free that is differentiating them from Linux like SDS, Sunscreen, ACLs and similar because Microsoft offers such features in their OS for free as well.
At the same time, Sun is not ready to embrace the OSS movement like, for example, IBM does. They fear that giving away code and ideas that they see as differentiation and advantage in an increasingly difficult market would harm their position and they would like to have some security and control, which the OSS process inherently cannot offer at all.
So basically what we have here is a corporation with a fear to "let go" coming under more and more pressure in a difficult economic situation.
Re:The Sun/OSS relationship (Score:5, Informative)
Things were slowly changing by 1991 with SunOS 4, then with 5/2 they had to definitely switch to a "buy it only" since they themselves paid so much for getting SystemV in the first place...
of course, just about every single one of us Sun users at the time were furious with the switch...Sun boxes to me are still crippled in speed because of SystemV's overhead compared to BSD, and the speed of BSD x86 boxes over SCO & other SystemV-based x86 releases just rubs our noses in it even more...
Parent
Re:The Sun/OSS relationship (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The Sun/OSS relationship (Score:4, Insightful)
Sun, on the other hand, is hugely invested in their software sales. They see Solaris as a big selling point when pushing their offerings, and they really *really* want to make as much money as possible off of Java. Going Open Source, no matter how much the geeks at Sun like the idea, will be a huge blow to the bottom line. IBM is replacing one set of software that was largely free (as in beer) with another set of offerings that they don't charge for, so it doesn't hurt them. Sun would be giving up revenue from software that is bringing in a lot of money. They just can't (or think they can't) afford to go completely Open Source. Opening up Java to the extent they have, while maintaining control, allows Sun to still charge for some offerings (like the compatibility tests) and have a head start over competitors in future development efforts, since only they control where Java goes. Going completely Open causes them to lose both the cash and the control, and that they'll fight to the end.
If you think IBM is really comitted to Open Source out of altruism and a philosophical agreement with the movement, try getting them to give away DB2.
Parent
Keep in Mind (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a fair amount of Open Source enthusiasts inside the company. Many of them used to be OS/2 enthusiasts, and you remember what happened with that product the moment some marketroid thought it might be inconvienent to keep producing it...
What I'm saying here is IBMs advocacy of Open Source Solutions is not in the least bit altruistic. They will continue to be our "friend" as long as they can make money off what we do. The minute that is no longer the case, they will drop us like a lead balloon. If things get really tough, don't expect them to stand by us.
Parent
Text:http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/ (Score:4, Informative)
-Commienst
"Apache on warpath over Java license"
by Steve Anglin
Feb. 20, 2002
According to vnunet.com, "The Apache Software Foundation's battle with Sun Microsystems stepped up gear
last week as the open source community struggled to loosen Sun's cast iron grip on the Java platform." This is in response to, first, Lutris being turned-down for J2EE certification, and then JBoss, which is J2EE compliant from a technical standpoint, but apparently not J2EE compliant enough for Sun certification.
Last week, ONJava.com published O'Reilly editor Mike Loukides' follow-up on the possibility of open source J2EE from Sun: Will You See Open Source J2EE Implementations? Not Likely. TheServerSide.com also published an interview with one of Sun's J2EE principles, Karen Tegan. While Sun essentially says it supports open source efforts, it does not want those efforts to impact the J2EE certification process, a process that clearly is closed source at best. See the conflict.
As a high ranking member in the Java Community Process (JCP), Apache is part of the JSPA (Java Specification Participation Agreement). In this capacity, Apache can actively propose new and revised Java API specifications as well as integrate a particular specification under Jakarta, Apache's open source Java projects. Apache's reply is here in Apache's JSPA Position. According to Apache, "...Sun doesn't give a hoot about whether J2EE licensing restricts open source J2EE products (in case you missed it, it does)."
Sun benefits from its relationship with Apache. Apache gives Sun "...an advertising statement...to claim that it (Sun) has a 'vision which uses open standards and non-proprietary interfaces'." If Apache's reply and suggestions go unanswered, Apache can put pressure on Sun in other, more severe ways. Without Apache, Sun could lose many of its Java developers as Jakarta projects would be affected. The impact could be quite severe, certainly in terms of publicity. Financially, who knows?
Steve Anglin is Managing Editor of ONJava.com and O'Reilly Network's
This is most typical of Sun (Score:2, Insightful)
They have a long history of claiming other's works as their own--Which in my opinion is the worst crime you can do against open source people, take away the credit!
1. They claimed that the blackdown port of Java to linux was theirs!
2. They "adopted" the free and entirely non-sun code base for Java Servlets (Jakarta) and claimed it was the "Sun Reference Platform"
3. They "adopted" and FSCKED UP ROYALLY the XML4J/LotusXSL stuff that IBM had created and mangled out that god-forsaken peice of crap known as JAXP.
4. At one time, Scott McNealy admitted that Sun had indeed been the brainchild behind XML.
5. They ask ECMA to rubber-stamp their Java Language as an offical standard, but allow SUN to keep all rights for licensing and changing the language as they wish. ECMA tells them to "get bent" and SUN goes off sulking to anyone who will listen. Java still remains in the hands of the nutters who thought it up.
It seems that from a cursory glance, SUN has done many things to piss off the Java and the Opensource crowds. It's a mystery to me why people attack Microsoft for crimes very similar to these, but always praise Sun for their benevolence.
At LEAST Microsoft took their language and VM to ECMA, and said standardize it, and we'll accept it. (It doesn't hurt that ECMA is pretty MS friendly, and the chairman of the TC39 committee is a MS employee, but at least they took the right steps)
Heh
Re:This is most typical of Sun (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. I believe what happened was that back in the days of servlet 2.0, there was the JSDK and there was Apache JServ. Sun decided to donate their JSDK source to Apache and continued working on it as part of Tomcat.
Tomcat is now the reference servlet/JSP implementation. I don't think I've ever seen Sun claim it is "theirs". Can you give a reference?
Jon
Re:This is most typical of Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, they never did anything for Tomcat did they? (sarcasm) [ibm.com] A few of the developers for Tomcat were Sun employees until recently. Did you bother to check any of your other rants?
Parent
Amen, and Sun is doomed (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux is peeling away their low end (notwithstanding their effort to derail the linux rack market by buying and then effectively scuttling Cobalt), and IBM is shaking down their top end.
Microsoft continues to confound Sun, even as McNealy turns up the vitriol. Scott - let me make this brief - you cannot beat Microsoft. Stop trying. Take a lesson from Steve Jobs - play nice or route around them, but don't try to take them on directly. They're tougher and wealthier and more influential than you.
Hardware is getting cheaper, and software is becoming a commodity. Services are the last high margin business left, and Sun isn't a big player.
Really Odd... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe the "big wig" J2EE containers (IBM's Websphere, and BEA's WebLogic) are getting on Sun's back because of this??
Re:Really Odd... (Score:3, Informative)
Certainly not for performance or documentation criteria [jmsbenchmarks.com]...
What then? Bang for buck?
I'm excited about its future, I just don't seeing it being adopted in production environments yet which clearly indicates skepticism toward your claim.
Re:Really Odd... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, JBoss comes bundled with Catalina, Jetty or Tomcat. That's great. Did you know that, up until 2.4.4, the Catalina release wouldn't allow you to change your root context for web applications? You could fix this by maintaining your own source of JBoss, but, when you're trying to manage your own project, the last thing you want to do is manage your own revision control for the application server. They fixed it in 2.4.4, but
Missing little crap like that makes we worried about the *very* complex transactional nature for the EJB's and the upcoming clustering solution. That stuff is hard! Even BEA, with all its time and money, has had a hard time with its clustering/failover implementations.
JBoss' implementation was written up on onjava.com. Want to know their suggested solution? Write your application to not need clustering and use a Cisco load-balancer. That's because their solution doesn't work.
What about the auto-deployer? Don't try to update your EAR or WAR by overwriting the archive if the file's larger than 4MB. JBoss'll undeploy your aplication and fail to redeploy it.because it doesn't know how to wait until the copy operation is over. There's some settings to help alleviate this problem, but it's not perfect. I don't expect it to be from JBoss...I would from BEA, for example.
So, let's think a bit before handing the crown to JBoss. Is it well docuemented, code-wise? Yes. Is it fast? For the most part. Does it behave as advertised? No. Will Marc Fleury make sure JBoss succeeds through sheer will? Yup. Will he step on toes? Yes, don't get in his way (for better or worse).
The Baron
Parent
This week at the Atlanta Java Users Group (Score:4, Interesting)
Among his throwaway statements was "If you work on an open source project that becomes popular, you might get a job at Sun."
Enough said.
Wake up, Sun! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun's problem is that they want to be a big monopoly like Microsoft, but they aren't one. It may be totallty obvious to Slashdot readers that the only way to successfully complete with Microsoft is to be allied with the open source community, but some players (Sun, Oracle, and even Apple to some extent) still think they can "win."
The problem with the computer industry is that most of the companies involved act like spoiled children. The only exception is IBM, which is a mature company and acts like one.
Re:Wake up, Sun! (Score:3, Informative)
I really don't think so.
1) Scott McNealy has said so. [usatoday.com]
2) Sun uses many open standards in its treasured hardware business (SPARC, SBus, PCI, etc.) and its software business (UNIX, POSIX, etc.).
In general, Sun tries to compete on its implementation of standards with value-added things, such as excellent hardware features and reliability, support services, etc.
Re:Wake up, Sun! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't dream of having IBM participate unless it fit their own best interests. The thing is, IBM is mature enough to realize that detailed and strong control over all of their technologies is not the key to success.
Many other computer companies think the key to success is owning everything, or at least, as much as they can own. And that seems an attractive strategy on the fact of things, but is not in the long-term best interests of the company. IBM is one of the few companies that seems mature enough to realize that. Maturity != selflessness, maturity == enlightened self interest.
Parent
You've got it all wrong! (Score:4, Funny)
So it's completely impossible that Java is a proprietary platform, because only MS makes proprietary software.
And if it is, it's completely impossible that Sun would ever abuse their control over that platform, because only MS does that.
And if they did, it's completely impossible that they are doing it for any reason other than defeating the evil Microsoft!
C# Apache Jakarta ports: NAnt, NUnit, Log4Net (Score:3, Interesting)
JavaFaces? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have not read about JavaFaces, nor could I find anything obvious on java.sun.com. If anyone has a bookmark for a good summary page or two, would you mind posting them?
GPL Java Replacement (Score:2, Insightful)
Until there is a highly competitive GPL java compiler with a full set of foundation classes, nobody should be happy about using Java because it is essentially proprietary technology.
Between GNU Classpath, gcj, jikes, KOPI, Kaffe, Japhar, and a dozen others, its amazing that Sun is so far ahead of what you can do with pure GPL.
Daddy, Why is Sun so mean to Apache? (Score:3, Funny)
Sally: Sun are mean bullies! They should leave Apache alone!
Dad: Heh heh, yes they should Sally, yes they should.
Sun loves JBoss (Score:3, Informative)
I also remember him actually defending Sun's charging so much for J2EE certification, but I can't remember what his reasoning was.
Not Sun specific (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Sun dislikes Apache. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now that AOL has given up on selling iplanet as a webserver (Apart from other things.), Sun is still trying to make money off of it.
Apache is iplanet's biggest competitor. Apache is free, more popular than iplanet, and considered by many people to be better than iplanet.
Every time someone runs apache on Solaris, Sun sees that as another iplanet sale lost.
Need any more details?
Re:Why Sun dislikes Apache. (Score:5, Interesting)
Then why did Sun package Apache as part of the default install of Solaris 8?
Solaris now ships with Apache, Perl, and Java. Out of the box, it is a pretty potent web-serving OS. And it can be downloaded for free or delivered to your front porch for about $50US (only Free operating systems are more cost-effective; M$ Windows doesn't even come close).
iPlanet is expensive enough that it really doesn't compete with Apache directly. Typically iPlanet is used in "enterprise" environments alongside J2EE and Oracle. When a company can throw a ton of money at a big server and Oracle, iPlanet is just the icing on the cake.
Parent
Re:Why Sun dislikes Apache. (Score:3, Insightful)
And, if Sun had all that dislike for Apache, why would it cooperate with the Apache people on Tomcat? Without Tomcat, Apache would be useless to at least half of the customers. Yes, servlets are -that- important. And Sun helped Apache get it's own servlet container, in a big way.
I know that simplification allows for more Karma, but I appreciate intelligence more. I am sure you can figure out an intelligent version of your post, too.
The Java certification is so cheap. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether it would happen or not, they have the right to be careful about Java spec incompatibility. Perhaps it really does cost $50k to certify it. While $50k might be a lot for Apache, it is only some 0.005% of what IBM pledged to invest to Linux. Why do not some commercilal vendors team up with IBM to foot the bill for the Apache Java?
Disclaimer:
I have no afiliation with Sun whatsoever. I jst watch what is happening. Sun just gives out great software and reaps wrath. IBM is all promisses and is praised all over Linux "community".
Lessons not learned (Score:4, Insightful)
This comes as absolutly no suprise to me, and I actually don't have huge amounts of sympathy for Apache, after all, Sun appears to be well within their legal rights.
Despite the anti-microsoft zealots out there, Sun is not the knight in shining armor, but a company that has very cleverly exploited open souce development without being open source, and one which I am convinced would pull every closed source trick in the book in a hot minute if they thought it would benefit them.
It is staggering, the Apache group has been doing huge amounts of work to make Java a standard, ignoring the fact that the only J2EE Java standard comes from Sun.
I for one have steared clear of Java for precisely this reason, if it is not a standard there are some clear business reasons why you want to avoid it unless you like having the rug pulled out from under you periodically.
So let me get this straight..... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a tempest in a teapot.
The crew at JBoss don't seem to think the lack of certification is a big deal and they are in constant contact with Sun. I don't think that is the problem. I wonder what is really bothering Apache? I wish some one would post the REAL reason and not a misinformed link to "J2EE considered harmful" - if you check some of the more java focused sites, you can see that the person who started this rant at Apache doesn't know what they are talking about when it comes to J2EE (because, I suspect, the haven't used it).
My guess is that this is causing "contraversy" here because it is a great story involving:
1) Apache, everyone's favorite Open Source organization.
2) Sun - a corporate Behemoth out to make profits, that is not as bad as but in the same league as, MS.
3) Java - a favorite target here on
4) Because of 2) and 3) we also get a bunch of ".Net Vs Java" or "MS Vs Open Source" tangents generated, especially when people bring up the Mono project as an alternative to J2EE.
In other words, this story gives anybody on anyside of any of
There really isn't a story here. Let Apache and Sun solve their differences like adults without all this sensationalism.
Re:Java vs Apache, its an easy decision. (Score:2)
I use VI as well. I've programmed in C/C++ for years and am currently working on a Java project today.
I don't think you can relate the number of books on bookstore shelves to the popularity of the language directly. Java has just come out (compared to C and the older languages) and so like any other new thing, tons of worthless books were written to take advantage of the "Newness factor". Those worthless books are being weeded out and only the worthy will survive, thus the numbers of "Java for Dummys" type books will go down and we'll be left with the few quality books that are really out there, same as it is with most of the C/C++ text today.
I'd say that I am equally experienced with both Java and C and C++. I'd go with C++ any day for most projects, and I wouldn't be sad if I didn't have to do any Java anymore. But I do think it has a purpose, mostly related to serverside web based stuff and web based stuff in general. But it's just another choice, you can do the same with PHP or Perl etc.
So why is sun fighting with Apache? Who knows, but I appriciate all the work the Apache group has done for us and I think Sun is way off base here. They should concerntrate on building up the fortifications for the oncoming .NET vs. Java war. Better to hava Apache as a friend than a foe in that battle.
-T
Re:Java vs Apache, its an easy decision. (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm, so you don't see any need for a programming language between those extremes? I would infer your position is that people who aren't creating operating systems (by that I mean the software that sit between the iron and everything else) are amateurs?
Re:Java vs Apache, its an easy decision. (Score:5, Insightful)
"From what I've seen, Java sucks". Does this mean you've never actually programmed in it?
ALL high-level computer languages, even C, are "hand holding". That's the point! I want my language to make my life easier by hiding the gory details, and i will use the highest-level language that can possibly work well for whatever i'm doing. In many cases, that will be Java.
If you want language-bashing, C++ is a horror. Someone please tell them that you can't solve every problem by adding a new keyword. And if you want to bring up yacc (and by extension, LALR parsing), Java is as clean as C. C itself isn't pure here... try this statement: 'if(a) if (b) something(); else something_else();' Legal C, with a shift-reduce conflict. Does the else apply to if(a), or if(b)? You DID read about LALR parsing in detail, didn't you? But that pales in comparison to C++, which simply cannot be parsed without dynamic type information in the parser. See Knuth's one-line crushing criticism of in in DDJ a few years back. But i digress.
Counting books on the shelf for a language is NO measure of its success, because most computer books are crap. The bad ones are dying off. I keep exactly two C books on my shelf - K&R and Plauger. Does this mean C is dying? No, it means those two books are so effective i don't need anything else.
As for VB... it's not a language for programmers who need hand-holding, because it's saddled with that horrible BASIC grammar that will do nothing but get in their way. If you want a language for beginners, check out Python. The worst thing about using it for a student language is that the students will be grossed out the moment they have to learn a bloated monster like C++ or Perl (not knocking Perl, it's my favorite language, but Python is better).
Java reminds me a lot of Unix... it's not perfect by any stretch, but it's so dang good that there is little point in trying to do better. Its utility as a lingua franca outweighs its minor shortcomings. The nicest thing i can say about Java is that i hardly ever come up against limitations of the language itself - if i have a language-level problem in Java, it is usually due to my own ignorance, especially ignorance of its excellent libraries.
Okay, i'll stop now.
Parent
Re:Java vs Apache, its an easy decision. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't even say VB is for dabblers. I'd say it's for morons, and the poor victims who are forced to use that wretched excuse for a language. The only decent part at all is the IDE, and there are better ones.
I don't even think much about the language anymore... my programming these days is abstracted away at the problem and architecture level, and the language is just a side point, as it should be. That's why i want my language to get in the way as little as possible. C often gets in the way, due to its crude libraries. I find Java, Python, Perl, SQL, and Unix shell to be my languages of choice.
Parent
Re:Java vs Apache, its an easy decision. (Score:2)
Bill Joy might be James Goslings boss considering Bill is a founding member of Sun and Chief Scientist and Corporate Executive Officer [sun.com] while James can't even seem to mention his title on his Sun Labs web page [sun.com]