Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> Jeff Garland wrote:
>> Joseph Sinclair wrote:
>>> der.hans wrote:

> I wasn't starting a "religious war" on which technology is "best".  After over 
> 20 years writing software, I am firmly convinced there is no such beast; every 
> platform has it's own strengths and weaknesses.  

I don't want to start a war either. After about the same amount of time in the 
industry I agree there's no such thing as best.  But, overall, I don't  like 
being locked in or tied to the fate of any given company -- that's all.  And I 
felt like someone needed to point out that, in fact, MS had submitted to a 
standard body unlike Sun.  You can argue that Sun has opened up, but I just 
don't agree.

> I only contend that Java has a legitimate place in the toolkit of FLOSS development, 
> and the specifications are, as of this writing, open enough to satisfy the criteria 
> for software freedom.  RMS and GNU seem to agree, given that RMS has stated that he 
> has no problem with Java provided the GNU JVM (or any other GPL'd JVM) is used(at 
> least in testing) to ensure that people can successfully run your Java-based system 
> without using non-free software (with the latest release of GNU classpath the majority 
> of Java software can be made to work on GIJ, BTW).
>
> You may disagree on how "open" Java is, that's certainly open to reasonable debate.  
> I contend, however that Sun doesn't have ownership of the current Java specifications, 
> and the covenants I've seen for the JCP members(including Sun) do a pretty good job of
> ensuring, legally, that Sun(or anyone else) cannot do what you envision.  BTW, Sun 
> absolutely does not have the "final" say in the JCP; they gave up their veto power 
> with JCP 2.0 in 2002 and now only have one vote on each EC, just like any other EC 
> member.  Sun's recent public statements and official corporate actions certainly 
> support my view that they won't do anything harmful in the foreseeable future.

I'm sure JCP can and will be revoked if/when Sun needs to.  I agree, it seems 
like a small risk, but I've seen nothing that convinces me they don't have the 
ultimate control.  And again, Sun is ripe to be absorbed by some other company....

> ECMA is well known as the "rubberstamp" standards body, C# is encumbered by enough 
> patents that MS can do anything they want with it (including barring it's implementation 
> in free software), that's why MS uses ECMA for all of the "standards" they push (note 
> the "open" XML document "standard" they're currently trying to push through), ECMA allows 
> companies to give their horribly encumbered and completely proprietary designs the 
> imprimatur of a "standard" without any real openness.

Ok, well it's still incorrect to say that MS hasn't tried to standardize 
anything -- Sun didn't even get the ECMA rubberstamp.  You didn't say it, 
der.hans did.

> As for C and C++, I've used both for a couple decades now, and while they work well for 
> many systems, trying to write modern web-based systems in either language is an exercise 
> in futility.  

It isn't any harder than in any other language, frankly.  It's the lack of web 
development libraries and for these languages that make them less attractive. 
  Nothing else of substance.  Now, there's a lack of commercial money behind 
these languages because unlike Sun and MS no-one can make enough return on 
them to justify their development. Plus they want to lock you into their 
development system.

> Using either is appropriate in the relatively few areas where they are best 
> suited to the task (embedded systems, O/S code, core infrastructure systems, etc...), but 
> for a wide array of business software, and especially for web-based systems, various 
> combinations of other platforms(i.e. Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, XSLT, etc...) provide 

So far we hadn't discussed Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, or XSLT -- all of which 
are fine by me b/c they are unencumbered by a single corporate interest.

> better results.  As with any technology decision the choice of which languages and/or platforms 
> to use should be driven by the needs of the specific project, 
> not personal preference.

I agree.  I have no problem with projects using Java or C#...it's their choice 
to take the risk I'm pointing out.  They may not see it as a risk...I do.

Jeff























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