OSNews

"It's the attitude of entitlement that gets to me. This, "we have a right to Java!" attitude. The open source "community" doesn't seem to actually write code anymore; it just threatens and whines at companies to release code for them."

Come on, be serious. Just because the open source community has an obsession with demanding Java be open sourced, doesn't mean they

"It is all based on the highly questionable assumption that open sourced code is necessarily better than closed source, both in terms of technical quality and politically. This is a highly, highly questionable assumption of course. In fact, it seems to be directly contradicted by reality: the best unixes are closed source, the best office suites, the best databases and application servers and compilers and IDEs, yup, all closed source. Strange huh?"

Some do make this assumption, but there are other factors in the quality of the code, namely the age of the applications. Here's a few:

Unix: Solaris: better in high-end servers, and also built on a much older codebase than Linux, with far more development dollars put into it over time. Of course its currently better.

Office Suites: Microsoft Office: once again, Office is far older than any of the other office suites on the market, with Microsoft's development dollars behind it. Of course its going to be better.

Databases: Oracle: Once again, time and dollars.

Application Servers: As most of the app servers are of a relatively similar age, its probably just the dollars that make the difference.

As far as I can see, its not the closed-sourcedness of these apps that make the difference, its the time and money that has been invested in them to make them great products. The whole open/closed source argument is a load of rubbish - either method can produce code of equal quality of the other, given the same amount of time and dollars. The commerical apps usually edge out, because they have the financial backing. Plain and simple.

For me Java is less about "Sun's control" than about the control of the JCP, an entirely open organisation that decides and implements the future of Java. For all practical purposes, for me Java is a lot more open than .NET because it is much more of an industry standard, has far more open APIs, and is the product of the deliberations and efforts of the entire Java community. Gosh.

"I don't want to see an open sourced Java that is there to be split and forked like crazy by Microsoft (again), by IBM (who would if they could get away with it, like a shot, starting by implementing that awfulness SWT) and by various members of the open source community."

Just because you're a sun fanboy, dont


It's not that I dislike .NET, even. It's not for me, it will probably be very good for small-to-medium businesses when people finally start adopting it, but that has always been MS's stronghold. It is certainly lacking for the largescale, Enterprise stuff, but so what. .NET and Java really have entirely different domains.

"Still, it is amusing how many .NET people seem to hate Java. I can't imagine why, .NET is such a clone of Java in many ways (I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a clone) that it is truly difficult how you can hate one technology and adore another, if not for entirely political reasons."

They are similar, but there are some pretty key differences between them. One is Sun's "do it our way, or don't do it at all" attitude. The Java language and Swing are two great examples of this. Only after some serious competition popped up has Sun started making the long-overdue language upgrades (foreach statement, generics, etc). Swing has seen virtually no enhancement since its introduction, and is still a pretty awful API to write code with (and that's not even mentioning its attrocious visuals on every single platform I've ever run it on - looking like other Java apps isn't good enough - your app has to look identical to a platform's standard applications to be good enough). There are plenty of other things which are better implemented in .NET than Java - .NET remoting for instance is far more flexible than RMI, and in a lot of ways easier to code for. And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

"Meanwhile, Java is one of the most popular platforms today. IBM. Sun,, BEA, and Oracle all use it in their core strategies, and make billions from it. There are millions of Java programmers employed right now. Java job openings in the press have been increasing at a rate much greater than that of C# for the last year, and are sky high above them in terms of absolute level, despite that .NET has supposedly begun adoption. Java is going from strength to strength, with many og the Industry's most powerful players fully behind it. Fact is, it isn't going away any time soon."

Remember, Java didn't get to where it is overnight. Java's been around for nearly 10 years now, .NET's well under half that. .NET's only had two public releases, Java's about to hit its fifth. Also, .NET's entering a market that already has a dominant player in it, namely Java. Its amazing that it's got as far as it has in such a short period of time, against such strong competition.