Re: The Joy of Java

At 7:51 AM 4/27/96, Dan Busarow wrote:

>At Usenix 96 in San Diego it was pointed out that applets are an abberation.
>This is a complete language designed to displace C++, Visual Basic and
>other OO languages.  Thinking of Java as simpy a Web enhancement tool
>is short sighted.
>
>Personally it is more attractive than C++ for product development and
>we are trying to get it on FreeBSD, SCO UnixWare and SCO OSR5.  Using
>Java for applets _only_ is like fucking your mother... Most of us are
>not into it.

Ignoring the gross violation of the CDA, I agree.

I think of it (and so do a lot of others) as:

- a cleaned-up C++, with features of Smalltalk, Objective-C, and Lisp

- a tool with built-in hooks for Net-centric computing

- some safety features that distinguish it from C++ and the like

- a bytecode/virtual machine approach that means the same code can be run
on any platform for which a VM exists (the key to applets, but also the key
to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15
years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)

Is it safe to run untrusted applets on your machine? Probably not. Running
strange programs probably is never safe.

I don't view this as something any new language is likely to solve, unless
it's a language with such limited expressability as to be "safe and
boring."

As Perry has noted, financial institutions can ill afford to have applets
being dropped into their main computers unless they are safe and secure.
Not too surprising. But, then, they also have other security issues they
constantly have to deal with that others don't.

I suspect the safety issues will continue to crop up, but will be dealt
with in other ways. The signed classes approach, the approaches used in E,
etc. Netscape's limits on what applets can do, for example, may be extended
in other ways (a kind of firewall approach?).

To borrow a viewpoint, I don't expect the Java-based gargoyles in "True
Names" to be "trustworthy"...TANSTAAFL.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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In article <ada79e9200021004908e@[205.199.118.202]>,
tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote:

> I think of it (and so do a lot of others) as:

[snip]

> - a bytecode/virtual machine approach that means the same code can be run
> on any platform for which a VM exists (the key to applets, but also the key
> to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15
> years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)

What a horrifying thought!  UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good.

And you're *advocating* Java?

- -- 
Alan Bostick               | They say in online country there is no middle way
mailto:abostick@netcom.com | You'll either be a Usenet man or a thug for the CDA
news:alt.grelb             |    Simon Spero (after Tom Glazer)
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

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(No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this list anymore)

abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) writes:
> > to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15
> > years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)
>
> What a horrifying thought!  UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good.

My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered
a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system,
CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other
two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were
even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)

---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

On Wed, 1 May 1996, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote:

> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered
> a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system,
> CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other
> two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were
> even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)

    I always had been under the impression that they charged a hundred 
dollars or more for CPM as opposed to DOS which was also a major reason 
for its popularity.

Bruce Marshall

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In list.cypherpunks, dlv@bwalk.dm.com writes:

> (No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this list anymore)

(but then, some of us have no life... )

> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they
> offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the
> start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS. IBM didn't do anything
> to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It won fair and square in
> the marketplace because the other two were even worse crap. (Later
> versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)

Also remember that UCSD P-system was around $800 and CP/M-86 was over
$100, while PC-DOS was somewhere under $50.  This was the early-mid
80's, and the dealer had just hit the purchaser for $1200-$1500 for the
computer with _no_ OS included.  It's no surprise that the least
expensive OS won.
- -- 
           Roy M. Silvernail     [ ]      roy@cybrspc.mn.org
PGP Public Key fingerprint =  31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54  13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6
                Key available from pubkey@cybrspc.mn.org

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> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered
> a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system,
> CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other
> two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were
> even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)

When the first IBM PC came out, I ran QNX on it, a Unix clone from a
company called "Quantum."  It did full pre-emptive multitasking, had 
a nice C compiler, and shared code between tasks, all on a little 8088
with two floppies and no hard drive and 768k of ram. 

We even had "talk", and I could chat with people who dialed the modem
I had hooked to my serial port, and they could log in and do work on 
my system at the same time I did.  

When MS-DOS first appeared, the quantum people kindly provided DOS 
emulation for QNX and I could simply type "DOS", and read DOS disks and
run DOS programs.  

Ultimately, however, as new and "improved" versions of DOS appeared, with
obtuse features, and almost every app using them, I finally 
bowed to the march of progress and installed DOS 3.1 on my system.

A giant leap backwards into the dark ages. 

QNX is still around, by the way, and I believe its primary market
is now embedded real-time systems, where its highly responsive and
optimized kernel can be exploited. 

Whenever I think of how nice QNX was, I recall Bill Gates' comment
about the true power in the software industry being not technical
excellence, but being big and strong enough to set industry-wide
standards and enforce them by fiat.

It's now over 10 years later, and DOS still can't multitask.  Obviously
there's no accounting for taste.

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $

>>>>> "Dimitri" == Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:

Dimitri> (No cryptorelevance, but neither is anything else on this
Dimitri> list anymore)

Ditto.  I've tried to apply some Java relevance though.

Dimitri> abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) writes:
>> > to portability...what the world might have looked like for the past 15
>> > years has the UCSD p-system succeeded instead of MS-DOS)

>> What a horrifying thought!  UCSD p-system actually made MS-DOS look good.

Dimitri> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM
Dimitri> PC, they offered a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems
Dimitri> right from the start: UCSD p-system, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM
Dimitri> didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other two. It
Dimitri> won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two
Dimitri> were even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much
Dimitri> better.)

This is half incorrect.  PC DOS was released with a lead time of about
9 months prior to the release of the other O/Ses.  This was enough to
give it a market share it has never looked back on.  There was plenty
of speculation in PC Magazine and Byte that this was *exactly* what
IBM intended all along.  It helped that the alternatives were
delivered as virtual cripples with no support software as well.

The P-System released for IBM PCs was less functional than the Apple
][ version that ran on 64 or 128k with bank switching, even by the
time of DOS 2.0.  About the only application it ever really had was
Context MBA which was quickly overtaken by Lotus 1-2-3 & company.

I wrote three disk device drivers for the Apple ][ UCSD P-System based
on documentation of dubious origin, and hated every second of it.
Much of the interface was hidden, and (on a 6502 remember) reserved
all of the precious 0 page for its own use.  It was a half-interesting
idea, but definitely in the same class with PC-DOS -- How Not to Write
an Operating System.

The Java relevance would be that given the current lead in marketing
Sun has, even if a technically superior solution arose right now, it
might have enough of a disadvantage in lead to never catch up and
become popular.  Technically superior products don't always win, look
at MS DOS/Windows/NT/95 and VMS, albeit from opposite ends of the
technical superiority spectrum.

-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
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