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Netscape recently announced that they were "scaling back" their support
of Java and would no longer be supplying all the Java Virtual Machines needed
to play applets on the 17 different platforms that Communicator ships on. Instead,
they will be publicizing an API that would allow other third parties to plug their
Java VM into Communicator. The San
Jose Mercury News has the full story but the long and the short of it is that
in a year or two you’ll be using those Java programming reference books as doorstops.
Java, the Amiga for the 90s
While Netscape has hammered the initial nail into the coffin with this announcement,
what will ultimately kill Java is Microsoft. Microsoft currently supports Java
in its browser for two reasons; one, its hot and therefore the Wall Street-types
will want to see it and two, they have to support it in order to stay feature
competitive with Netscape. If Netscape has Java then it follows by dictum of market
rules that Internet Explorer has Java. But Microsoft doesn’t like Java. Developers
creating Java applets mean that they don’t need to be using Microsoft software
to develop them and people don’t need to use a Microsoft OS to view it. A world
that embraces Java, while it doesn’t necessarily turn its back on Microsoft, certainly
doesn’t generate the revenue that Microsoft is used to. And it is ever so hard
to control an open standard.
The long dark teatime of the soul
But now Netscape has announced that it will no longer support Java. And this
is doubly important because it was Netscape’s initial support of Java that gave
the nascent Sun technology the credibility it needed to gain wider support. Certainly
it can be argued that there will be quick third party support for a Java VM plug-in
for Netscape, indeed Internet Explorer already allows this type of plug-in to
be added. IE users can choose the Java VM they use. Metrowerks already has their
own Mac Java VM and Apple ships Mac Runtime for Java. But Communicator won’t ship
with Java support "out of the box" and as Director developers, we all
know what happens when you have to rely on users to download a plug-in for their
browser. They don’t. Consequently the support for the plug-ins format shrivels
and dies. And if the company that gave Java a wider audience is pulling back,
what sort of message is that going to send to smaller developers?
Throw another log on the fire
Microsoft has already removed all the Java applets from their own web-site
and while a part of that is certainly in response to the lawsuit that Sun slapped
on them, it also has much to do with Microsoft’s decision to support and promote
their own technologies. Microsoft’s announcement of their own "scaling back"
of Java support is almost assured. Why would Microsoft support a third party open
standard when they have a set of competing in-house technologies? Java is, compared
to Microsoft’s existing object models (especially COM and COM+), a closed environment.
Certainly you can add new classes (something Microsoft has already done) but how
do you, if you are Microsoft, make it work inside your existing object model.
Especially when you are beginning to rely on that model more and more? Even though
Microsoft sells a Java development tool, it must see every developer that creates
a Java applet as a developer who could have written an Active-X control. And from
Microsoft’s point of view that just isn’t good business. And let’s not even bother
mentioning Microsoft’s reaction to Sun’s "Java Platform".
Java the giant killer
"But surely," you must be saying, "there are enough Java developers
to keep the standard alive?" I wouldn’t count on it. Look at the Macintosh.
25 million users (probably a low estimate), the platform of choice for graphics,
multimedia and video editing and a company that has billions and billions of dollars
in sales a year. And Apple is still constantly dogged by reports of its imminent
death. If Apple can’t withstand the digital gottedamerung that is Microsoft, then
what makes anyone think that Java can? Java is slow, very platform dependent despite
advertising claims to the contrary, buggy and has, according to one Internet wag,
"all the complexity of C++ without any of the grace of C". The reason
that companies like Netscape and Sun even bothered to promote Java in the first
place is that it was a direct attack on Microsoft’s monopoly of developers. But
as they say , "if wishes were horse then even beggars could compile"
and all the wishing in the world doesn’t change two very basic facts; Java isn’t
any good and no-one treats developers the way Microsoft does.
Kiss me Kate
Microsoft loves you. If you’re a developer they love you even more. And there
is a very special place in their hearts for developers who don’t currently write
Windows software but would like to. The Redmond campus might never produce a boxed
product worthy of the name "operating system", Word might continue to
be plagued by a biblical measure of bugs, but they know how to market to developers
and they know how to create tools that apartment-bound geeks like myself just
drool over. But nowhere in any of those plans is there room for Java.
So you can assume, as certain as the sun rises, that Microsoft will shed Visual
J++ and any of the Java code they currently have faster than you can snap your
fingers. But on the plus side we’ll never have to put up with any more coffee
related software names.
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