Visual J# .NET Released 100
Goalie_Ca writes: "Visual J# .NET was released at the Tech Ed 2002 Europe Developper conference today.
Visual J# .NET is not a tool for developing applications intended to run on a Java virtual machine. Applications and services built with Visual J# .NET will run only in the .NET Framework; they will not run on any Java virtual machine. Download it here; Microsoft J# .Net site."
Re:Why? (Score:1)
>> then you bet your Bill Gates nose stain
>> that the Prolog port won't either
C# is just one of many languages available for
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Personally, I think that the version 1.4 of the JDK/JRE/JVM is quite nice, peppier than it's older siblings, and is the bytecode created is a lot more portable than bytecode produced in
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Market-speak (Score:2)
Wow, what are the marketing people at MS smoking these days? They've obviously moved onto hard stuff. Rember the says of MS Bob? Marketing is a gateway drug.
Friends don't let friends join Marketing!
Re:Market-speak (Score:1, Informative)
"Visual" - used to describe a whole range of Microsoft's developer products, due to the enhanced visual nature of the GUI, as compared to earlier efforts which were text-based (compare gdb to the visual studio debugger, for example)
"J" - Microsoft's interpretation of the word "Java" (compare JScript to JavaScript, for example)
"#" - as used in "C#", meaning the successor to C++. So "J#" is the successor to their "J++" product.
".NET" - their new virtual machine based platform. Compare to old x86-based stuff.
It's really quite easy to decode, I don't understand why you are having such a hard time with it!
Re:Market-speak (Score:1)
Re:Market-speak (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, I feel a lot better about Microsoft now. Thanks. If they have their way with Palladium they WILL have a monopoly on the server market, financial market, transaction market, and any other online market you care to discuss. It is true that monopolies don't last forever but Microsoft's has already lasted long enough to fuck billions of dollars out of the public. Their future plans make what they have already done look amateur.
The new software licensing model just means that people are paying for what they use...
So you're saying there's nothing wrong with forcing businesses to pay up front for what they might not want to use, with the alternative being they have to pay a lot more for only the things they do want to use? Sounds like the mafia to me - pay them now or pay them later, but you WILL pay them.
Please pull your head out - it smells better and you might think more clearly... and drop the blinkers crap. Alternatively, you could just start working at Microsoft in their Marketing department - you would fit right in.
Re:Market-speak (Score:1, Insightful)
The important thing is that there is a *Unix* port of it, available as Open Source. This is a very good move all round.
Yes, but I can't do anything useful with it. I can't port it to Linux, or Solaris. That's what I mean by phony open source. What's the point of having the source, if you can't do anything but read it? Who cares?
The definition of "Open source" (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong.
The definition of "open source" [opensource.org] includes several important points beyond simpy allowing people to see the code. Microsoft's insulting "Shared Source" license fails several of these points.
Most notable is free redistribution. As the OSI puts it:
Other notable trouble points with MS "shared source" include the OSI conditions of no discrimination against persons or groups and non-restriction of other software.
Re:Market-speak (Score:1)
Re:Market-speak (Score:1)
Re:finally (Score:2)
Microsoft has always competed on merits. Your mistake is that you equate "merits" with "characteristics that please the geeks on Slashdot".
Re:finally (Score:1)
The real advantage of this is not having to learn a new programming language. But, having learned C# from a Java background, the difference is laughably negligible.
Re:finally (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Java is not "legacy."
2) There is no such thing as a "low-cost" upgrade to
Now that Sun is being given some real competition in the virtual machine market, maybe we'll see some genuine innovation.
.NET provides minimal innovation over anything that has come before it. Many flavors of the same language, established virtual machine ideas, one proprietary platform.
Re:finally (Score:1)
Re:finally (Score:2)
I don't get it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Rick
Re:I don't get it... (Score:1)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:1, Informative)
Of course 99% of the people who went down that path either switched to VB/COM or Pure Java. But at least Microsoft can say they didn't screw ya.
Hey, conspiracy! (Score:2)
Or you can see an Evil Plan. I'm usually skeptical of Microsoft conspiracy theories, but for once its moderately plausible. Any real Java compatibility (like a Java VM implemented on top of the .NET VM) just wouldn't do. Can't create a two-way migration path!
So you create a new Java-like language that compiles to .NET byte codes. This makes it easy to port existing Java software to .NET. But it's a one-way path, because nobody will use this language to create new .NET software. If they like Java-like languages, they'll use C#. Otherwise they'll use C++ or one of the other .NET-compatible compilers.
Uhm, maybe not. If they just want to seduce Java programmers, they could just write a Java-to-C# translater. The languages aren't that different.
Oh well, what do I know?
Let me try to answer (Score:1)
Re:Let me try to answer (Score:1)
Here's the answer (Score:4, Informative)
All
Whether you prefer to write your source in Java (using J#), or C#, or VB.Net, or Perl.Net, or whatever, the source gets compiled to the same MSIL.
The MSIL code then runs on the
After they become MSIL, they are completely interchangable, regardless of their original source language. You could grab a cool C# utility class off the Web somewhere and use Java "extends" to write a subclass in Java. If you find it easier to parse text with Perl than with Java (who doesn't?), then you could write just the text parser classes in your Java app in Perl.Net.
The idea is that you get to work in a source language that you choose. Unlike the Java world,
The point of J# is to let Java lovers use Java to create
Re:Here's the answer (Score:1)
Different approaches... (Score:2, Informative)
With Java, one language can create a program that runs on many platforms.
With dotNet, many languages can create a program that runs on one platform.
So what happens if MS decides to create a CLR for other platforms. Than you have many languages that can run on many platforms.
Re:Different approaches... (Score:1, Insightful)
They chose *BSD, and then chose the most popular BSD from Open, Net and Free. What is wrong with that?
Re:Different approaches... (Score:1)
Now, organize this information into a RDBMS model that adheres to all five normal forms
Still waiting for COM on Unix... (Score:1)
Re:Still waiting for COM on Unix... (Score:1)
Re:Different approaches... (Score:2, Informative)
MS? You mean Ximian (Score:2)
Even Java gets support for most of its many platforms from entities other than Sun.
.Net on Linux is already well on it's way. It's called theMono Project [go-mono.org] by Ximian, the same people who created Gnome. If developers on other platforms want to have
MS won't (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Why .NET ? (Score:1)
Re:Why .NET ? (Score:1)
Re:Why .NET ? (Score:3, Informative)
This web services crap was basically smoke-and-mirrors. As someone else pointed out earlier in this topic, if MS or somebody else writes a CLR, suddenly, "Windows" programs will run on other operating systems without so much as a recompile. Given the DOJ problem which was looming large around the same time as the .NET unveiling, I think the "look at our web services" smoke-and-mirrors tactic intentionally diverted attention away from this potential portability option. Indeed, the portability concept was so important in their design phase, MS went as far as to segregate a great deal of highly-Windows-specific functionality in classes with names like Microsoft.xxxx (although this comprises only a tiny fraction of the full .NET model).
Don't get me wrong -- I like SOAP and have pushed for it (and used it, and early derivatives) inside my company for years -- but comparing .NET to "web services" is like comparing your desktop computer to one of those e-mail appliances for the computer illiterate. Sure it CAN do those things, but it's only a small fraction of the real story.
The .NET system object model is a top-down redesign of practically every part of the Windows API. Win32 is gone, GDI is gone, even COM/DCOM is gone (although still accessible). Instead you have this fantastically consistent MASSIVE system object model. Programming against this thing is pretty great. There are a few holes and a few decisions which strike me as stupid, but when you're talking about thousands of classes, everybody is bound to have a few pet peeves.
Unfortunately, it's hard to put an exciting marketing spin on a great new system-wide API strategy, and as I mentioned I don't think they wanted to play up the portability aspect at all, so we end up with the vague .NET marketing-speak hype machine.
There are other important and useful things in .NET, too, but to me the new comprehensive (and consistent) system object model is by far the most important (did I mention it was consistent?). People who compare it to Java either haven't compared them in-depth, are extremely Java-biased, or simply don't know what they're talking about. But that subject has been discussed to death in great detail all over the 'net, just search for it. (BTW, I was a professional Java programmer for over two years -- I'd say Java is merely "OK", not great -- I mention this as evidence that I'm not simply a MS-centric anti-Java nutcase, I did use it to make a living, for awhile.)
I think if .NET fails to gain momentum, it will be a great loss. Beyond the crappy marketing spin that seems to bury anything MS manages to do well, I think Microsoft itself may accidentally kill interest in .NET by only shipping it to the Great Unwashed as part of some new DRM-nazi consumer-unfriendly Windows -- call it WinDisney.
But from a purely technical perspective, .NET is pretty great.
Re:Why .NET ? (Score:1)
At first I thought all this stuff was just glorified castrated middleware; "This 100k$ library will let you ask that machine over there to run this app over here and send back the results." Now I realize that was just the most buzz-enabled portion, that which sells well to idiot managers.
Re:Why .NET ? (Score:1)
That may be true, but from a business perspective, trusting Microsoft to act in your best interests is a proven losing strategy. The business risk of using .NET is enormous, it's the biggest lock-in play that's ever existed in the technical world.
Re:Why .NET ? (Score:2)
Thousands of companies have met with disaster in various forms - products that have been abandoned underneath them - Visual J++ being a fairly recent, relevant example. J# is too late to help those companies. VB developers have been similarly screwed.
Also, the hidden costs of using MS platforms are high: Microsoft generally forces upgrades whether you want them or not, for reasons that are not technical. They unnecessarily interrelate products and generally bring the antitrust concept of "tying" to new heights. Just because the average business isn't aware of these costs, doesn't mean they don't exist. However, open platforms will continue to succeed in opposition to Microsoft, exactly because of issues like this.
Thousands of developers have made a very comfortable living with the "lock-in" of Windows developpment
I'm not saying that developers can't make a living developing for Windows - clearly, they can, although in the past, for smart developers, it's been a frustrating business because of lack of openness. It'll be interesting to see how much that really changes under .NET. Anyway, my point is that .NET is a big risk for businesses to take, since they become completely dependent on a single vendor in a way that goes beyond what was the case before - e.g. Microsoft didn't own the X86 instruction set.
The lock-in play is to get businesses more dependent on MS intellectual property than ever before, and in less of a position to choose alternatives. Ah well, I look forward to the next round of anti-trust litigation, which is bound to begin in the next few years, possibly depending on whether Dubya gets re-elected.
Re:.NET, the Real World, and IT (Score:1)
Re:.NET, the Real World, and IT (Score:1)
blah (Score:1, Redundant)
Java? (Score:1)
Knowing Micro$oft, the syntax will not even be compliant with Java.
So what the heck is J# to do with Java and what is the coffee cup doing in the story?
/me votes for a specific topic "M$ FUD and misguiding (aka new monopoly) schemes"
Re:Java? (Score:2)
Re:Java? (Score:2)
I don't care if they bullshit their own developer community. But I think they should stop there.
Re:Java? (Score:2)
You're right; this could belong in "Developers", "Microsoft", and "Java. But certainly in "Java" and I'll tell you why... This is such an obvious attack on Java's beach head of developers that we need to keep apprised of it. We're not talking about switching to something entirely different like Python or Lisp; this J# stuff is SO conceptually and syntactically similar (but with some scary implications). Competition and alternatives to Java (especially one so obvious as this) should always be in the mind of a Java developer. Otherwise, you risk becoming an ignorant Java zealot, rather than using Java for the right reasons. And there are lots of right reasons, today, don't get me wrong!
Java wins my vote for certain projects today, simply because it has run time environments available for everything from PDAs to pagers to phones, multiple server and workstation OSs, inside cross-platform DBs, inside cross-platform web servers, etc. But that is likely to change and I need to know what's on the horizon, lest my clients be the ones to tell me!
Actually an Improvement (Score:1)
Re:Actually an Improvement (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Actually an Improvement (Score:2)
almost-implemented-ok AWT (Score:2)
Are you serious?
Bill, your skirts are showing.
Re:People wanted it (Score:1)
Why spend the time to make J#?? (Score:2)
Re:Why spend the time to make J#?? (Score:2)
I've got a free voucher for J++ in my VS.NEt box, but I doubt I'll use it
Because... (Score:2)
I'm with you. I think C# is Java-done-better (referring to the source languages only). It has all kinds of improvements over Java that many of us Java programmers have been asking for for years. I intend to use C# when using
But a lot of people learned Java as their first and only language and will drag their heels or spout sanctimonious anti-.Net rhetoric based on little more than a secret fear of having to leave the Java nest.
J# will help people like this (after they get comfy with J#, they'll be much closer to C#), it will help users of the old J++, and it may make it a bit easier to port various useful Java utilities over to
Existing J++ Base (Score:2, Insightful)
My little opinion on J# (Score:1)