Post-Oracle Purchase, How Is Sun's Software Doing?

GMGruman writes "Oracle has steadily provoked the open source community since its acquisition of Sun, raising the question of whether the move will simply destroy Sun. But as Paul Krill observes, Oracle has been steadfast in upgrading Sun-derived technologies — and making them profitable, which should mean they will stick around a long time."

Re:Minecraft

[GooberToo]

People assume that most of Minecraft's issues are the result of using Java... without considering the programmer's failings.

Unfortunately, that's what is said every time someone sees a slow Java application. Which is yet even more unfortunate as that seems to be the norm for Java applications.

When Java jockeys go out of there way to make noise about how speedy java is (faster than C), people have an expectation of it being as speedy as constantly boasted. And then when it consistently fails to meet expectations set by those who should know, people complain loudly.

Frankly, Java is frequently "fast enough". And there is nothing wrong with that. It is, after all, pretty fast for a fair number of use cases. I've used several Java applications which were fast enough and provided a good experience. Just the same, I've never run a real world, long-running application, which was actually faster than C or C++. Never. Not once. Which leads me to believe, either I've been lied to by Java programmers or every Java programmer is a bad programmer. Either way, its not a good thing.

The Java world needs to simply accept that Java is frequently "fast enough" and move on. Stop with the lying. Stop with the hype. Most people truly don't care so long as its "fast enough". That is, up until people go out of their way to make a big point about how Java is the fastest language ever created. Its at this point, everyone gets upset and disillusioned and then posts like this get written.

The truth is, Java, in real applications, is rarely, if ever, faster than C or C++. Period. In fact, its frequently much, much slower. The facts are, when people need performance there are really, really, really good reasons why people still use C, C++, and asm. Likewise, there are really good reasons why Java is almost never considered for these applications. And when Java is used in stead of C, C++, or asm, its usually because of corporate culture, idealogical, religious, or plain old ignorance.

Re:Wish Sun had been bought by Apple

[Dunbal]

Apple is not about enterprise. It's about selling expensive trinkets to teenagers, nouveau riche, and "me too"ers. Apple buying Sun makes about as much sense as McDonald's opening a luxury car dealership.

Re:Wish Sun had been bought by Apple

[ArmchairGeneral]

But Apple doesn't seem to have any interest in the enterprise. Most of their products are end-user oriented and in one way you could say they would like the client-facing side of the enterprise, if they want any part of it. AFAIK they've never put in anything serious for enterprise servers, and I don't think they want that. Of course I wonder why Google didn't pick up Sun when it had the chance. They shared a lot of common philosophies, especially those in regards to the open source community. Not to mention avoid the upcoming Oracle vs. Android lawsuit as they would have had Java in their back pocket. Of course Ellison might have found another reason to sue them anyway.

Re:Java and Minecraft might as well merge

[mswhippingboy]

Just about every vendor's enterprise desktop applications I've seen over the last 5 years or so. Of course, I realize that enterprise applications are not cool on /. so I can see how this goes unnoticed.