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New Sun's engineers don't like Java.
But you expected that, didn't you?

[link|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7601|Here]:

AN INSIDER AT Sun Microsystems says there's frantic discussion inside the company about big problems with the Java platform that, he claimed, "prevent general acceptance of Java for production software within Sun".

He said: "It strikes me as hypocritical for Sun to blame Microsoft for any failure of the Java platform when Sun's own engineers find developing common software applications in Java impractical".


It's short and not terribly surprising, but an interesting read.

[Edit - fixy linky. Sorry.]

Cheers,
Scott.
Expand Edited by Another Scott Feb. 4, 2003, 04:08:54 PM EST
New Bad link?
"Old chips rescued from virtual extinction"
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Yup. Correct now.
New Doesn't sound like it's Java, per se.
Sounds like issues with Java on Solaris:
One of the problems, he claimed, is that while Java has a lot of benefits compared to C and C++, its implementation on Solaris makes it difficult to deliver reliable applications.

Sun engineers think that Solaris gets in the way of implementing many software applications. The problem is widely recognised internally.
...
The memory footprint on Solaris machines is rather large, it appears.


Now, with regards to this:
One problem is that every Java program relies on the installed Java Runtime Environment, and when packages are issued every four or five months, they destroy existing packages and can't be back-graded to the prior install.
I can only say that I've seen issues going the other way (ie. writing for 1.3 when 1.2.2 is all that's installed), but never going forward in releases. TMMV, apparently. Typically what works best is targetting a release (1.2.2, or 1.3.1, for example) and sticking with it until some compelling addition balances the ROI towards upgrading.

On the memory issues in general: it's quite easy to write a Java program that uses a lot of memory. It's not that hard to make sure it doesn't, however.

Meta: Poorly written article, IMO, the way it jumps around. The Inquirer doesn't hold a candle to The Register. They tend to post more sensationalistic stuff at the expense of credibility and quality, IMO.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New blows with the flows
"The memory footprint on Solaris machines is rather large, it appears."

The stupid engineers are thinking like engineers again. It is probably to Sun's benefit for Java to be bloated on Sun boxes. Sun is mostly a hardware company. Bloated software == hardware sales.

So, those naive engineers should shut up and be glad they still have a job. Sun does not make much money on Java.

The biggest lesson that I have yet to fully learn: "Go with the flow, even if the flow is stupid."
________________
oop.ismad.com
New We ended up shipping entire Java dev environment,
compiler and all. Our consultants used Tomcat/Jacarta to deliver a web GUI. OUCH!
--

We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
New More on Java JRE on Solaris from TheInq.
[link|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7679|Here]. Yes Scott, the English at TheInq often isn't the best (though I personally think TheReg often leaves a lot to be desired as well.) :-)

NOT ONLY IS there a huge internal debate at Sun Microsystems about difficulties with Java, but it has emerged that a bug in build 83 of 1.4 was only detected and fixed just before the final build of Solaris 9, according to an insider at the company.


I think that's just a bit of fearmongering myself. Testing is designed to catch bugs before release...

Our source at Sun said that memory hogging is a huge problem, with the JRE being huge, compared to similar runtime environments.

He said it can grow to as much as 900M, while Java 2 programs like "Hello World" hog 9M, Component Manager 160M and Together sometimes reaching 900M. He claimed that on an Ultra 10, Together could take a staggering four minutes to load and to start, while even the much vaunted administration console, SMC can take up to two minutes to start working. These problems all relate to the Java Runtime Environment, he claimed.

Sun Microsystems could not be reached for comment on the problems. \ufffd


A comparison to sizes of other REs with similar functionality would be helpful, rather than us having to take their word for it. But 900 M does sound a *tiny* bit excessive. :-/

I'd feel a lot better about these stories if they weren't traced to *one* person at Sun. But I don't want to shoot the messenger either.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New TogetherJ used 64M tops on my Linux box
900M is staggeringly huge, if it's true. The 1.2.2 and 1.3.1 versions that we use on Solaris 2.7 aren't particular hogs; the 4 java processes we have running right now have a SZ of about 7M or so.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Depends on what you use
A lot of the packages floating around out there are enormous for what they do. I've been working on a dbms modeling tool. I wanted to add diagramming. I thought using svg would be cool so I checked out the batik lib at apache.

Fuggeddaboudit. Its something like 8 jars and they're all huge. I just want boxes and lines and persistence. I wrote my own graph tool (all graph builder components I've seen on the web have been slow, large, swing-like over-engineered (factory factories to generate builders of adaptors and 4 levels of model mapping) and ugly besides.

The only thing I didn't write is the PNGEncoder - its one class with a single interesting method.

I think you can write lean java programs - as long as you don't download any "free" components.




I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customer got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.

--Alan Perlis
New That last line applies to a lot of languages
"hello world" in Foxpro is 2k. A lot of libs people download are huge and may not be all that well written.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]

questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New Memo is two years old, claims Sun
[link|http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984529.html?tag=fd_top|http://news.com.com/...9.html?tag=fd_top]
Sun confirmed the memo's authenticity, but said that the document is two years old and that the problems it describes have been fixed. "It doesn't represent Sun's position or the reality of our implementation today. The issues mentioned in the memo are irrelevant at this point," the company said in a statement.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
     Sun's engineers don't like Java. - (Another Scott) - (10)
         Bad link? - (admin) - (1)
             Yup. Correct now. -NT - (Another Scott)
         Doesn't sound like it's Java, per se. - (admin) - (2)
             blows with the flows - (tablizer)
             We ended up shipping entire Java dev environment, - (Arkadiy)
         More on Java JRE on Solaris from TheInq. - (Another Scott) - (3)
             TogetherJ used 64M tops on my Linux box - (admin) - (2)
                 Depends on what you use - (tuberculosis) - (1)
                     That last line applies to a lot of languages - (boxley)
         Memo is two years old, claims Sun - (admin)

Severity set to `grave'.
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