(keitai-l) Re: Java running into trouble on cell phones?

From: James Santagata <jsanta_at_audiencetrax.com>
Date: 09/05/02
Message-ID: <016e01c254ff$28b8f980$0201a8c0@ix.netcom.com>
I personally have nothing against the use of Java,
but I try to be balanced in my view of it and consider
it just one tool among others. This means it is not
necessarily the right tool for every job.

I've worked with engineers who haven't seen my app,
read the MRD or PRD, yet tell me, "We'll build this
in Java!" It may be the correct choice, then again
it may not be.

There are many issues to be considered with the choice
of language from performance/scalability, maintainability,
cost of ownership, security, pool of available engineers,
etc.

There are also implementations of Java on
both the client and the server side to consider.

On the client side, where there is a need for
lightweight apps (like mobile phones or small applet
for desktop), Java can be wonderful.We've used it for
some viral marketing software with success.
Although even in this case, we found the Sun proclamation
"write once, run everywhere" to be completely false.
I was actually tempted to file a claim with the FTC
against Sun (McNealy) for false advertising.

On the other hand, when we attempted to develop a
cross-platform streaming media player (targeting Mac
and Windows desktop)in Java with JMF to build a cross-platform
media player  -- Java wouldn't work, since it only supported
MPEG-1 which was a show stopper.

On the server side, though, there are lot's of
other languages that for certain instances may
work better as Java still has some short comings
in being semi-compiled and interpreted.

There is perl (do I hear the groans?) in which apps
can be quickly built and if built correctly can be
both secure and scalable. If there are extra concerns
of scalability, then mod_perl can be quite effective.

There is always C as well, python, too.

I've personally been involved in several enterprise
applications (an online billing mediation service, content
mgmt system and online electronic publishing system) that were
written/attempted to be written in Java and took forever to
write -- with cost overruns and the apps were late to market
or never made it.

In one case, a person I know re-wrote the entire
billing mediation service in mod_perl in 3 months and
basically saved the company.

The issue for these companies may have been
poor product design, weak engineering talent,
incompetent management but also the incorrect
choice of programming language may also have been
to blame.

James

----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul Lester" <paul_lester@lincmedia.co.jp>
>
>     I've used quite a few programming languages, and Java is better than
> all of them as far as I can tell.  Most of the others had quite a few
serious
> problems where it wouldn't do what it was supposed to do.  But with Java
> which I have used much more, I have only found like 1 bug like that, and
> these things actually get fixed in the case of Java!
>
>     The problems I've had with Oracle's SQL very early on was the need to
use
> "" """ """" and so on for no apparent reason, as well as Oracle crashing
> mysteriously periodically.
>
>     Lets not even get into MySQL SQL.... eekk.
>
>     C drives me nuts when floats and doubles don't act like floats and
doubles and
> bugs get fixed by switching the order of the import statements!!! Golly, C
and
> C++ drove me insane.  C and C++ work different not only across platforms,
> but I would find problems across computers with the same hardware
> and software!!! And that's BAD BAD BAD!!!  My students would ask me about
it
> and I would just say, move over and run the program on the other computer
and
> it will work.... I don't know why.  The magic good computers would not
always
> be the same.
>
>     On the other hand, I found Pascal just as stable as Java.
>
>     LabVIEW has so many unwritten memory constraints  . AUGH.  Crashed the
> whole OS quite often because it never said there was a limit to the number
> of VI's you could have in a project.
>
>     Only major problem I've seen with Java is when you capitalize classes
> or uncapitalize them and recompile and things go haywire until you delete
> all the old classes and start from scratch.  Pretty minor but annoying
problem.
>
>     I can go on about others but they're all worse than Java.
>
>     I would hate to have to do mobile stuff in any language except for
Java.
Received on Thu Sep 5 20:12:05 2002