Java

Roy

Java

Java is the leading contender for a full feature programming language targetted at Internet applications. It advantages are: familiarity (derived from C++), platform independence (will run on any platform which implements the Java Virtual Machine), performance (byte-code compiled faster than fully interpreted), and safety (downloaded applets are checked for integrity, and only interpreted by trusted Virtual Machine). Java is being aggressively distributed and promoted by Sun Microsystems, which developed it, and, evidently, sees it as a way to loosen Microsoft's and Intel's grip on the computer platform. Netscape, the leading web browser, now includes the Java VM, and Java applets are appearing on web sites everywhere. Even Microsoft, which is promoting Visual Basic Script for this purpose, has licensed Java from Sun and will be supporting it in its browsers. The list of Java licensees is long, and includes other major players, like DEC and IBM. Sun is distributing a Java developers kit free of charge as of this writing, in the interest of promoting Java's widespread use. It recently announced the development of microprocessors optimized for Java for different markets (from cellular phones to high performance 3D "Network Appliances". If their strategy is successful, the application platform is raised, and Java displaces Windows or other OS's as the target platform of application developers, then the whole ballgame changes, and the impact is potentially across the entire computer industry, not just the Internet. The ability to deliver a platform-independent application, or, more correctly, an OS-independent application, is of great appeal to developers, who spend a large portion of their resources developing and maintaining versions off their products for the different hardware/software platform combinations. With Java, one set of sources, and, even more important, one byte compiled executable, can be delivered for all hw/sw platforms. While interpretation of byte-compiled program is slower than execution of a native executable, the claim is made that, once interpreted, the resulting executable is of comparable performance, which means Java apps could be interpreted once and the result cached locally, and thereafter executed optimally. This is great news for Unix, OS/2, and Macintosh vendors and users, who often suffer from limited or delayed availability of software and high prices due to limited demand, and, likewise, for non-Intel chip and computer vendors. Its potentially disastrous news for Microsoft and Intel, who, arguably, often sell their products solely on the basis of their market position, rather than their technical merit. Hopefully, the result will be a more level playing field for vendors and more choice for consumers, and not just the replacement of Microsoft and Intel with Sun and Netscape.

That said, not everyone agrees that Java is the answer. The most common complaint in that Java is not simple; its basically a slimmed down, cleaned up C++, with a big GUI library. C++ programming is not described by most as "simple", and Java programming is not much simpler, especially when compared to HTML, or some other languages put forward as its competition. Java is the market leader at the moment, so it is the obvious target. Each of the competitors is described below in more detail. The following compare Java to specific other languages:

Cmm and Java Compared compares Java with Cmm, another C-derived language targeting the WWW.

Differences Between Phantom and Java compares Java and Phantom, a language based on Modula-3 which targets the Internet.

Java is Dead compares Java to pgpsafeperl, as the name implies, a safe derivative of perl, a popular language among Unix sysadmins.

Java Über Alles? compares Java and Perl, addressing the complexity of Java programming.

A survey of distributed languages compares Java to Phantom and Python, an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language.

Sun is working to integrate Java into its OMG CORBA-compliant ORB, NEO, with Joe.

HORB is a freeware implementation of a superset of Java.

Jylu adds support for Java clients and servers to Xerox's ILU, a sourceware ORB that supports interoperability between programs written in Python, Common Lisp, C, C++, and Modula-3 .
JavaScript

JavaScript (nee LiveScript) is Netscape's scripting language for integrating HTML, Netscape plug-ins, and Java applets. It is based on Java, and is mostly syntactically compatible, but differs from Java in that it is interpreted, rather than compiled, only supports built certain built-in objects and user-defined functions, rather than full support for user-defined classes with inheritence and methods, is integrated with HTML, rather than invoked from HTML files, weakly typed, and dynamically bound. JavaScript is meant to extend HTML to be more of a full programming language, but retaining HTML's ease of use. The principal criticism of Java programming is that it much more complex than HTML programming, more like C++ programming, and therefore is not as accessible to users as HTML. This is an issue that JavaScript attempts to address.

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