[1] From: "Richard L. Goerwitz III" <richard@mithra- (25)
orinst.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: 9.519 the rush of java
> >Java will also make it much easier for small niche software products to
> >be developed and distributed. That should be of some interest to those
> >of us in academic life, since we do so much of our work in such niches.
>
> I don't deny that Java sounds promising but I am hesitant about investing
> any t&e into exploring its potential. The main reason is Blackbird -- now
> known as Microsoft's Internet Studio. As a recent .net article put it, "the
> bottom line is that you can do 99.9 per cent of what you want with Studio
> alone and never have to learn Java....
One important consideration here: Java is an open standard. That is,
Its specs are public, and the implementations are free for noncommercial
use. And implementations are available right now for many platforms -
Macs, PCs, Unix machines of various kinds. Independent ports are coming
along (actively encouraged by Sun) for even more platforms.
Perhaps Microsoft is also taking this route. I know nothing about Black-
bird, but if history is any guide, Microsoft is focusing on Windows, and
the source code and specs aren't being dealt with nearly as openly as
Java's. Actually, is the source code even being released? Or is this
just another piece of totally proprietary software?
Someone please enlighten us about the specifics, with URLs if possible.
Thanks in advance,
Richard Goerwitz
U of Chicago