News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
	Mail Starting 10/17/97

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From: caryn@sfm.com (Caryn Shalita);
Sent at 10/17/97; 3:54:10 PM;
Re:New Orleans

I didn't realize you went to college in New Orleans. Thought you might want to read the poem I wrote when I was there for Mardi Gras (my friend Pete's last year at Tulane Law) Coming from the North, being in New Orleans was my first real experience with the deep South, and to this day, this poem is one of my favorites of all that I have written...

http://www.caryn.com/caryn-creative-mardi.html

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From: johnw@clickover.com (John Worthington);
Sent at 10/17/97; 3:48:39 PM;
Re:New Orleans

Great piece on New Orleans. My wife is from there, so I'm back at least once year - usually Jazz Fest time. If you haven't been, you should make the trip. Might also be a good excuse for a high tech get together of some type.

I've also been looking at New Orleans real estate. Not quite ready to make the jump yet, but I imagine I'll end up there in the next couple of years. Sure, there's problems, but there's no place else like it.

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From: jen@worldweb.net (Jennifer L. Carr);
Sent at 10/17/97; 6:53:41 PM;
Re:New Orleans

I've been reading your column for several months now and was surprised to hear that you spent your college days in New Orleans. I actually graduated from Tulane a year ago and so I can totally relate to your feelings about the city. (I'm from the South though)

I have to disagree with you *a lot* though about how happy people are there. Did you happen to go to a fast food joint to see how you were treated? Or a K&B? Sometimes, no matter how much you smile and how nice you try to be, you can see hatred in people's eyes when they have to give you your fries. There is a heck of a lot of resentment in that city and I can't say I blame a lot of people for that. Quick note: RTA hires good natured people to drive the streetcars on purpose.

Some recent events that you probably weren't aware of that might change your mind:

I guess three years ago around Mardi Gras, a rash of crime broke out committed by police officers. We're talking all kinds of different types of murders. This crimes started Lundi Gras and continued for about a month and a half. It got to the point where there were noticably fewer people out and about in the city. The air was heavy and no one smiled. People were truly afraid.

The governor still gambles away state funds. The city sold itss soul to the casinos only to find out that New Orleans can't compete with Biloxi. The temp. casino shut down after only a few months in operation leaving the big one down by the river not even half completed for years. I don't know if they ever finished it. Housing projects are still crumbling. No one learns anything in the public schools. Affluent locals send their kids away to for an education. The economy is in the hole, and there are no good jobs to be had. And, there is still an average of one murder a day, making New Orleans still the city with the highest murder rate in the country. (Occassionally Gary, Indiana is worse).

All of these things create this underlying tension in the hearts of every New Orleanian. Everyone knows that literally any day you spend there might be the last day of your life. I moved to DC after New Orleans, and people used to ask me, "Why in the world would you move there? The crime is so bad" I always replied, "I live in New Orleans right now."

"Even so, it struck me as a town with a culture and lifestyle that could support a vibrant web developer community, for not-too-rich people who want to live in a stimulating, interesting and happy place."

Unfortunately, you are really off base. I left New Orleans precisely b/c I could not get a decent job there doing web development. There aren't a lot of big businesses to support even 100-grand sites, and the small businesses tend to pay their employees under the table anyway. No one has any money in New Orleans. I have friends there that still own multi-media type companies and their web businesses are really hurting. I worked for about the only solid ISP there during my senior year. They were actually responsible for a lot of the souvenir websites. That's the only business for web companies in that city and it's not surprising that they're targeting people outside of the city.

I love New Orleans as if I grew up there. There is something in the air there that makes you feel like the rest of the world doesn't exist. But amidst all the decay, crooked streets and sidewalks, and that weird burnt rubber smell that you get sometimes after it rains you also feel like your life will stand still if you stay there. It's very easy to get caught up in the atmosphere and lose yourself, your motivations, everything. I left the city less than a week after graduation b/c I knew that if I didn't go then I'd never be able to leave. It really is like no other place in the world.

Well, enough of this essay. I sure wish I could have visited there, although I find it eerie that whenever I do go back absolutely nothing has changed. I can never stay very long b/c I feel myself falling under New Orleans' spell all over again.

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From: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore);
Sent at 10/17/97; 3:11:44 PM;
Re:"New Orleans & Sun/Microsoft"

I read the Sun/Microsoft contract. I read the amended complaint (lawsuit). You've read them now too, right? Do you still think Sun is crying wolf because "microsoft is out-competing them"?

I find Microsoft's responses very telling. "Our product is more compatible than Sun's product." Compatible with what, exactly? If Sun defines the standard, then how can theirs be MORE compatible than Sun's?

What they're trying to say is that *Microsoft* sets the standard for Java: "Everyone needs to be compatible with *us*, not with Sun's specs or test suites." And that would put everyone back into the rat race: Microsoft or Intel makes some proprietary improvement in the Wintel platform, everyone has to reverse-engineer it and follow suit. Microsoft would love to get the Java community doing the same follow-the-leader behind Microsoft. Under Sun's leadership, those improvements are licensed out to all the competitors; they don't have to be reverse-engineered. It's a fundamentally different business model: Microsoft keeps its source code proprietary and licenses out the binaries (e.g. to OEM's). Sun licenses its source code to everyone.

See http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-11-1997/jw-11-pitfalls.html for a detailed technical comparison between Sun's SDK and Microsoft's (and Netscape's, in a sidebar). This article details what is actually different in Microsoft's Java, and how developers can avoid writing platform-specific Java code by avoiding those differences.

The fact that developers have to even THINK about writing "portable Java code" means Microsoft is already winning. Because as long as people have to port their stuff around, instead of it just running everywhere, they are still in the catbird seat: software will be tested to work on Microsoft's platform first, and will "maybe" run on others -- or maybe not. The bastards are tricky -- don't let them trick *you*.

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From: wesf@mail.utexas.edu (Wesley Felter);
Sent at 10/17/97; 4:33:00 PM;
Re:New Orleans

I'm glad you liked New Orleans; it's a cool place. New Orleans attracts artists of all kinds, so it has its share of Web-enabled artists. My friend Brad Brewster runs a little shop called Bent Media http://www.bentmedia.com/ that does Web sites with style, like Tabasco.

You should download Fast Eddie's Lucky Slots from his site; for those like me who lived through the recent political climate in Louisiana it's a laugh and a half. And my friend Jedd runs a little multimedia firm called EPS http://www.epsno.com/. I mangled their Web site a few years ago back in the early days of Frontier.

Did you see the casino? A beautiful building, half finished, waiting for its destiny to be decided. It's so sad!

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From: dbw11@cornell.edu (David Weingart);
Sent at 10/17/97; 12:22:22 PM;
MS and Java

Like it or not, Java is something that a web browser "has to have". If Microsoft refuses to ship Java with Internet Explorer, Netscape would have a field day.

It's much better from Microsoft's point of view to break Java. If applets fail because of Microsoft's Java implementation, it makes Java look bad. This pretty much forces Sun to do _something_ to make it clear that it is Microsoft's fault for shipping a purposely broken implementation.

At the very least, Microsoft should be enjoined from using the Java logo, if they are doing this on purpose (of course they are).

I don't necessarily think that a lawsuit is the answer. Sun probably doesn't think so either, which is why the lawsuit seems much more an effort at publicity than law.

As long as Sun treats the lawsuit in this way, and it doesn't become an all-consuming quest, Java will probably come out o.k. There is nothing wrong with publicizing the fact that Microsoft is trying to kill Java as a threat to Windows.

BTW I'm certainly not pleased with many aspects of Sun's handling of Java either (cross-platform includes the Macintosh).

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From: jackbell@ricochet.net (Jack Bell);
Sent at 10/17/97; 9:07:57 AM;
AGIS Net Problems and the Future of the Free Net

Just to add a little to the speculation and rhetoric, I thought I would mention one possible reason for AGIS refusing to peer with certain ISP's that doesn't reflect quite as badly on AGIS; protection from PING attacks.

Remember, AGIS is currently involved in a legal dispute with Sanford Wallace brought about by their attempt to cut off the Spam King's access to the Net. AGIS isn't doing this because of a virtuous d islike of Mr. Wallace's business practices, but rather because AGIS has become the target of ongoing PING attacks from nameless Net vandals attempting to shut down any ISP giving Mr. Wallace the abili ty to carry out his business.

So, let us suppose that AGIS was able to fingerprint those nasty PING packets as originating from or passing through Conxion. It would only make sense to avoid peering (and possibly block packets, as one correspondent pointed out). Of course, if the peering problem predated the PING attacks then t his argument is completely specious. But that doesn't mean we will not be seeing problems like this arise in the future. I can easily see ISP's cutting off access to entire subnets because of dangers presented by the users of those subnets to their own operations. It would be very easy to justify.

And further; I can see access limitations being put in place for everything from purely venal busine ss reasons to differences in ideology. China and Shanghai do it, why can't Mom & Pop ISP Inc. do it as well? Also remember this, not everyone agrees with the Libertarian principals espoused by the m ajority of current Net users. As more and more people come online we may see the Net fragment into barrios and ghettos of IP address groups shared by people who really do not want to talk to the whol e world. This is a truly scary thought from where I stand...

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From: faisal@visionfoundry.com (Faisal Jawdat);
Sent at 10/17/97; 12:06:04 PM;
Java: business practice v. engineering practice

It's good *engineering practice* for developers *using* an OO development environment to avoid monkeying with the base classes. This is not what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft is *implementing* a new set of base classes, thereby setting a new definition of Java, a new and subtly different OO version of the development environment.

If enough people write to the MS VM, Microsoft will become the defacto standards defining body in the Java world. If people ignore the MS VM and use the Sun one, Sun will continue to be the defacto standards body in the Java world.

This is good business sense for Microsoft as long as the PR doesn't go against them, as it is unlikely that they won't be able to ship a Java compatible VM even if they do lose the technology license. (they, of all people, have the resources to produce a cleanroom VM that can support most Java apps).

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From: dmorelli@mail1.nai.net (Dino Morelli);
Sent at 10/17/97; 11:18:35 AM;
Scripting News, Friday, October 17, 1997

In today's Scripting News it says this:

Says Jack Russo of Russo & Hale, "It's really over who is the leader and who's the follower. Sun wants to be the leader and pope of the Java religion. It says, 'If you want to participate in the religion, you have to give us some homage. Microsoft in the name of doing its own innovations, is saying, 'We want to help define this religion; we are as sacred as Sun in this respect.'"

That's just not true. Microsoft is not saying "we want to help define this religion" Microsoft is saying "let's subtly introduce changes that could benefit our implementation down the road."

If Mr Russo really believes the changes to the Java core API and the left-out parts were all in the name of trying to contribute, maybe he doesn't understand how OO programming works.

Maybe he doesn't understand that you leave released base classes alone and inherit from them or forge your own. And that's not even if they're protected by copyright, it's just good practice. Common sense.

Maybe he doesn't understand that what this looks like to any actual engineer is a blatant attempt to cause havoc for the Java development community.

I've seen a difference report of both sets of sources. Take a look.

http://www.javalobby.org/action/msjava-diffs.htm

Also, how do you figure that Microsoft has the largest software distribution system in the business? What do you call the Internet itself, then? I don't get any of my development tools for Java through Microsoft in any way. I'm not clear on why I should care what Microsoft does as long as Netscape ships with a Java VM in it.

Bottom line: as long as Sun and/or some other companies continue to write Java VMs for Windows, Java does not need Microsoft for anything.

Dave, I'm sorry if I sound insulting. I have a huge amount of respect for you, personally. But this opinion in Scripting News today is incorrect. As an engineer, that's how I feel.

http://w3.nai.net/~dmorelli/

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From: jjens@primenet.com (John Jensen);
Sent at 10/17/97; 8:26:46 AM;
MS cannot drop Java

If MS could ignore Java they would have done so last year, but to exclude Java from IE would have given Netscape the market. If MS chooses to drop Java it now, it will be a race: who will have a more complete solution in '98 Java or DHTML/ACTIVE-X/whatever.

Java may not be "done", but it has a big headstart on any alternatives.