With a mighty <19970420.40022388.FA37@contessa.phone.net>,
bouncenews@contessa.phone.net uttered these wise words...
> I don't think this is a language-specific solution. After all, you can
> use _any_ language that can be compiled to Java bytecodes. Java was
> the first one. Last time I looked, people were talking about or
> working on Java bytecode compilers for Python, Scheme and Perl. There
> are problably others as well.
>From the discussions that I've read about compiling languages that use
features like closures, tail recursion, continuations, etc to JVM
bytescodes, you might think that there's at least a language bias.
Personally, I'm not worried about a little loss of performance, as
long as it's _possible_.
My point about ActiveX Scripting is that there's _no_ language bias at
all, so even those people who worry about a small loss of performance
(obsessive bean counters or realists?) will be happy. We don't need to
use every language to write MPEG drivers, so I don't think that we
need to judge every language by that standard - even if some people
will. Either these people really believe that there's no difference
between an MPEG driver and any other software, or they're just trying
to convince us that we should all be using assembly language and C.
> If all you give them is JVM binaries, why should they CARE what the
> source language was? I have as yet to run into a user who really
> cares whether a program was written in C, Scheme or Perl. I've seen a
> few who complain that the programs are to big and blame it on the
> implementation language, but they are a minority (and usually wrong
> anyway).
I agree with you about this, which is why I'm not talking about the
language used to write the app, but the scripting language, or even
the means by which a user may choose the language in which to write
scripts to extend an app.
> If you believe the Gabriel paper you referenced, technical suepriority
> doesn't count. Personally, I believe the paper, and further believe
> that marketing counts for far more than technical superiority once
> you've reached the "good enough" level described in my paper.
My experience is that most people don't care about what we like to
call "technical superiority", as they only want an app that performs a
useful task, at a reasonable price. This may be why marketing is such
a powerful factor in deciding what succeeds and what fails.
> Believing that technical superiority counts left me with lots of
> orphans.
It's also a very subjective issue. Jonathon Swift made an excellent
point about what I call "egg orientation". It's a lesson that I
learned at an early age, but it's the "advocacy" threads here on
UseNet (and elsewhere) that've taught me that it's not just an amusing
story for children. It's also a painful lesson for adults.
These days, I prefer my eggs fried, not boiled.
--
<URL:http://www.wildcard.demon.co.uk/> You can never browse enough
Martin Rodgers | Programmer and Information Broker | London, UK
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