Oracle suits to strap on Sun's Java sandals

Along with Linux, Java's been one of the biggest boons for Oracle. It's become the anchor of Oracle's middleware and developer strategy, and - with Linux - ended Oracle's one-time dependence on Microsoft as the only alternative to IBM. Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin has said he does not see Oracle's commitment …

[amanfromMars]

Whenever you can, just Do IT. Why Wait for Never/Ever?

It seems to me that Java Application Programmers need only Pitch a Worthy Plan to Oracle for Larry and the Lads to Run with IT. Something QuITe Big like AI Control Clouds would be Worthy enough to Shatter an Virtual Machinery Illusions that Azure would be Alluding to......... although the same Pitch could be equally well made to Microsoft, should they be into such Things ...... or Apple, for they are always coming out of Nowhere with a Big Bang Performance Porfolio.

[WinHatter]

Did not see that coming ...

or did we ?

Companies that heavily invested in Java tech might be a bit worried. Oracle will pray on them as there is nothing else available to them in the short term. Those businesses want support and even if Java's developers are important they are worthless when it comes to supporting big companies. If they were why would Oracle still sell Oracle DB licenses when MySQL or PostgreSQL can do the same at a fraction of the cost.

You can trust Oracle to stop supporting any platform Oracle's other products are not running on and I even bet that the Sun JVM implementation will be garbaged making place for the JRockit as the commercially supported one. Expect a fork.

[Cs]

End of Java?

What will say IBM to the customers now?

"There is this great product from our competitor, called Java, we want to sell it to you."

Choice 1:

"We now use an other competitor's product called C#, which by the way they don't use."

Choice 2:

"We use C++ like everybody else who actually makes money on a regular basis: MS, Google, Apple, Oracle etc."

[Bruce Ordway]

Who cares about java?

I always wondered who cared about java?

I am just an end user.

Every time I knowingly use a java based app, it has taken a long time to load, ran slowly and had a poorly designed, unresponsive user interface.

Purely from an end user, I've always wished java would just go away and die. I've also come to dislike Sun because it has inflicted java on me.

Java must have some appeal, but a good side has never been displayed to me.

HP JetAdmin is a good example. I still use my retired windows based version.

Pervasive data translation, java, sucks.

Infomix admin software from IBM, same thing.

When I think java I think slow, poor UI and not knowing if the screen is showing fresh data.

So I'm kind of excited that Oracle has taken ownership.

I hope they make it better or kill it, quickly.

[Anonymous Coward]

yup...

> Every time I knowingly use a java based app, it has taken a long time to load, ran slowly and had a poorly designed, unresponsive user interface.

That pretty much sums up my feeling for all the Java crapware Oracle foist on their corporate clients - ebusiness, forms and the oracle "enterprise" db management tools and IDE.

Java like Oracle gained market share more through intensive marketing than anything else.

[Matt Bryant]

RE: End of Java? and Who cares about java?

RE: Cs

You forgot there are other popular and powerful open choices out there, such as Perl, which many seem to consider unfashionable but may turn to should Larry make a mess of Java. I know Perl is not included as standard in every major OS (/looking at Redmond) but it's definately in many of the flavours we use such as hp-ux and RedHat, so no major change in structure required either.

RE: Bruce Ordway

".....HP JetAdmin is a good example...." Not really - the latest version (10.x) uses .NET, is still criminally slow to load, but does work very nicely once it's up and running. The interface is prettier, though. HP does have a serious fixation with making sure their tools run on as many platforms as possible, hence the use of Java. Many of those tools were PAINFULLY slow to start due to Java, but did the job very nicely once up and running. Personally, I've always valued how much information is coming out of the interface rather than how "pretty" it is, but I do strongly agree that there is a strong market opinion that Java = "slow".

[Christopher Martin]

@Bruce

I think Swing sucks, not Java. I'm sure you've *unknowningly* had a lot of perfectly fine interactions with Java. Web servers, for instance.

[Camilla Smythe]

Re: Who cares about java?

Mwourghhhhh Ha Ha Ha HA.

Mwourghhhhh!

Mwourghhhhh!!

Mwourghhhhh!!!

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are there still so many clueless people stuck in 1995

Java isn't slow, It's execution speed is usually almost as fast and often faster than C or C++. Far too often those whining that Java is slow are also the ones going out and writing ruby, python etc. code that is painfully slow compared to Java. Java is not the fastest in every situation, no language is, but for the last several year the only area in which Java can be considered slow is in startup time, and even that is improving

[amanfromMars]

Re Who cares about java?

"Purely from an end user, I've always wished java would just go away and die. I've also come to dislike Sun because it has inflicted java on me.

Java must have some appeal, but a good side has never been displayed to me." .... By Bruce Ordway Posted Saturday 25th April 2009 15:59 GMT

Bruce,

The NEUKlearer Secret of Java is that it is User Centric Dynamic and is an Ideal ProgramMING Environment for the Post Modern Maslowian Self Actualised. However, it is not as a ladder to climb to a Position with Power, it is as a Controlling Command Platform with which to Immaculately Perform One's Deeds. And as such, it is always best served and will always best server one whenever the Basic Driver Tenet to remember is ... Think not what Java can do for you, but what you can do for Java.

Once you Realise/Virtualise that Maxim, will IT dDeliver Absolutely EVERYTHING that One Needs and Desires. And when I say IT dDelivers Absolutely EVERYTHING that One Needs and Desires, I do mean IT dDelivers Absolutely EVERYTHING that One Needs and Desires.

That is just How Good IT is.

And Being as IT is User Centric Dynamic, in a Binary Discipline, does it Evolve and Grow/Spread and Stealthily Embed at a Prodigious Rate. IT is no Wwwonder Oracle bought into SunNINetworks, which must then let everyone know that IBM walking away, has them completely missing the Wave and the Glorious Ride to Shore and Safe Harbour. And that means that they have also Lost the Global Plot with ITs Lead Position.

That is just How Good IT is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...Oracle for one

It reduces their developments costs by being platform independent... which I'm sure you already know. I'm not a dev, but I imagine that's probably the main reason they use it. Are there any other platform-neutral environments that are faster then? I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely curious to know.

[zedenne]

@Bruce Ordway Who cares about java?

The predominant use of Java in the enterprise these days is running web services, middleware integration, messaging etc. These are then for the most part powering browser based interfaces.

In general the use of Java as a fat client technology hasn't been very successful (with the possible

exception of Eclipse).

So you're probably using Java powered applications a lot more than you realise.

Air/Flex is picking up the desktop applications baton and doing a better job from what I've seen so far.

[Aaron Guilmette]

Identiy Problem

Typically, when I think Java, I think underperforming interpreted language, and when I think Oracle, I think overpriced product with poor customer support experience. What a marriage.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

@ Cs and @Bruce (smoking crack this early in the morning?)

I don't know where you've been but IBM is the other big vendor in the JCP. IBM has been a big proponent of Java and sells a lot of java related stuff via Rational and Websphere pillars.

IBM was very slow to catch on to Java. In 2002, IBM just released a type 4 jdbc driver. Informix has had type 4 jdbc drivers since the mid to late 90's. IBM's spin was that their type 3 driver was faster. (hogwash.)

With respect to Apple, they're based on Mach and Objective-C. Objective-C is extremely compelling when you consider that at the time, it was easier to teach Objective-C to C programmers than C++.

C# is a pure Microsoft garbage play. Nothing IBM will want to play with...

Also I don't know which admin software Bruce is talking about. John Miller III wrote a php based admin tool known as (OAT) that was initially conceived and written as a hack. (Literally) Informix has always been open to multiple languages. In fact they held a patent allowing multiple languages run within the engine. That is to say, they were the first to allow C / ESQL/C and Java end user scripting in the engine.

Informix's other 'admin' tools are written in C (ESQL/C) such as OnMonitor and DBAccess.

So I don't know what point you're trying to make...

[Bruce Ordway]

what point you're trying to make...

Informix's other 'admin' tools are written in C (ESQL/C) such as OnMonitor and DBAccess.

UniData Admin - It was (is) a gui interface into our HP (HPUX) hosting a Unidata 5.2 database. It has the Infomix name on it. My apologies if it's not java. (I'm still waiting for the help screen to come up).

>So I don't know what point you're trying to make...

None really.

I just have this bad impression of java.

Just wondered what others thought..

Anyway, from the responses so far, it seems like more people are concerned with my sobriety than the demise of java. As it should be.

[darrin allen]

Java

I am really impressed with Java in Oracle

[Cs]

Desktop applications

For desktop applications you have C, C++ and Obj-C on Mac.

There's no product written in other language that people buy or largely use.

OS: Linux, Windows, Mac

OS written in Java, Python, other?

App: MS Office, IE, Firefox, Exchange, Photoshop etc etc

Java: Hot Java browser :)

Python, others: ??

(Corel Office was Java for a while.)

My bank's crappy website is Java. They just got bailed out.

PHP with Zend is OK and if you have money to sink in operation Java should do it too.

Many decisions are made like "Java is easy to program" and they find out later that opertations and maintenance is way too expensive.

As for me I prefer to work harder on the programming and minimize maintenance. It works like a charm, even in the current economy. Or should I say "especially now". :)

Sometimes Java can be the right choice, like for SQL stored procedures (Oracle).

For standalone desktop app we know it's not the right one.

(I would love to know if I'm wrong, so please give me examples if you know any.)

[Niall]

Desktop Java

I'm a Java developer, and I agree that Java desktop apps have been rubbish. Mainly I hated the way they looked. As others have said, non-technical people would be more familiar with Java as crappy-looking Java desktop apps than when they unknowingly access Java servers. And that has annoyed me.

Until last year that is. There was a major release of Java last year (Java 6 update 10) which added a new theme for Java desktop apps called "Nimbus" which finally makes Java apps look slick. Better late than never.