Reply to post: "embrace, extend, extinguish"

"embrace, extend, extinguish"

So said a fellow commentard above.

I got burned many years ago learning Java. This was before I went to uni to do a degree. This was me seeing if I could 'hack' it as a programmer.

First I thought 'no bloody way' will I be able to do that. But it fascinated me and like a moth to the flame it drew me in. Polymorphism, Inheritance, Encapsulation, what strange terms, I wonder what they 'really' mean. I was hooked.

I read the API for Delphi of a computer world magazine or some such thing. It drew me in further. I couldn't get the IDE set up for it though being a complete novice and fucktard. Someone suggested Java. I had a look, bought a book, and got tucked in.

I found an IDE that was freely available, also on a computer world magazine. I had a crack at installing it - it worked. So cock-a-hoop was I at this new found technical nirvana, I set to work on my first Hello World. It compiled. You never forget your first Cumpilation! I don't know if it was good for you, but it was bloody fantastic for me. Soon I wasn't just hooked - I was addicted.

I got up at 10am every morning and worked without a break until 4am in the morning - a straight 18 hour hacking run. I stopped for the obvious things (no I didn't have a piss bottle, but I did consider it - don't say you haven't too). It was like nailing dead jelly to the beach, like kicking dead sand down the beach. I loved it. The harder it got, the more tears I shed (yes I cried with frustration - don't say you haven't too). I was compelled. I had a hard copy of The New Hacker's Dictionary, and by jimminy cricket if I wasn't going to become one too.

I marveled at Mel the Real Programmer and his optimum and pessimum. I laughed at the fact they called Pascal a bondage and discipline language - what could they possibly mean by that? I read it word for word, back to front, then back again, and still had no bloody idea what any of them were talking about. But still, reading the book was for fun, when I had access to my rich girlfriend's computer, I worked and learned. Computers were rare in those days. A 200MHz pentium cost 3,000 GBP. I even turned down a holiday in Europe with her just so I could have a few weeks over summer, just me and the computer, learning, working. Trying to see if I was made of the right stuff.

I did this off my own bat. No idea I was going to go to college in a bit to get a degree in this stuff. I was doing it for the hell of it, because I can. And Microsoft 'enabled' me to do that. Thank you Microsoft, from the bottom of my heart. I couldn't have done it without you. Yours was the easiest most available best working IDE to get learning Java with.

Soon I was flying, hacking bits of other people's code to get applets running (you remember 'applets' don't you). Pretty soon I designed and wrote my first program from the ground up using the Java 1.02 SDK, sorry JDK.

My program started to take shape, was coming into life. Me, a computer programmer. Who'd a thunk it uh? It was exhilarating, there was the taste of eastern promise, what new worlds were about to unfold before me?

There was only one slight buzzkill though when I got to this level, or rather, had just got hooked and was just starting to get somewhere with it all - my 'applets' would only work properly in Internet Explorer. That's odd, I said to myself. I must be dong something wrong, dumb noob I am. I'll crack on with the IE all the same coz at least that was working. Thank you Microsoft. I couldn't have done it without you. You really saved my bacon on this one. That shitty Netscape Navigator - amateurs!

The more complex the program got, the less it worked in Netscape Navigator. I was seriously starting to question this cross-platform write once deploy anywhere paradigm, but silly noob I was, I was sure it was me doing something wrong.

By the end of it, the program just flat out refused to run in NN and would only work in IE. NN was all the rage back then, but I had a working prototype that I could reuse the code for later. And reuse it I did.

At college I did it as an assessment, and got a first for it. It utitlised an upgraded JDK API and I remember it being a real pain as they had significantly changed the event handling with the later version. But I got it to work. And I learned. And all was good. And it still wouldn't run anywhere other than bloody Internet fucking Explorer. No one used IE back then if they could help it. Navigator was 'cool'. IE was not. But too late. No going back now.

The IDE that I had been using - J++ I think it was called - had actually made little changes in the compiler, so that it purposely would not be compatible with Netscape. I seem to recall that a few others got burned with this cross-platform write once deploy anywhere environment. It wasn't Java's fault, it was Microsoft's fault. It certainly wasn't my fucking fault.

I got so pissed off with this, that I re-wrote the whole program again in Lingo and deployed it via Macromedia Director. I was already getting into Future Splash (Flash before it was bought out by Macromedia iirc). I got a first for that as well. As I got a first for my fully Flash website, graphics, audio, the works. I had abandoned the promise of Java being compatible by then. Though I did deploy it later for server side scripting and got into Tomcat and servlets and apache and whatnot. I never did get my degree.

So, this is just my little personal experience with the promises that Microsoft make. I certainly can't think of a better example of "embrace, extend, extinguish".

I never did become a programmer either. But such is life, and for once that wasn't Microsoft's fault.

J++ however. Very clever. Spot on marketing. They got me good on that one. They had me doubting my own sanity, blaming my own incompetence (and I was incompetent). And over the years, I still went back for more. You think they can change. The more you double down the deeper in you go, and the harder it is to get back out.

Microsoft know this. It's the whole philosophy behind "embrace, extend, extinguish", and let's be fair, it's certainly worked for them in a big way.

As for their latest foray? I think I have made my point. I shall not be going near it with a ten-foot pole. I wouldn't touch it with... er, I think I really have made my point, so I'll shut up now.

Except to say, Microsoft, thank you for the memories! You really were a class act.