Re: Java

[Dan Weinreb <address@hidden>]

   Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 09:35:59 -0600
   From: Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>

   I have exactly as much control over Perl and Python as I want. If I am
   willing to put in the time and effort I can maintain PPython and PPerl
   variants. 

You can create your own language if you want to, but that doesn't mean
you have power to control Perl and Python.

	     I can also contribute changes to the main source bases.

Glendower: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
Hotspur: "Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"

   Common for programmers. Even programmers who do FFTs all day need to
   move files around and process text.  We all work with input data and
   output data. And that data is typically stored in text files.

I "glob" so rarely that I didn't even know what the word "glob" meant
until you mentioned it and I had to go look it up.

   Can you understand how technologists would resent being caught up in
   power politics between software giants who really just want to "capture
   our eyeballs" and then "monetize." 

Nobody forced you to pay any attention to the Sun-Microsoft battle or
worry about Sun's "100% Java" certification program.  Why not just
ignore it?

I'm not sure what you mean by "monetize".  Last time I looked, Sun's
Java implementation was free.  But maybe this is getting too off-topic...

   Most technologists want languages driven by technology. That's what Java
   had in the early days but has since lost.

Yeah, making products for technologists, and being "driven by
technology", in the sense you mean, is definitely what we did at
Symbolics.  May it rest in peace.