Beyond Java - Bruce Tate [23]
Moving Forward
The idea of the virtual machine is here to stay. The intermediate virtual machine transforms the basic problems of portability, security, and deployment from nearly unsolvable to routine. If the virtual machine adapts to accept dynamic languages, the JVM will probably be the deployment platform of choice for the foreseeable future. If not, a new virtual machine will need to emerge.
But the problem of portability has proven to be a difficult one. Jython , a dynamic language based on Python but running in the JVM, never quite reached the expected level of prominence in the Python community, particularly because it wasn't fast enough, and partly because the Python community never embraced it. A project to implement Ruby on the JVM, called JRuby , has similar difficulties so far. Still, many analysts predict that the JVM will live long beyond the time that the last Java developer writes the last, lonely line of code.
I'm convinced that the next major programming language will be much more dynamic. It's pretty clear that newer dynamic languages will also have the benefit of a virtual machine. If the lax sales of security books and Windows alternatives are any indication, security just doesn't mean as much to us as we think it does. Still, alternatives may have the benefit of Java's virtual machine. If not, cross your fingers. The next major alternative may not be as secure as Java, because most language designers don't start by building in security first. Until we fix fundamental holes in our processes, our thinking, and our operating systems, security in the languages built on top won't matter much.
The Internet
C evolved from a systems language built to create operating systems. It's a systems programming language. C, and the C++ follow-up language, didn't creep into the enterprise until later. Unlike C++, a very early target for Java was mobile computing, and it evolved very quickly to encompass Internet applications for the enterprise. You can easily see Sun's intentions in four primary places:
Java included convenience features to make applications programming easier. Java added garbage collection and memory management, so application developers wouldn't have to deal with these issues. Java included first-class strings, so the platform, rather than the programmer, could deal with moving the individual bytes around. A systems language might want more control.
Java's vision for enterprise computing was centered on the Internet. Java built in several libraries that greatly simplified enterprise computing and the growing language always kept the Internet as a central focus. Early APIs enabled everything from communications protocols like TCP/IP sockets to the applet framework that allowed embedded applications in a browser.
Java's fathers keenly moved to improve simplicity, at the price of low-level flexibility. For example, though C++ could touch any byte in the system, they knew that the C++ applications community struggled with pointer arithmetic.
Very early, Java was targeted at mobile applications , but Sun saw an opportunity to topple Microsoft. Sun took the opportunity, extending the primary focus of Java into the Internet.
Remember this: client/server computing made it very difficult to deploy applications. Thousands of Windows clients, and a distributed network of hundreds of servers to power them, were cheaper than mainframes to buy, but they were horrendously expensive to manage. In the late 1990s, corporate visions changed from client/server computing to networks of applications built with Internet standards, called intranets, existing entirely inside corporate boundaries. When Sun embedded Java into the first version of Netscape Navigator, this vision looked quite possible.
A Consistent Evolving Vision
The ultimate goal for the Internet is this: give all users a single application platform (we call it a browser), and give them the ability to run applications in it. Initially, those applications took the form of applets.