In my experience, people, talking as the "Coward" did, are engaged in a
turf war. Nothing that you do will satisfy them, because their apparent
objective is not their real one. However, the appearance criticism may be
something to actually be addressed.
I know of a university library where books older than 1965 are salted away,
apparently on the theory that the latest publications are more important.
Perhaps that is some misguided notion of progress.
Here in Silicon Valley, the turf wars are very apparent. There was a Java
investment fund of $100,000,000 USD, whether real or apparent. There has
been an attempt to brainwash consumers (100% pure Java code). Propoganda
tactics have been used by marketing communications companies to create fear
of code that would run outside a sandbox. The sandbox, however, was quietly
abandoned.'
Java has not caught on, generally. In fact, the last I heard, there was no
Java for Linux! Perhaps the Blackdown Organization has released some Linux
code by now. Apparently Sun Microsystems would like consumers to be using
Sun O/S, because it has been quite unhappy with Microsoft's impoementation
of Java. In short, I wonder if Sun was ever serious about cross-platform
interoperability. Java seems to have been a Trojan horse against Microsoft,
instead. Practically speaking, the Java effort seems inconsistent
otherwise. Some interesting work has been done to make Java a modern
imperative language, though.
I became much more interested in Haskell after the '98 standard was
finalized and implemented (even if only partially). Now I'm learning
Haskell types, soon modules, to move to a deeper level of understanding.
Haskell is generally going in a direction of wider adoption. When it gets
to the point of compiling and running on Win32 without Cygnus software
being installed, it will be even more widely useful, because few consumers
will install Cygnus' Unix-like software.
There are always unfair detractors. Their criticisms should be taken with a
grain of salt.
Byron Hale
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
