On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:44:05 +1000 Jon Austin wrote: > Yes, it is the point, but MS managed to fracture that with their own > JVM implementation which is not 100% compatible with code written for > Sun JVM and vice versa. > > > On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:40:16 +1000, Russell Davies > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Does anybody know someone who works for these geniuses? There's no >> reason this crap shouldn't work no matter what browser/platform you >> happen to be on, isn't this the entire point of Java?
JavaScript and Java are two totally separate languages. There are very few common features. <rant> Sun have been pilloried for not open sourcing Java. The major reason that they have refused is because of what Microsoft and Netscape did with the JavaScript language. Right now Sun own the Java name, and can ensure that no company can release something that they call Java which does not meet the standards set by Sun, which includes the "write once, run anyway" promise. This does not mean that other companies cannot write Java compilers / interpreters (Kaffe, IBM's JDK, jikes, ...), however it does mean that when Microsoft tried to produce a version of Java which would produce code that would only run on Microsoft platforms, Sun were able to successfully take them to court and forced them to stop using the Java name (it became Visual J++ which has been wiped out by C#). </rant> The problem you are experiencing is with the JavaScript language, which Microsoft and Netscape deliberately added their own proprietary enhancements to the standard. There is a standard though, and good JavaScript programmers can write code within that standard and/or write small alternate blocks of code that can work in multiple browsers. The problem is getting good JavaScript programmers - it is like getting good VB programmers: too many people can claim that they are a programmer without knowing the first thing about programming. Regards, Andrew -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
