More Preview Releases
This week we're back to current events.While last week we reported on one preview release of Netscape Communicator, this week another has already followed it.
Both are significant because they package the new Symantec Java Virtual Machine; very observant Netscape users and close readers of this column would probably be aware that Netscape has thus far used the competing Borland JVM. To what effect, we may wonder?
First, though, we have to wonder why companies like Netscape chose JVM's released by companies like Borland and Symantec in the first place (not to mention Microsoft, which commissioned its own JVM), instead of using the Java package already completed by Sun.
The licensing puzzle is one that (regardless of what the various players will tell you both publicly and privately) you have to answer with your own intuition and common sense. The most we can do toward facilitating that end is provide a few ruminations on the subject.
First, remember the infamous licensing debates that have surrounded other similar industries. Many have said for years, and lately Apple Computer has been known to agree, that it is impossible for one company to bear the burden of effectively growing an entire industry. There's plenty of speculation that had the Apple Macintosh been made an open standard instead of a carefully guarded company asset, its use may have become more widespread and offered stiffer competition to the Windows/Intel monopoly.
This isn't unsound thinking, though we doubt it's exactly right. In any case, Sun's overall behavior suggests it is very familiar with this theory, and wants to offer the Java standard quite freely to the world so that it may be picked apart, value added, and put back together again. All this for a modest licensing fee, of course.
That makes double the sense when you consider that each company only has finite development and technical resources (in the midst of a worldwide shortage of good computer-related talent), and worse, extremely finite management capabilities. Knowing that a player like Symantec might even pay to write a Just-In-Time compiler for Java, or port the JDK to the Macintosh, is a pretty big incentive for Sun. Regardless, there's definitely strength in numbers.
Given the current situation where Sun is attempting to orchestrate the actions of a lot of participants in the ongoing creation of Java, it's rather natural that the company should be near the core of the movement--expending its energy on expanding the API and developing new, related technologies. Those on the fringes may be the ones picking up the initiatives and running with them; it's one thing if a third party's Java environment is cheaper than Sun's, another entirely if it happens to be faster. In this case, much faster.
We're satisfied enough that the JDK 1.1 contains a number of much needed feature additions. Imagine our delight if it where also to bring a very significant speed increase?
We won't insult your intelligence by quoting benchmarks; we know that most of you know better by now, or at least acknowledge you're in denial about them. We will tell you this (if you're too impatient to wait for the new Netscape beta to download), there's a noticeable difference. Loading and AWT "unfolding" in big applets takes on a snap that we're barely accustomed to. The speed problems are far from solved, but by official accounts which we now must mysteriously corroborate with our own experience, performance is within an order of magnitude that we've come to expect from the average, bloated Visual C++ application.
Our only solace if this technology doesn't catch on is that perhaps Bill Gates will be forced to make his engineers write organized and efficient code in order to battle against it.
In the meantime, we'll keep right on speculating. Doubtless, it won't come to that, but to be fair, we hear Bill's not as bad as he used to be.
