Sorry, This is not the sort of response I expected for my efforts to contribute to the group. For instructions on un-subscribing, just follow to link at the bottom of the page (repeated here: http://trijug.org/mailman/listinfo/juglist_trijug.org).
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Sam Ding Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 3:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Juglist] Web Services - J2EE vs. .NET Can anyone unsubscribe me please? Or can anyone send out instructions as to how to unsubscribe? Thanks! sam --- Dennis Laws <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Fellow JUG Members, > > I received the premiere issue of a new publication > (Queue) from the ACM a > few days ago. The feature topic of the issue is > Building Web Service. One > of the feature articles is an interview with Adam > Bosworth conducted by Kirk > McKusick. Parts of the article (see Interview > Excerpts below) directly > address the J2EE vs. .NET issue. The comments > should be of great interest > to the Java J2EE community. To read the complete > interview transcript, visit > http://www.acmqueue.com/ and click the Interview > link. > > Introductions > > Adam Bosworth (AB) was in senior manager at > Microsoft in the late 90's and > became one of the people most central to the effort > to define an industry > XML specification. While at Microsoft, he also > served as General Manager > of the company's WebData organization with > responsibility for defining > Microsoft's long-term XML strategy. Now, as Chief > Architect and Senior Vice > President of Advanced Development at BEA System, > Bosworth is much more > involved in shaping the future of Web Services. > > Kirk McKusick (KM) managed the development and > release of 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD > and is renowned for his work on virtual memory > systems and fast file system > performance. In recent years he has achieved > prominence as one of the > leaders of the Open Source movement. > > Interview Excerpts > > [Question/Answer 14 -- This is just for lead-in to > the good stuff.] > > KM How does BPEL fit into the scheme? > AB Well, it turns out that the advent of > message-driven paradigms is driving > the requirement for workflow. BPEL basically allows > you to script that > workflow. And to understand why that's important, > let's look at Visual Basic > for an analogy. One of the great strengths of Visual > Basic is that if gives > you something almost anyone can use -- a form > designer. And something > something a programmer, or even a non-programmer can > employ to indicate how > an application would work. > Likewise, to design and control workflow, you > need a visual designer > that even mere mortals can use but which also > incorporates some solution > that systems programmers can use to extend these > models (creating what we > call "adapters"). But the question is: What happens > when messages come back > to say that some additional procedural action is > required? How can mere > mortals be expected to deal that that? Our customers > want an answer there > because that would effectively make work flow > available to the mass market. > But first we have to have a standard. And that's > very tricky because > ultimately you're describing something that will > extend the whole > programming model. BPEL is the result of an effort > by Microsoft, BEA and > others to start solving that problem -- which is to > say: how to provide a > standard model for writing workflow? > In terms of implementing that, the plan here at > BEA is to essentially > use metadata to drive the required extended > programming for workflow > semantics so that the programming language for our > customers will still be > Java. An that's because we don't think our customers > really want a another > programming language -- let alone one described in > XML grammar. > > [Good stuff begins here.] > > KM How does that compare the the .NET approach? My > sense is that the .NET > philosophy might best be summarized as "any > language, one platform," where > as the Java approach is more a matter of "one > language, any platform." > AB Back when I worked for Microsoft, I built complex > infrastructures for > customers. I was quite proud of the work because I > felt we'd secede in > bringing together all the tools our customers > needed. We'd given them > Visual Basic to build forms, and we'd given them > active server pages, and > we'd given them XSLT to do conversions between XML > and HTML. And we'd given > them C to write code, and so and so forth. > But then I had an opportunity to meet with a lot > of customer, who > explained that it's incredibly hard to train people > and -- all thing being > equal -- they'd just as soon train people in only > one language. And almost > without exception, they told me that's just exactly > why they found Java so > appealing. They said that, in their view, Java had > finally gotten to a point > where it had enough power to satisfy the average > systems programmer. And > yet, it also managed to hide most of the complexity > that's historically made > something like C a very tricky language. Garbage > collection, for example, is > something that Java just automatically handles for > you. The same thing holds > true for multiple inheritance. So that effectively > gave them one > comprehensive solution, and they just loved that. > At the same time, I don't know many of our > customers that have just one > platform. So it would be arrogant for us to say we > didn't feel we needed to > make out product cross-platform. The value of > cross-language, on the other > hand, is much less clear. In fact, for most of our > customers, it's as much a > curse as a blessing. And that's because issues tend > to arise when all your > programmers are using different languages in > different ways. Now if Java > were intrinsically a hard language, or an inherently > limited one, I think > there would still be a good argument for having > multiple languages. But Java > is intrinsically a pretty easy language. The hard > thing about learning Java > isn't Java itself. It's J2EE and all the plumbing > required to build > scalable transactional applications. And frankly, > we've bee investing a lot > of our time here trying to make it a lot easier. > So the .NET idea about many languages being a > good thing, I believe, is > quite open to debate. Now, bear in mind that I come > from Microsoft and still > have the highest respect for the engineers who built > .NET. But I've yet to > hear of a customer problem that was solved as a > consequence of having > multiple languages. And I've heard of plenty of > customer problems have been > caused by having multiple languages. So, I guess > you'd have to consider me a > bit of a skeptic. > > KM Well let's say you're right about that. But .NET > does come from > Microsoft, and Microsoft does exercise a fair amount > of market clout. Can't > they just essentially ram .NET down people's > throats? > AB Microsoft doesn't drive the market when it comes > to enterprise computing. > What they've really done is create an alternative, > which I consider healthy. > It's making the J2EE people over at Sun wake up and > evolve their > capabilities a lot faster. For the customer, this is > nothing but good news. > In any case, what it really all comes down to is how > you handle the Web > Services stack. And the truth is both J2EE and .NET > still have a room to > grow on the account. > What might be more germane to you question is > that, for all the clout > Microsoft wields, they're still trying with mixed > success to extend their > reach into the enterprise world from their > long-established stronghold in > the desktop world. J2EE, on the other hand, is > already widely used by almost > every Fortune 500 company to deliver just about > every mission-critical > application you can imagine. And we also know that > enterprises are using > J2EE on their Unix and Linux and mainframe > platforms, because they're > certainly not using .NET for that. In fact, I think > you have to wonder what > will become of .NET if Linux should someday become > ubiquitous. As you > suggest, history has shown that at the end of the > day, there tends to be > only one winner in the software standards wars. And > right now, while BT is > obviously a huge factor in the enterprise computing > space, it's my sense > that Linux is growing much more rapidly. And if that > continues to be the > case -- with J2EE being a natural partner to Linux > -- I'd have to think that > .NET is perhaps in a world of trouble. > > [Question/Answer 19] > > KM But what are you going to be most closely > identified with? It's obvious > to everyone that5 Microsoft promotes .NET and Sun > pushes Java. But what flag > is BEA waving? > AB We are the poster-child of J2EE. We're the > original J2EE application > server and we're still by far and away the best J2EE > application server. IBM > is waving the J2EE flag as well. But what sets us > apart is that we're > focusing on innovations required to make a easier. > There are roughly > speaking 10 million people today who write code and > probably less than a > million of them are really productive in J2EE right > now. We're changing that > by seeing to it that everyone who's a developer can > actually work with it. > > [There is more, but that's enough for now.] > > Dennis Laws > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Juglist mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://trijug.org/mailman/listinfo/juglist_trijug.org _______________________________________________ Juglist mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://trijug.org/mailman/listinfo/juglist_trijug.org
