Re: Trend towards platform specific languages

["James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Shannon O'Donnell" <sodonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
. . .
> I have to ask....WHY?!? Is it so critical that every 
> application be platform agnostic?
. . .

Because before Sun introduced Java, Bill Gates and 
Microsloth were very close to world domination with 
WinDoze (and with various dirty tricks campaigns connected 
therewith), in spite of the fact that it's irredeemably 
wasteful of resources.

If it hadn't been for Java, Microsloth would have had the 
market leverage to grind MacOS, Linux, Unix, and OS/400 
into the dust. All of those platforms would probably be as 
close to extinction as Digital Research's GEM graphical 
user interface (which is practically unheard-of today, 
even though it runs circles around WinDoze in terms of 
efficiency; I know, because as a Xerox Ventura Publsher 
die-hard, I still use a runtime version of GEM with some 
regularity).

The problem is not the use of platform-independent 
languages. If you believed that, you wouldn't be involved 
with the AS/400, because the AS/400 is itself a virtual 
machine that has been implemented on at least two 
radically different hardware platforms. The problem is in 
the use of technologies inappropriate to the problem at 
hand. Consider spreadsheets, databases, and word 
processing: there's no reason in the world why you need a 
true GUI for any of these applications. A hardware text 
screen is fine for such things, so long as attributes and 
cursor addressing are supported, and will do the job much 
more efficently. Yet are there any commercial desktop 
applications still written for a hardware text screen?

Most performance problems that are language-related can be 
traced to the use of the wrong language for the job, 
period. And that has nothing to do with whether the 
language is platform-independent or platform-specific.

--
JHHL