"Charlie Gibbs"  wrote

| > Java was being phased out.
|
| That's because M$ tried to add proprietary extensions
| to it - in violation of their licensing agreement with
| Sun - and they got caught at it.
|

  I don't understand why so many people want to cast
Microsoft as the only villain. Yes, MS tried to come up
with their own version of Java. But that's not why Java
was phased out. It was phased out because it was
bloated and unsafe and didn't belong in webpages. Just
like ActiveX. And because it really wasn't cross-platform.
And because... since when are there multiple platforms?
Back then over 90% of people were on Windows. The
Mac people were mostly artists.

  As Nikolaj pointed out, MS then came up with .Net.
I once asked a project manager friend why .Net was so
successful. Her response was one word: tools. MS have
always been very good with both tools and docs. They
make things people can use.

  As it turned out, .Net was also idiotic online, as was
Silverlight. Both systems are also failures for desktop
software. So they've failed in those uses. Instead they're
used on server backends.

  Actually, .Net was another case where Microsoft were
too much ahead of their time. They came out with it in
2000 as a web services system:

http://web.archive.org/web/20101112114102/http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/pr
ess/2000/jul00/pdcdeliverspr.mspx

  The trouble was, no one had heard of web services and
they served no purpose on desktops with 56k modems.
Gates was talking about getting sports scores, Wall St
updates, or making dental appts. It was ridiculous. He
wanted Windows everywhere but he wasn't making sense.

  So MS aimed at desktop software. They told everyone
the days of native code were over and that everyone should
use their new, safer, easier system. But it was like Java
in being bloated molasses. No purpose on desktops. So
it joined Java in corporate usage. Meanwhile, MS have slowly
been closing off access because they got the idea from Lord
Jobs that they could screw over both developers and
customers by locking down the system and charging rental
fees. Why sell cars when you can rent taxis? Even better, you
can extort the taxi drivers for 30%.

  They tried the Longhorn mess in 2005. Windows on top
of a superfluous .Net wrapper. By their own description it
was too bloated for existing hardware. So they had to give
that up. Instead they focused on using security and stability
as excuses to lock both customers and developers out of
the system.

  Microsoft's latest scam is Metro, AKA RT. Trinket apps.
You can write them in .Net, for what it's worth. But they're
actually little more than HTAs from what I can tell. Because
you can also write them with javascript. And most access
to the system is cut off. And once again, MS has come up
with a brilliant idea for vacuuming wallets but neglected to
consider that people would need a reason to buy in. There
isn't even a device for Metro apps. They don't have a phone.
Tablets? Maybe. Anyone dumb enough to overpay for an RT
Surface could be a potential customer. But a tablet really
isn't good for very much in the way of apps where a phone
wouldn't be better.

  Long story short, I don't see how you can blame Java's
failure on MS. It turned out to not really be cross-platform
and it's bloated. And it's had security problems. And who
wants to use that gigantic object model? Cross platform
safety was a good idea. It just didn't work.

| > If you get attacked online it will almost certainly be
| > because you enabled script and/or enabled remote access
| > functions so you could call your thermostat to tell it
| > you're on your way home.
|
| Remember those science fiction stories where you could do
| stuff like that?  Back then it worked because it was assumed
| that smart houses would be independent entities (with suitable
| access controls), rather than slaves of the Cloud.
|

  It's my impression that people are doing it. People
get calls from their surveillance cameras to say someone
has broken into their house, for instance. Soon, the more
feebleminded will probably be calling their frig to see if
they need milk. And they'll be bragging about it.

  There was an interesting story some years ago about
2 men who were rich, flying a private plane to a hunting
cabin one of them owned. The owner used his iPhone
to call his thermostat, so the cabin would be warm when
they arrived. It turned out that a squirrel had built a nest
in the furnace exhaust pipe and there were no working
CO alarms. When the two men arrived they were dead
before they had time to notice something was wrong.

  I've also seen stories about hacked e-front door locks.
People are eating up the IoT, no matter how dumb. I
suppose it is all cloud-linked, but isn't that really a
privacy issue rather than a functionality issue?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05