Æliens

see Ted Lewis, IEEE Computer, March 1997, p. 136

The dream: UNCOL

• Java is pervasive
• remember, most of Java is just warmed-up C/C++

UNCOL = Universal Common Language

• (1963) Algol -> PL/I -> Pascal -> Ada -> C++ -> ...
• Java as UNCOL: the dial-tone of the Internet

if todays languages are inadequate for Software then Java must be inadequate too ...

Hostages of legacy code

• our responsibility is that future applications (built with Java) are well-behaved legacy systems
• US DOD: $30\; billion\; in\; year\; 2000\; problem$
• maintaining legacy COBOL from the 70's is a major industry ...
• by 2010, Java will be the maintenance tail wagging the software dog!

Is Java doomed to repeat history?

• elegant minimalism is one of the goals of Java,
  remember Pascal, a toy language!
• Java lacks IO, OS support ...

Problems

• syntax: int i = ++i--;
• unruly scope rules: C++ plus f i n a l, n a t i v e, s y n c h r o n i z e d, ...
• threads: potential deadlocks

Java: a better mousetrap?

• requirements: no support (assert)
• defacts: syntax, non-standard APIs
• components: Beans ActiveX, CORBA, OpenDoc
• cycle time: Java does little to accommodate Internet time, like script languages do
• complexity: Java does not advance the intellectual frontier!