Fun_People Archive
2 Apr
Compare & contrast: Java & JavaScript

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 96 13:10:47 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Compare & contrast: Java & JavaScript

From: Matthew Teel <matthew@beluga.com>

I'm sorry I missed the original post of this question and subsequent
summary, but I think this might clarify the question:

>Could a kind soul explain to me what is the difference between Java and
>JavaScript???

Java: A very crude programming language developed by Sun Microsystems,
very much in its infancy, for which development tools available are such
that only a masochistic Unix-head hardened from years of using incredibly
deficient tools would use (enjoy?).  It is a platform independent
compiled byte-code language that uses a native interpreter previously known
as Pseudo-Code (and now the savior of the Internet) that produces very
poor performance and that prior to the Java revolution has always been a
cause for ridicule and disdain.  It is driven by an incredible hate and
fear of Microsoft and marketing hype of which the computer industry has
never known, transcending even that of the Redmond giant.

Javascript: Developed by Netscape Corp. to provide some kind of functionality
to an otherwise brain dead software program known as a browser. Developed
under another name (who remembers, who cares?) and renamed to ride the crest
of the Java wave, it resembles every scripting language known to man, dumped
into a can, shaken up and then dumped out onto the table. Great for making
annoying little "scripts" that scroll very jerky strings of text in the
browser's status bar so users can squint and try and read what it says.

Summary: Together these technologies will usher in a new age in which the
Web will no longer be the domain of mean-lean browsers that fit on a floppy
disk and transfer highly compressible ascii code at very high speeds but will
belong to bloated, monolithic browsers of 6MB or more that resemble a cross
between a dump terminal and Windows 3.X and clog the arteries of the
Internet with cutsie little applets and animations that look like their
running on my old Gateway 2000 386SX-16 with a whopping 2MB of RAM.

I can hardly wait.

-Matthew

© 1996 Peter Langston