Java > Scala

[Russel Winder]

On Sun, 2011-12-18 at 03:57 -0600, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
[...]
> It's quite amazing how many discussions a la "Java is successful 
> because..." completely neglect an essential point: one BILLION dollars 
> was poured into Java, a significant fraction of which was put in 
> branding, marketing, and PR.

Not all of it from Sun -- they didn't have pockets that deep.

> The sheer fact that many of us - even those who actually _lived_ through 
> the Java marketing bonanza - tend to forget about it echoes many studies 
> in marketing: people believe they are making rational and logical 
> choices and refuse to admit and understand they are influenced by 
> marketing, even when they fall prey to textbook marketing techniques.

Corollary:  You have to have new product on the shelves every 6 months
or people stop buying your product.  Just look in the supermarket
shelves for the use of "new".  The product may be the old product but
the packaging is different so it is "new".

> It's easy to forget now, but in the craze of late 1990s, Java was so 
> heavily and so successfully advertised, I remember there were managers 
> who were desperate to adopt Java, and were convinced it would be a 
> strategic disaster if they failed to do so. That weirdly applied even to 
> managers who knew nothing about programming - they were as confused as 
> people who lined up to buy a Windows 95 CD that they couldn't install 
> because they didn't have a computer. It was incredible - a manager would 
> tell me how vital Java adoption is, but had no idea what Java really 
> was. There were Java commercials on the TV! 
> (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHxtB8zr8UM)

I was in academia at the time so don't know what was happening in the
real world, but there certainly was a manic aspect to the Java snowball
-- and I use this metaphor advisedly, when you roll a snowball in snow
it gets bigger, but when the temperature rises snowballs melt away.

Publishers as well as academics were culpable in the mass mania.  A
revamp in the university curriculum meant new books and new sales, so
they pushed it as hard as possible.  Dietel, once a prominent operating
systems author, created a not so great programming languages publishing
empire out of it.

> Back then people were made to believe pretty much anything and 
> everything good about Java. Some believed Java was small and great for 
> limited-memory embedded systems. Some believed there's no real Internet 
> without Java. Some believed Java was awesomely fast. Most importantly, a 
> lot of people in decision positions believed jumping on the Java 
> bandwagon was an absolute necessity. And this gushing of social proof 
> became a self-fulfilling prophecy because with many people working on 
> Java an entire web of tools, libraries, and applications sprung to life, 
> creating offer and demand for more of the same.

And then there was JavaCard.  One of the biggest con jobs of all time.
Fundamentally a good idea, badly executed and managed because it became
a cash cow for Sun.  Now I suspect a blip in history.  Which is a shame
as smartcards are now powerful enough to run something along the
JavaCard lines that would really do something useful with smartcards. 

I see JavaME is being re-raised as useful technology. Great if I can run
courses, but it would be a bad move.  JavaSE Embedded is actually a
different kettle of fish.  Not useful everywhere, but in certain use
cases far better than using C or C++.  Or D except that there aren't
enough backend to D to make that viable. 

> Andy Warhol would have loved the stunt. Except jumpstarting this 
> gigantic engine wasn't free - it cost Sun one billion dollars. (It could 
> be speculated that ultimately this was part of the reason of Sun's 
> demise because other companies, not Sun, were able to capitalize on 
> Java.) Forgetting the role that that billion dollar played in the 
> success of Java would miss on probably the single most important reason, 
> and by far.

Whilst I can believe the $1bn overall, not all of it was Sun, and not
all of it was Java.  cf. the Self language episode.  I bet IBM were
happy.

> Right now I'm begging and cajoling Facebook and Microsoft for 5K-10K to 
> organize a conference on D in 2012. I'll say D is successful when many 
> companies would be honored to offer that level of sponsorship.

Musicians are coming up with new ways of funding things that is working
very well.  Pre-sales.  Put out the road-map and business plan for an
album or concert.  Take bookings and money before committing to
anything, then you have the cash float to make commitments.  Organizing
it from cash flow means no need for sponsors.  Except that once the show
realization is on the road you can inform the sponsors of what a
successful event this is going to be and how they are going to look bad
if they are not there.

PyCon UK (un)conferences tend to get organized on this model these days.

Obviously though it is all about having the contacts who can commit
budget.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at russel.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
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