Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 867 The Alliance of Java and Netscape
……

It must be admitted that the hardware system NC and the software platform Netscape browser looked at each other and deviated from the script in Tang Huan's memory, but he was not too surprised.

It can only be said that Tang IT is too powerful, driving some competitors into the same corner invisibly, and of course they will spontaneously form a group.

"Perhaps it would be more convenient to put them all on one plate!" Tang Huan muttered to himself, then turned his attention to the following interview.

This report enthusiastically introduced Marc Andreessen, the executive vice president of Netscape, and described him as a "prodigy" who relied on his own efforts to rise from a country boy to an Internet trendsetter.

After Tang Huan finished browsing quickly, he put the magazine aside.

Judging from his experience, this is Netscape's IPO campaign, and there is no need to waste time taking it seriously.

Although the fierce competition in the industry reflected by the report of "PC_World" is very important, it is not enough for Tang Huan to immediately deploy countermeasures in person. After all, he has a large number of executives working under him.

Therefore, Tang Huan reconsidered the possible "pig-killing" actions Wall Street might take against Silicon Valley under the bull market.

In the final analysis, when Wall Street insists on taking away immediate interests, it will conflict with those who seek long-term management.

Take Fangyuan Company as an example. The performance of the handheld computer has not been satisfactory, but Tang Huan and John Chambers have been patiently nurturing; It is very likely that it will be cut off immediately for the sake of good-looking financial statements.

Besides, AT&T, which is being targeted by Wall Street, can get money immediately if it really spins off the communication equipment, but both of them also lose the irreplaceable long-term operating advantages of resource integration.

In the original time and space, Wall Street in this period was greedy for profit to make money through spin-offs, hype, packaging, and listing, rather than helping companies do their business well.

Take AT&T again as an example. After it spun off Lucent, which dealt in communications equipment, it conducted a second spin-off, splitting it into four parts: long-distance phone, mobile phone, cable TV and The four broadband communications companies, which turned out to be century-old companies, came to an end. The long-distance phone business and the AT&T brand were finally reduced to the food of Southwestern Bell, which was dismantled by the Department of Justice.

If this routine is applied to Fangyuan Company, which is also among the top ten in terms of market capitalization, it is completely predictable that the ending will be similar!
Without his harmonious relationship with Wall Street, he would not have been able to sit as the richest man for so many years.

But if something like AT&T really happened, how should I choose?
……

After Tang Huan returned to Silicon Valley, he was planning to visit Hewlett-Packard headquarters, but he got another industry news——Sun Microsystems announced that it officially launched Java technology; almost at the same time, Netscape announced that its own browser product , will support Java technology.

Look at this posture, another alliance is formed.

In all fairness, Tang Huan doesn't look down on Java at this stage at all, but he still can't resist the trend of concept hype in the Internet age, and the aggressive trend spawned by it - the richest man is also afraid of the possible panic!

"Recently, Sun Microsystems and Netscape have had frequent interactions, probably to discuss Java technology." Charles Simonyi speculated: "In addition, IBM, HP, DEC, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft and other companies have also Carry out assessment and consultation on it.”

Tang Huan did not answer the impatient Charles Simeone right away, but quickly browsed the documents brought by the other party, and finally said slowly: "In terms of functions, Java technology is not a big deal, the key is the concept, which triggers herding effect."

Charles Simeone nodded again and again, "Isn't that right? The functions that Java technology can achieve have corresponding functions on our platform, but they are as deceptive as rumors and disturb the development community."

Tang Huan pondered: "Big companies such as IBM and HP are interested in Java technology. The main starting point is cross-platform. We must admit that at this point, we have constrained ourselves."

The impetus for the birth of Java stemmed from Sun Microsystems' optimistic about the prospects of smart home appliances such as set-top boxes, telephones, alarm clocks, and multi-function ovens, and then wanted to build a general-purpose software platform that ignored hardware differences.

The biggest limitation of this type of embedded system is that the hardware resources are extremely limited, which makes it impossible to directly copy the existing achievements on traditional computer systems.

For example, the allocation and release of memory resources that are essential for program operation can be so troublesome that the programmer vomits three liters of blood.

Therefore, on the basis of C++, Sun Microsystems has transformed pointers, operator overloading, multiple inheritance, and other features that are too expensive, and added mechanisms such as automatic memory allocation and recovery, and finally formed a new programming called "Oak". Language, and built a demonstration platform including an operating system called "Green", Oak programming language, runtime library and other elements.

In the beginning, Oak's hardware system was a handheld computer. After all, everyone had no objection to the prospect of this type of product. It was nothing more than that the development level of semiconductors could not provide components with a small enough size for the time being.

Take the diligent Fangyuan Company as an example. Sun Microsystems transformed the Oak team into a subsidiary called "FirstPerson" to operate.

It's a pity that not everyone can burn money without changing their faces to survive the dark stage before the market prospect is bright; especially after losing the bid for the set-top box technology solution in the cable TV industry, FirstPerson was withdrawn and the team merged back to Sun For microsystems companies, Oak's R&D achievements were temporarily put on hold.

Until last year, there were no uncertainties in the prospect of Internet development. Seeing the impressive dynamic effects shown by Polestar, the philosophical browser, Sun Microsystems thought of Oak, which had been on the air for a year, and put it It was taken out, repackaged as "Java", and launched with the concept of "Internet programming language", trying to replace Zheru's PascalScript, and even specially wrote a small World Wide Web browser HotJava to demonstrate it in an all-round way.

It has to be said that there is no shortage of geniuses in Silicon Valley—Tang’s concept of IT hype has benefited a lot, and others will naturally follow suit.

Now, Java just stepped on the drum of the times.

Take Netscape as an example. Netscape Navigator, which is challenging the philosophical browser Polestar, urgently needs a ready-made programming language to run on its own browser platform to counter the perfect combination of Polestar and PascalScript.

In addition, Java, which was originally designed for embedded systems, adopts an implementation method in order to be independent of hardware platforms: at the software level, a virtual machine containing a common subset of general functions is defined, and the program code is allowed to run in this environment. Then the virtual machine was transplanted to different embedded systems with various hardware architectures - now, Java's "write once, run anywhere" gimmick meets the needs of the Internet with the same underlying systems and different underlying systems.

On the other hand, Zheru Software Company is obviously more conservative.

Undoubtedly, this is not due to lack of technical research and development capabilities, but a problem that the ass decides the head - it is impossible for Zheru Software Company to abandon the Fangyuan computer platform and Zheru operating system environment that have been honing in for many years, and embrace others instead.

"In any case, this Java alliance cannot be allowed to appear." Charles Simeone said through gritted teeth: "Java is not only trying to shake the cornerstone of Zheru Software's product line, but may also threaten Zheru's entire technical layout."

"The technology that Java provides to the browser is a solution for the execution of a logic code called Applet on the local computer, similar to a DLL - a dynamic link library. There is no 'main()' entry point, but it is called by the browser. "

"Once the application of this model is successful, Java, which has expanded its influence, will really 'run everywhere'."

"They insist on establishing the Java League, and we have no way to stop it. We can't just hit the door with a stick." Tang Huan said leisurely: "In terms of weakening its influence, we can take some targeted measures."

Speaking of this, Tang Huan smiled and asked his old subordinates who have followed him for many years, "You regard Java as a serious problem, so you must have a deep understanding of it and find out the shortcomings that are most likely to be criticized?"

Charles Simeone nodded, "I believe that for a long time to come, there will be at least two places in Java that will cause serious troubles to ordinary users, and even cause resentment."

"First of all, no matter how much Sun Microsystems brags that Java is a pioneering Internet programming language, it cannot change the essence of it is actually a high-level programming language."

"Since Java is still a high-level programming language, it cannot get rid of the support of an executable environment such as a function library, especially a virtual machine that isolates hardware platform differences."

"In this case, if users want to use Java programs, they will inevitably need a separate distribution package with a large size, and we all directly integrate our own programming languages ​​such as C, C++, Pascal, and PascalScript in the operating system. Run the library."

"Imagine, a new user opens a browser and only runs a Java_Applet with a size of a few KB, but may have to wait for a long download step, or a rummaging installation process, how will he feel?"

Seeing the boss nodding with a smile, Charles Simeone continued to speak enthusiastically: "Secondly, we have to talk about the poor performance of Java in terms of operating efficiency, which cannot be resolved in a short time. "

"Our PascalScript is executed by interpreting on the fly, and its efficiency is obviously lower than that of C, C++, and Pascal, which have pre-compiled binary codes; while Java is not only an intermediate language, but also uses a virtual machine execution environment. Once the amount of code increases, the running speed will definitely decrease significantly.”

"I think that by grasping these two points first and criticizing it severely, ordinary users who are greedy for novelty should be temporarily discouraged because they are worried about the trouble of using it."

"Of course, in addition to the user aspect, we should start from the developer and technical aspects."

"Java came from the transformation of C++, and some advanced programming features still need to be improved step by step to dispel the concerns of programmers."

"If you want to quickly get rid of Java's arrogance that newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, you have to add a head-on attack on the application side." Tang Huan, who was gratified, pointed out: "This Zheru Spring Developers Conference is not about the key points. Introduce the technology that supports vector graphics on the browser——Flash, then let’s further emphasize specifically that Flash’s interaction with users is enough to make Java_Applet unnecessary.”

"Yes!" Charles Simeone clapped his hands: "Doesn't Java want to be the all-around champion, then let Flash and PascalScript pinch it together."

Then, the high-spirited Charles Simeone tentatively suggested: "Java's automatic memory allocation and recycling, references instead of pointers, interfaces to achieve multiple inheritance and other mechanisms have attracted the popularity of programmers, which shows that the current industry There is indeed a voice calling for a new high-level programming language to appear, why not release C# from the laboratory."

"Alright." Tang Huan agreed without thinking too much, "Call Anders Helsberg over, and let's discuss it together."

……

After Anders Hailsberg arrived at the scene, he first announced a message angrily, "Teacher, Charles, I was in the online developer community just now, and I saw people sending emails around to attract people to participate in Netscape and Oracle, What kind of technology discussion conference is jointly organized by Sun Microsystems, and the time is just the first day of our Philosophy Spring Developers Conference."

Charles Simeone became angry when he heard that, "These guys are really unscrupulous. They clearly want to make trouble and intercept our flow of people."

Tang Huan didn't fly into a rage, but tapped his fingers on the table lightly, and said with a playful smile, "Interesting—he's barefoot and not afraid to wear shoes. If you go into battle lightly, you can plan a lot of tricks."

(End of this chapter)