Rebirth of the Tech Madman

...

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 it will spontaneously form a group.

Perhaps it's more convenient to put them all on one plate! Tang Huan muttered to himself, then turned his gaze to the following interview with a character.

The report enthusiastically introduced Mark Anderson, the executive vice president of Netscape, and described him as a prodigy who, relying on his own efforts, struggled from a country boy to an Internet waver.

After Tang Huan quickly browsed, he put the magazine aside.

Judging from his experience, this is Netscape's IPO promotion, 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 himself. 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\u0026T, 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\u0026T as an example again. After it spun off Lucent, which operates communication equipment, it carried out a second spin-off, splitting into four places into long-distance telephone, mobile phone, cable TV and The four broadband communication companies turned out to be a hundred-year-old company and came to an end. The long-distance phone business and the AT\u0026T brand were finally reduced to the dishes of Southwest Bell, which was dismantled by the Ministry 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 the rapport with Wall Street, it is impossible for me to sit in the position of the richest man for so many years.

But if something like AT\u0026T really happened, how should I choose?

...

After Tang Huan returned to Silicon Valley, he was planning to visit the headquarters of Hewlett-Packard, 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 interacted frequently, probably to discuss java technology. Charles Simeone speculated: In addition, companies such as ibm, HP, dec, apple, oracle, and Microsoft have also Evaluate and consult 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, the triggering herding effect.

Charles Simeone nodded again and again,

Isn't it? The functions that java technology can achieve have corresponding functions on our platform, but they are as deceptive as rumors, and they make the development community restless.

Tang Huan pondered: IBM, HP and other big companies are interested in java technology. The main starting point is nothing more than cross-platform. It must be admitted that we have restrained ourselves on this point.

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 improved the features that are too expensive, such as pointers, operator overloading, and multiple inheritance, and added mechanisms such as automatic memory allocation and recovery, and finally formed a brand-new programming called oak. Language, and built a demonstration platform including an operating system called green, oak programming language, runtime and other elements.

In the beginning, the hardware system targeted by oak was a handheld computer. After all, everyone has no objection to the prospect of this type of product. It is nothing more than that the development level of semiconductors is temporarily unable to provide components with a small enough size.

Take Fangyuan Company as an example. Sun Microsystems transferred the Oak team into a subsidiary named firstperson to operate.

It's a pity that not everyone can burn money without changing their faces to get through the dark stage before the market prospect is bright; especially after losing the bid for the set-top box technical solution of the cable TV industry, firstperson was revoked and the team merged back to Sun For Microsystems, Oak's R\u0026D 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 Zheru browser, Sun Microsystems thought of Oak, which had been left out 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 in an all-round way.

It has to be said that Silicon Valley has never been short of geniuses—Tang IT has benefited a lot from the concept of hype, and others will naturally follow suit.

Now, java just stepped on the drumbeat 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 resist the perfect combination of Polestar and Pascalscript.

In addition, java originally designed for embedded systems, in order to be independent of the hardware platform, the implementation method adopted is: at the software level, a virtual machine containing a common subset of general functions is defined, and the program code runs in this environment. Then the virtual machine is transplanted to different embedded systems with various hardware architectures—up to now, java’s “write once, run everywhere” gimmick meets the needs of the Internet with different underlying systems at the right time.

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 big 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 provided by java to the browser is a solution for the execution of logic code called applet on the local computer, similar to dll - dynamic link library, without the entry point of 'main()', but 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 there is no way for us to stop it. We can't 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 know it well, 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 the differences of hardware platforms.

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 talk 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 during operation, and its efficiency is obviously lower than that of c, c++, and pascal programs that have compiled binary codes in advance; and java is not only an intermediate language, but also uses the virtual machine execution environment, the program 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 users, we should start with developers and technology.

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

If you want to quickly get rid of the arrogance of Java's newborn calf, you have to add a head-on attack on the application side. Tang Huan, who was gratified, pointed out: This Spring Developers Conference for Zheru is not about focusing on the key points. Introduce the technology that supports vector graphics on the browser—well, let’s further emphasize that in terms of interacting with users, it is enough to make java_applet unnecessary.”

Yes! Charles Simeone clapped his hands and said, Doesn't java want to be the all-around champion, so let's pinch it together with Pascalscript.

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 let the c# in the laboratory be released.

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 said 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.