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You're right, it was Slowlaris that killed Sun, and Java was meant to be a "Microsoft Killer", not a programming language. Sun was a dead man walking long befo

You're right, it was Slowlaris that killed Sun, and Java was meant to be a "Microsoft Killer", not a programming language. Sun was a dead man walking long before Java. And Scott McNealy's me-too obsession with Microsoft was extremely unhealthy, leading to him actually naming the division "SunSoft". Never define and even NAME yourself in terms of your enemy. Scott McNealy knew neither himself nor his enemy. “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” - Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War” Sun could never measure up to Microsoft, and McNealy was totally obsessed with fighting them, to the point that Java was not actually a programming language for solving developer's problems per se, but primarily a weapon in his personal vendetta against Microsoft, and Java developers were considered expendable mercenaries in that war, above all else. Everything they did with Java was measured by how much it would harm Microsoft, not help developers. Scott McNealy was pathetically and pathologically obsessed with being and beating Bill Gates and Windows, yet so unfit for the task, just as he has been more recently obsessed with licking Trump's boots, raising money for him and his failed coup attempt, and towing his anti-mask anti-vax anti-science line of bullshit. https://www.theregister.com/2019/09/17/mcnealy_trump_fundraiser/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/09/17/mcnealy_trump_fundrai... Michael Tiemann on "The Worst Job in the World": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tiemann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tiemann >Michael Tiemann is vice president of open source affairs at Red Hat, Inc., and former President of the Open Source Initiative. [...] He co-founded Cygnus Solutions in 1989. [...] Opensource.com profiled him in 2014, calling him one of "open source's great explainers." http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/slowlaris/worst-job.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/slowlaris/worst-... >Subject: The Worst Job in the World >From: Michael Tiemann <tiemann@cygnus.com> >I have a friend who has to have the worst job in the world: he is a Unix system administrator. But it's worse than that, as I will soon tell. [...]

muststopmyths 4y ago
Interesting tidbit: the windows x64 project was code named sundown. I think IBM buying redhat and aggressively pushing Linux was also a big factor in killing sun
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  IBM also named Eclipse to make fun of Sun. I know people at Sun who were quite chagrined about that at the time.
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  When IBM bought Red Hat, Sun was long dead and buried.
- jwildeboer 4y ago
  IBM bought Red Hat fairly recently, long after SUN was bought by Oracle.
  - muststopmyths 4y ago
    My bad, maybe they were investing in it and pushing to their customers? I recall some ibm connection
    - lizknope 4y ago
      https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/ibm-to-spend-1-billion-on-linux-in-2001/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/ibm-to-spend-1-billi... IBM to spend $1 billion on Linux in 2001 This long before IBM bought Red Hat in 2019
    - guenthert 4y ago
      According to [1] IBM declared support for Linux in 2000 [I thought it was around '97], that was a signal for many that Linux was good enough for business. [1] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/linux/ https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/linux/
jacquesm 4y ago
Good morning, Don. Between you and Chuck you could probably write a fairly authoritative history of that era. I'd definitely pay to read it.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Oh Chuck could probably tell you a lot more than I. I bailed after they surrendered in the Window System Wars! ;) https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-story-of-sun-microsystems-pizzatool-2a7992b4c797 https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-story-of-sun-microsystems-... >The Story of Sun Microsystems PizzaTool: How I accidentally ordered my first pizza over the internet. My housemate scanned and posted to twitter some of the beautiful dreamy surrealistic photo spreads from some old 80's era Sun 4 brochures that I saved. Primo hacker fapping material of the time. The runway shot is my favorite! https://twitter.com/miuott/status/1238181870816366592 https://twitter.com/miuott/status/1238181870816366592 He uploaded the whole Sun 4/200 series brochure to the Internet Archive for your self indulgent pleasures: https://archive.org/details/sun4200seriesbrochure https://archive.org/details/sun4200seriesbrochure Notes from watching the video: 1:10 -- Stanfurd! ;) 3:20 -- Bill Joy: "He also conceptualized an internet-friendly language called JavaScript." WTF?!? Bill Joy didn't invent JavaScript. He was involved with Java, which James Gosling invented, but the language Bill Joy conceptualized in 1991 he called "C++++-=". https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-million-instructions-per-second-3a8c92165cfe https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-mill... >Bill Joy’s Law: 2^(Year-1984) Million Instructions per Second: The peak computer speed doubles each year and thus is given by a simple function of time. Specifically, S = 2^(Year-1984), in which S is the peak computer speed attained during each year, expressed in MIPS. -Wikipedia, Joy’s law (computing) [...] >C++++-= >“C++++-= is the new language that is a little more than C++ and a lot less.” -Bill Joy >In this talk from 1991, Bill Joy predicts a new hypothetical language that he calls “C++++-=”, which adds some things to C++, and takes away some other things.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  i'd definitely pay for a book about sun too... it seems like the one company that in s.v that never got one.
gonzo 4y ago
Michael Tiemann once worked in Sun’s compiler group.
- jwildeboer 4y ago
  And his manager at SUN was Eric Schmidt. Yes. Who later become Google's CEO. It's all a small family ;)
linksnapzz 4y ago
[flagged]
fexecve 4y ago
A selection of the best Scott McNealy quotes: "When Steve Ballmer calls me wacko, I consider that a compliment." "The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it." "Shut down some of the bullshit the government is spending money on and use it to buy all the Microsoft stock. Then put all their intellectual property in the public domain. Free Windows for everyone! Then we could just bronze Gates, turn him into a statue and stick him in front of the Commerce Department." "Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous system... I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their technology too." "It's the good guys versus the bad guys, and the good guys are winning." "W2K (Windows 2000) will be a bigger disaster than Y2K." "A giant hairball." [About Windows NT] "The Evil Empire." [guess who] "The beast from Redmond." [yup] "Anyone heard any good monopolist jokes lately?" "Ballmer and Butthead" [Ballmer and you-know-who] ".Not, .Not Yet and .Nut" [Microsoft's .Net strategy] (From: https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184145&cid=15205562 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184145&cid=15205562 )

muststopmyths 4y ago

Interesting tidbit: the windows x64 project was code named sundown. I think IBM buying redhat and aggressively pushing Linux was also a big factor in killing sun

DonHopkins 4y ago
IBM also named Eclipse to make fun of Sun. I know people at Sun who were quite chagrined about that at the time.
pantalaimon 4y ago
When IBM bought Red Hat, Sun was long dead and buried.
jwildeboer 4y ago
IBM bought Red Hat fairly recently, long after SUN was bought by Oracle.
- muststopmyths 4y ago
  My bad, maybe they were investing in it and pushing to their customers? I recall some ibm connection
  - lizknope 4y ago
    https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/ibm-to-spend-1-billion-on-linux-in-2001/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/ibm-to-spend-1-billi... IBM to spend $1 billion on Linux in 2001 This long before IBM bought Red Hat in 2019
  - guenthert 4y ago
    According to [1] IBM declared support for Linux in 2000 [I thought it was around '97], that was a signal for many that Linux was good enough for business. [1] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/linux/ https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/linux/

jacquesm 4y ago

Good morning, Don. Between you and Chuck you could probably write a fairly authoritative history of that era. I'd definitely pay to read it.

DonHopkins 4y ago
Oh Chuck could probably tell you a lot more than I. I bailed after they surrendered in the Window System Wars! ;) https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-story-of-sun-microsystems-pizzatool-2a7992b4c797 https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-story-of-sun-microsystems-... >The Story of Sun Microsystems PizzaTool: How I accidentally ordered my first pizza over the internet. My housemate scanned and posted to twitter some of the beautiful dreamy surrealistic photo spreads from some old 80's era Sun 4 brochures that I saved. Primo hacker fapping material of the time. The runway shot is my favorite! https://twitter.com/miuott/status/1238181870816366592 https://twitter.com/miuott/status/1238181870816366592 He uploaded the whole Sun 4/200 series brochure to the Internet Archive for your self indulgent pleasures: https://archive.org/details/sun4200seriesbrochure https://archive.org/details/sun4200seriesbrochure Notes from watching the video: 1:10 -- Stanfurd! ;) 3:20 -- Bill Joy: "He also conceptualized an internet-friendly language called JavaScript." WTF?!? Bill Joy didn't invent JavaScript. He was involved with Java, which James Gosling invented, but the language Bill Joy conceptualized in 1991 he called "C++++-=". https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-million-instructions-per-second-3a8c92165cfe https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-mill... >Bill Joy’s Law: 2^(Year-1984) Million Instructions per Second: The peak computer speed doubles each year and thus is given by a simple function of time. Specifically, S = 2^(Year-1984), in which S is the peak computer speed attained during each year, expressed in MIPS. -Wikipedia, Joy’s law (computing) [...] >C++++-= >“C++++-= is the new language that is a little more than C++ and a lot less.” -Bill Joy >In this talk from 1991, Bill Joy predicts a new hypothetical language that he calls “C++++-=”, which adds some things to C++, and takes away some other things.
andrekandre 4y ago
i'd definitely pay for a book about sun too... it seems like the one company that in s.v that never got one.

gonzo 4y ago

Michael Tiemann once worked in Sun’s compiler group.

jwildeboer 4y ago
And his manager at SUN was Eric Schmidt. Yes. Who later become Google's CEO. It's all a small family ;)

linksnapzz 4y ago

[flagged]

fexecve 4y ago

A selection of the best Scott McNealy quotes: "When Steve Ballmer calls me wacko, I consider that a compliment." "The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it." "Shut down some of the bullshit the government is spending money on and use it to buy all the Microsoft stock. Then put all their intellectual property in the public domain. Free Windows for everyone! Then we could just bronze Gates, turn him into a statue and stick him in front of the Commerce Department." "Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous system... I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their technology too." "It's the good guys versus the bad guys, and the good guys are winning." "W2K (Windows 2000) will be a bigger disaster than Y2K." "A giant hairball." [About Windows NT] "The Evil Empire." [guess who] "The beast from Redmond." [yup] "Anyone heard any good monopolist jokes lately?" "Ballmer and Butthead" [Ballmer and you-know-who] ".Not, .Not Yet and .Nut" [Microsoft's .Net strategy] (From: https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184145&cid=15205562 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184145&cid=15205562 )