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You have to appreciate bombastic statements like this for forcing you to confront your assumptions. "Everything in Java? Even a kernel? That's absurd." you thin

You have to appreciate bombastic statements like this for forcing you to confront your assumptions. "Everything in Java? Even a kernel? That's absurd." you think, and then wonder what makes it absurd, and realize that it could perhaps be done with some modifications, and remember Singularity, etc. But on the other hand, this is well trod ground. Everything WAS going to be Java. Remember picoJava, the bytecode-native processor? Remember Cocoa Java, for OS X desktop apps? Remember HotJava, the pure Java web browser? These things were tried, and they failed. Performance issues, especially around startup and memory usage. The weightiness of the JVM, what Jobs called a "big ball and chain." The weird foreignness of Swing apps. The generalized misery of applets. Etc. So honest question: what's different this time?

teacup50 12y ago
> So honest question: what's different this time? We've rediscovered ahead-of-time compilation.
davelnewton 12y ago
You forgot JavaOS.
marktangotango 12y ago
Great perspective! I don't think 're-implement the world in java' was the point of the blog post. I do follow you're line of thought however. Vala is a Java like language (in the same way C# has a subset that is Java like) that is AOT compiled by translating to C. Interestingly, it has a few departures that make it very un Java like. For example, Vala uses reference counting for memory management and provides a 'weak' keyword, passing reference cycle management off to the programmer. And voila, no gc (edit: or rather no centuries level of effort garbage collector implementation, with associated performance indeterminism). Another departure is no dynamic class loading. Point: I use Vala as a proof by example there's a language out there that's statically typed, highly productive, GC'd, and AOT friendly, for which some formulation of "X Everywhere" is not far fetched.

teacup50 12y ago

> So honest question: what's different this time? We've rediscovered ahead-of-time compilation.

davelnewton 12y ago

You forgot JavaOS.

marktangotango 12y ago

Great perspective! I don't think 're-implement the world in java' was the point of the blog post. I do follow you're line of thought however. Vala is a Java like language (in the same way C# has a subset that is Java like) that is AOT compiled by translating to C. Interestingly, it has a few departures that make it very un Java like. For example, Vala uses reference counting for memory management and provides a 'weak' keyword, passing reference cycle management off to the programmer. And voila, no gc (edit: or rather no centuries level of effort garbage collector implementation, with associated performance indeterminism). Another departure is no dynamic class loading. Point: I use Vala as a proof by example there's a language out there that's statically typed, highly productive, GC'd, and AOT friendly, for which some formulation of "X Everywhere" is not far fetched.