[1202] in java-interest
Re: the Future of Java
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Glen C. Perkins)
Fri Aug 25 19:41:55 1995
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 12:04 WET DST
To: java-interest@java.sun.com
From: Glen.Perkins@NativeGuide.com (Glen C. Perkins)
Jim Carroll says...
>Rumour has it that on 21 Aug 95 at 18:09, Glen C. Perkins said:
>
>> instead of just documenting them. Get a few people started on Java books
>> for all different levels. Run your classes non-stop.
>
>Anybody from O'Reilly & Associates paying attention? ;)
>
("Rumour has it" indeed! I posted on Monday and just now, Friday, saw my
post for the first time. Let's get a comp.lang.java going. The new RFD is
in the group "news.groups".)
Thanks, by the way, to all for the incredible explosion of personal mail I
received. I was overwhelmed by the positive reaction. There was too much
mail for me to reply individually, so please accept a group thanks. Thanks
also for not reading my post as criticism. The real people behind Java are
doing such good work that I'd just like to see them better supported
internally at Sun, and externally by us in any way we can think of, and I
wouldn't mind a discussion of ways we can be of service. It's in our best
interest to see Sun succeed wildly with Java.
About the books: I've now spoken to two authors working on Java books, and
both of them are pretty unhappy about how Sun is treating them. One is a
bestselling author doing a Java book for a series that sells more than most
O'Reilly books. (I really like O'Reilly books, but "popular" books are
important, too.) Both authors have previously done books on products coming
from major manufacturers and said that the other manufacturers were
delighted at the free publicity and gave them all kinds of help including
lots of NDA (non-disclosure agreement) presentations and software
(necessary because of the long lead times of books.) Both authors
independently told me that Sun acts as though they wish they would just go
away and stop bothering them.
This may not be true at all--I'm only reporting their claims, not what
actually happened--but if there is any truth to it at all, I hope that Sun
will remember that adding Java books with familiar-looking cover designs
(as part of a popular series of titles) to the shelves of bookstores around
the world is better advertising than anything they could pay for. Having
half a dozen books with "Java" in big letters on the cover hit the shelves
within a few weeks of each other will tell a LOT of people that Java is the
"Latest Thing" that "everybody is doing" and that, therefore, if they don't
want to be left behind, they'd better get started learning Java.
It doesn't matter if most of them will later move on to the next "Latest
Thing," because if the initial Java "wave" is big enough, the number of
people sucked in by the wave who stay after the wave passes will reach the
critical mass necessary for continued growth. There will be a "market" and
a lot of companies will try to produce products (class libraries, devp
tools, college courses, etc.) to sell to that market. These products will
enrich Java and bring in even more serious people and we might get the kind
of runaway growth needed to topple C++.
The question shouldn't have to be "Anybody from O'Reilly & Associates
paying attention?" It should be, "Sun, what are you doing to persuade
O'Reilly to do a Java book?" It may already be happening in a major way
behind closed doors, but Sun needs to treat these authors and publishers
like royalty--to use them to help make the biggest splash possible. You
know Microsoft would (will!)
__Glen__
Glen.Perkins@NativeGuide.com
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