[427] in java-interest
Re: Java vs Telescript, Python
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin Purcell)
Wed Jun 21 15:41:06 1995
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 12:10:46 -0700
To: Henri.Brouchoud@lannion.cnet.fr
From: kevinpu@attachmate.com (Kevin Purcell)
Cc: java-interest@java.sun.com
>- - Telescript is very Network oriented and seems to offer much more than Java
> in terms of code migration, and distributed programming. Moreover it
> provides frameworks for mail programming, application publishing ...
> It is presented as THE language for Electronic Market.
The problem with Telescript is information. Apart from the 3 white papers
(send email to devadd@genmagic.com) that are useful from a scenario/concept
point of view you can't get any other information from General Magic about
TeleScript unless you are one of their big developers. There is no other
info (I asked!).
Telescript is an interesting idea but unless they open it up (or have
massive market acceptance and try to keep it closed -- like the early
PostScript) it will go nowhere. Currently there are no textbooks, no
detailed papers, even the white papers are not on the net (though their
developer people say they are moving to get them on the net).
Although object migration has been mentioned in reference to Java on this
list I have not seen anyone comment on how to do it.
In Telescript they have a "migrate" instruction so the code (in
mid-execution of script) can move itself and its full context to another
location and pick up at the next instruction.
To be able to do this in Java seems to imply that you need a migrate
instruction in the Java virtual machine. Is this assumption correct or can
you provide this sort of support in a class library (it would seem to
complicate the stack state to do it this way?).
>- - Python seems to offer the same feature as Java do (with a clearer and
> simpler syntax , I sincerely think you know Python in 1 or 2 hours !).
> Maybe it needs a HotPython ... ;-)
I would like to hear more comments on Java, but I think the C/C++ like
design descision will turn out to be another winner in an "increasing
returns" market.
Regarding the Mac port: there is a make in MPW (though not the same
syntax), someone has probably ported GNU make as an MPW tool (the boycott
was lifted, remember) so you could use that, but most Mac developers today
use ObjectMaster as an their browser/project-oriented build manager. When
you ship the Mac version ship the ObjectMaster browser files and
Codewarrior and Symantec projects too. What development environment is the
porter using?
Kevin Purcell // kevinpu@attachmate.com // xenolith@halcyon.com
Organiser of Seattle's Macintosh dBug Developer SIG (send email for info)
"I fully agree with whoever asked for truly pre-empty threads, if feasible."
-- Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart (on the Java Interest list)
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