Re: Why is java considered a language for "web" or "internet" programming?

BillJosephson wrote:
...


This thread has produced some interesting, and other
fairly unsurprising, answers. Now I'll weigh in with a
few points that I don't think have been raised, and are
closely related..

Start-up/speed

- because of JVM start-up time, (small) command line
applications are pointless, Java is not suited to
'quick little command line utilities'.
- start-up time has oft been mentioned as a reason
against Java applications and applets - I'm sure we've
all seen web pages lock-up as the browser loads the JVM..
- Java runs well once the VM is up & running and the
code has been loaded and JIT'd. Since a Java based
server has VM's running constantly, and the code is
rarely reloaded, this works well for them.

'any device'

- ..but at least Java was x-plat and could run on
any desktop PC. ..with a JVM installed ...of sufficient
version to support the code - which brings me to..
- Once you know what you are doing, deployment of
web-apps (that might serve 100's to thousands of
clients) is simpler than deploying 10 to 100
applets or applications.

$

- Sun sells servers - they do not sell desktop PC's
(so far as I know, and if they are in that race -
they have already lost it)

I get the impression that Sun regrets its investment
in trying to push Java for the desktop, and though
not especially keen to admit it, has now abandoned
the desktop and is concentrating on the server market.

A further little trivia, the jobs market certainly
supports that most Java realted work is server-side
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.advocacy/browse_frm/thread/00b18aec73bbaad7/4446d2788535db76#4446d2788535db76>
After I posted that, someone suggested that 'Dice'
had more Java lisstings than any other lnaguage, so
I did a quick check there as well and came up with
a ratio of about 10-1 (J2EE/Swing).

Andrew T.