In comp.lang.java.advocacy, Otis Bricker
<obricker / my-dejanews.com>
 wrote
on Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:55:16 -0500
<Xns97F7CAA5F86EAobrickermydejanewsco / 216.196.97.136>:
> "Oliver Wong" <owong / castortech.com> wrote in
> news:W9Xqg.131093$771.114444@edtnps89: 
>
>>     Thanks, that was interesting.
>> 
>>     It sounds like, a best, the Java team and the C# team were
>>     essentially 
>> developping generics at the same time. So I don't think what happened
>> was the Java people were like "Oh crap, C# has generics! We better get
>> it in Java ASAP!" Rather, I think there was a lot of academic research
>> of generics at the time, and both teams (coincidentally?) felt "now"
>> would be a good time to implement generics into their languages, where
>> "now" is 1.5 for Java, and 2.0 for C#.
>> 
>> 
>
> Check out http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=14
>
> The basics were there for Generics long before they shipped. As JSR 14, it 
> was one of the first changes proposed and Example implementations were 
> available in the form of GJ and PolyJ back in 1998. 
>
> OB

Wow.  If I'm reading this correctly generics were kicking
about before the turn of the millennium. :-)  The public
review process, however, took more than 3 years -- which
is probably a reflection of the desires to ensure they're
doing it more or less right and/or "do no harm" more than
anything else, I would guess.  (Java w/generics still
has quirks, though...but they're like int <-> Integer:
one can live with them for now.  I still remember C++ being
able to assign to 'this', so C++ evolved; Java will, too.)

Of course COOL is right in there, though probably without generics:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,39020351,2070806,00.htm
is a puff-piece about "a java Alternative", dated 1999-02-15:

    One developer believes, and hopes, that Cool will not
    be cross-platform. "There are a lot of developers who
    say Java has lost momentum," said Mike Sax, president
    of Sax Software. "If anything, making [Cool] not
    cross-platform seems like a smaller risk than going
    along with the Sun ruling and letting Sun call the
    shots." If Microsoft makes Cool a product, the company
    will have a sizeable challenge in gaining market
    acceptance, other developers said. "Java is entrenched
    and is appreciated by a whole group of people out there
    who don't want to be tied to Microsoft for everything,"
    said the Windows developer. "The world doesn't really
    need an alternative to Java from Microsoft."

Hmmm....when did Java lose momentum?  Somehow, I missed it;
seems to me it's been chugging right along. ;-)  Of course,
it's far from clear that Java is really "cross-platform",
either -- it's the JVMs which have been ported to multiple
host types and operating systems.  Java, for its part, is
a language and library, and sort of sits above it all. :-)
Once the JVM is ported, assuming no bugs...Java and a
whole mess o' utilities and stuff can just come right in
and make themselves at home, and they don't care a fig how
the JVM does it, as long as the JVM does the right thing
when needed.

I think .NET tries to do the same, and succeeds to some
extent.  But Java was there first, and was probably better
designed; certainly it knew sandboxing before ActiveX came
along, botching it.

-- 
#191, ewill3 / earthlink.net
Windows Vista.  Because it's time to refresh your hardware.  Trust us.