Page #94 (Chapter 14 - Whats Next?)

Chapter 14 - What’s Next?

Visual Basic Developers Guide to ASP and IIS
A. Russell Jones
  Copyright 1999 SYBEX Inc.

What about Java and CORBA?
Java is a great language with a lousy syntax. Java's structural heritage is Small-Talk, while its immediate parent is C++. Said another way, Java's genetic makeup is pure SmallTalk, but its vernacular is C++. SmallTalk, for those of you who haven't been around a long time, was the first (and the best, at least in theory) pure object-oriented language.
Java could fulfill the need for a universal programming language, but its implementation ensures that it will fail at that task. I believe that Visual Basic programmers should learn Java, but I also believe that Java programmers should learn Visual Basic. The two languages don't often compete head to head, and I don't believe they're likely to in the near future.
Java has found its niche in the non-Microsoft camp by providing some of VB's rapid application development capabilities on non-Intel hardware. You must realize that until Java, the Unix operating system had nothing like VB—most development was in C and C++ (thus the syntax for Java). The idea that a modern programming language would need semicolons just so the parser can find the ends of the lines makes me shake my head in wonder…. Nevertheless, Java is important—primarily because it provides your easiest access to CORBA.
Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) are similar in concept. Both provide a means for objects developed without prior knowledge of one another to communicate with each other, and both provide a means of separating what an object does (the interface) from how it does it (the implementation). You can develop both COM and CORBA objects with multiple programming languages and mix them together later without problems. Today CORBA provides a greater range of services, such as communication between remote objects, but you need to learn the interface definition language (IDL) to use it. COM provides fewer services, but anyone with a minimal knowledge of VB can create COM objects—you don't need to learn an interface definition language. In the near future, COM+ narrows the gap in capabilities considerably. Longer term, I expect that both will improve.
Unfortunately, the Java vendors support CORBA, whereas VB supports only COM. Microsoft's attempt to create a COM-based Java has failed. Without COM support, though, Java can't use VB objects. Without CORBA support, VB can't use Java objects. That leaves us poor developers stuck in the middle. My recommendation is to stay firmly in the middle. Learn them both. Java seems to be making inroads on the server level while COM has a firm grip on the desktop. While COM-to-CORBA (and vice versa) bridges are common and will become more so in the future, all bridges have a performance penalty. Maybe hardware advances will make such issues moot—but maybe not.
Java is a much more object-oriented language than VB. Of course, VB isn't really object oriented at all—it's interface oriented. Microsoft claims that interfaces are better than pure object inheritance, and they might be right, because both COM and CORBA focus on interfaces, not inheritance.
Large organizations keep tight control over both languages. Only Microsoft sells VB and a VB development environment. Java development environments are legion—some even free, but Sun Microsystems controls the Java language itself. That may be changing. Several other large organizations have announced (although not released) clean-room Java implementations. Sun may lose control of the language. If that happens, Java may splinter like C. The differing versions may become operating-system and/or machine-architecture dependent. But it doesn't matter much as long as CORBA, which is controlled by the Object Management Group, maintains its machine independence. The interface is the key, regardless of the language behind it.
As a VB programmer, you have access to the largest library of interfaces in the world—those built to COM specifications. However, remember that COM objects work under the Windows operating system almost exclusively (there are partial Unix implementations of COM). In contrast, CORBA works on virtually every operating system. Don't let the fact that Windows is on 90-plus percent of all computers affect your judgment—less than 50 percent of the Web servers in the world run Windows. Finally, don't let a few semicolons keep you from learning Java; you may need it.



Visual Basic Developer[ap]s Guide to ASP and IIS
Visual Basic Developer[ap]s Guide to ASP and IIS
ISBN: 782125573
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 98

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net