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though - i agree with MDN most of the time (99%) I wonder if they have ever used Objective C versus Java...if they have then they would know the difference.....and its a big one....

Now, that's what I call Java jive.

So in one sentence we read "consumer-focused storefront" and in another sentence we read the term "rounding error". If they're going to be so "consumer-focused" they should learn to not use jargon like "rounding error" otherwise 90% of the consumers won't know what they are talking about.

I actually think Java is a great programming language but mistakes like that have me "looking sideways" at their concept of "a consumer-focused storefront".

Dec 11, 09 - 07:51 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

Do people make storefront's that are not consumer-focused?

Dec 11, 09 - 07:51 pm Comment from: disposableidentity

Using the words "consumer" and "Java" in the same sentence would be laughable if it wasn't so ridiculously misguided.

Do consumers even know what Java is?

Dec 11, 09 - 07:52 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

@ The Other Steve

Yeah! M$!!!

In years to come, this remark of Gosling's will be remembered as the stupidest thing he ever said.

Dec 11, 09 - 07:54 pm Comment from: disposableidentity

Come to think of it, Apple's App Store is probably bigger than all of Sun.

If the App Store was spun-off as a free-standing publicly traded company, and Sun was still publicly traded -- which would have the higher valuation?

Dec 11, 09 - 07:56 pm Comment from: Darkness

Begin "Borg" mode:

Java is irrelevant.

End "Borg" mode.

Engineers are NOT Marketing people...never have been...never will be. His Steveness is not really an engineer...That was Woz. Steve is a genius MARKETER (among other things). I can tell you with complete certainty that I will never buy an APP from the Java Store even if it came with chocolate syrup and the promise of free, unlimited guilt free sex.

well.....no...

had to pause there a moment to consider what I said...but I'm sure now.

Why, oh why do these guys always make the same mistake of setting themselves up for a fall? They could have just said they were excited about their store and confident it would do well. They had to take a swipe at Apple, while stepping over the crushed remains of all the others that said the very same thing before. Sad.

@PR
and Marketing people are definitely not engineers....case in point - Microsoft is a great marketing company - they are were they are because of marketing....

Apple is greatness is do to there solid product, design, and development - aka Engineering - without it there is NOTHING to market...

@Darkness
ahahahahhahaha

Dec 11, 09 - 08:29 pm Comment from: HughB

@t
MS are were and where is the there? Cupertino? I am confused

"The Java Warehouse is initially targeted at Java and JavaFX applications meant to run on the desktop with initial distribution through the Java Store. However, in the future, Sun officials said the company plans to further stock the Java Warehouse with applications meant for mobile, TV, and cross-screen applications."

Egad… sounds like "write once, debug everywhere" to the power of insanity.

And who wants Java desktop apps, exactly? People want iPhones. They don't necessarily want Java. That, I think, is the fatal flaw in Gosling's logic.

@Gosling
I'm feeling lazy today. my comment:
douche.

Dec 11, 09 - 09:08 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

@PR

No kidding. These are the same types who trumpet that THIS version of Ubuntu will take over the know universe... if only ANYone knew about or gave a shaved rat's ass damn about it.

What about usability and selection?
Being able to use PayPal says ZERO about that aspect.

So, it's nice that there's a Java Store. Some competition will keep Apple honest and pushing forward. We can already see some effect in the stories of the past few days about a friendlier App Store attitude toward developers.

Ha, ha, even Sun uses Apple's fame to market their crap.

Java is a first class programming language but I get the feeling James Gosling should keep his mouth shut and hire some competent business people including PR people. This sounds like a classic case of a top engineer with a beautiful programming language shooting himself in the foot through his lack of business and marketing skills.

Dec 11, 09 - 09:54 pm Comment from: CYxodus

@The Other Steve

Yes. Android.

Dec 11, 09 - 10:07 pm Comment from: Hm...

@t

I disagree. MS is where they are because of illegally leveraging a monopoly, not for marketing prowess, and because of software lock-in. Consider those Gates/Seinfeld ads as evidence and the "hidden" API's used in the Office suite. Their best marketing is rip-offs of other people's work. "I'm a PC," etc.

Yeah. Sure.
People tell me how exciting a Java Store would be all the time.

Dec 11, 09 - 10:37 pm Comment from: Gregg Thurman

And if you looked up "Hubris" online you'll see the MDN logo pop up.

One shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the efforts of non-Apple firms. Not every body is second rate, and not all first rate anybodyies work for Apple.

Having said what I've said I'll still keep an eye on this Java Store. I have studied Java as a student so it would be tempting to learn more about it.

I just still get the feeling Sun Microsystems wont be quite as polished as Apple in it's efforts. Plus everybody has heard of Apple but how many people in "Consumer Land" have even heard of Sun Microsystems.

Dec 11, 09 - 11:20 pm Comment from: ken1w

Apple's App Store would NOT be considered a "rounding error," even if compared to all other software distribution channels for all computing platforms, combined.

And PayPal is handling payments. How eBay of them...

Dec 12, 09 - 12:41 am Comment from: Brulek

@MDN- you're not even wrong abut Java...morons

Dec 12, 09 - 12:43 am Comment from: Brulek

ps yes I realize the typo in 'abut' too...about

this is the work of pure journalism, not research. rounding error? LOL

http://no-spamming/

Dec 12, 09 - 01:34 am Comment from: TigerCliff

Wow, Sun and it's assets are in a worse tailspin than I expected. Between these delusional Sunnies and Oracle ... even the remaining value left will be driven into the ground. Just sad.

Btw, I disagree about Java... it has it's purpose.

Dec 12, 09 - 01:35 am Comment from: Krioni

Java is a great language for certain things. However, having needed to obtain Java software and learning a bit of programming in it, I can say two things:

1. It really needs something like this.
2. It will in no way be as successful with consumers as even the Android store, let alone the iTunes App Store.

Java has not lived up very well to its promise. Part of that is due to bad behavior by Microsoft. Part is due to the fact that Java software does not often look like or behave like native software. People notice that, even if only subconsciously. Result? People only tend to use Java apps when they have specific reasons to. Guess who that group of people does not overlap with very well? Consumers.

Dec 12, 09 - 04:58 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

What Krioni said. Well put. The most sensible and insightful comment in this topic.

Okay, so can you explain why people shouldn't be quick to dismiss the Java Store?

Can you explain why people would buy lame psuedo-applications written in an interpreted language where said interpreter is a slow, clunky, and hideously bloated performance-sapping monstrosity? Can you explain how it has a chance in hell of being popular when Java is vehemently unloved outside of a small minority of enthusiasts who are badly out of touch with what people want and what's a practical language, which is why they're writing Java apps in the first place?

The Java Store is being dismissed because Java is and always has been epic fail, not because Sun isn't Apple.

And let's remember, 95% of people who regard themselves as quite technically aware, will find it hard to define the difference between 'Java' and 'Javascript'.

That confusion alone is enough to sink this little project.

Why does anyone read eWeek I wonder?

Dec 12, 09 - 09:12 am Comment from: MacTony

The thing is when everyone starts using the you as the comparison, you aren't a "rounding error".

He makes it seem as if most people use their crappy cell phones like smartphones. On my samsung pre-iPhone, I bought Frogger to rekindle childhood memories. Java Frogger on my crappy cellphone ruined my childhood memories.

Don't buy Java. Think of the children.

@T: Microsoft a great marketing company? A great monopolist maybe, but marketing? Do you look at their ads? Do you look at the market acceptance for their non monopolist products? You know how they say people look like their pets? MSFT looks like Balmer at a developers conference: noisy, running all around, in your face, bloated, sweaty interface, out-dated, doesn't really get it, swaggering with misplaced confidence.

Dec 12, 09 - 11:52 am Comment from: Macdoc

Sun is on life support with a very grim prognosis.

Just amazing how people are clueless about Java. Just type "java" on your desktop, phone, blue-ray, car Just on the desktop, that 1Billion desktop worldwide. Yes, 1B. The iphone is just such tiny market that it is really irrelevant. Apple does a good PR on their appstore, but no money for developers, and as usually with PR driven technology they fall on their face quickly! Many developers are already running away from the iphone because you don't make money as it is very hard to develop application on a iphone/Objective-C and the distribution channel is not big enough now that a few big ISVs own the iphone. You will see the flood gate move to the Java Store in the next couple of months. I tried this Objective-C stuff and it is sooooo bad that
you really want to stay with Java.

oooookaaaaaay..... And in other news, decipherable by the average techno-literate homosapien..............

@ Java Jedi

Most of what you say is hyperbole or wishful thinking on your part, and has little connection to reality. If you want to defend Java, you're certainly free to do so, but by flying off into fantasy-land, your overall argument is severely weakened.

"I tried this Objective-C stuff and it is sooooo bad that you really want to stay with Java."

Translation: "I tried this Objective-C stuff for like five minutes, but I'm sooooo stuck on wanting to stay with Java that I gave up trying to learn it properly."

Even smart people make stupid comments. I admire Gosling's pioneering of a language, but ask him how does he feel about Flash surpassing applets, and Google's steal of his Java syntax in the Android SDK - 2 of the most atrocious creations in tech history resulted from the failings of Java in matching reality with its ideals. I'm sure Gosling also believes a pure Java mobile platform is still viable, and that Java FX will overtake Flash and Silverlight any day now.

He's a technologist (a great one) with no understanding of marketing. Amusing.

Dec 12, 09 - 02:13 pm Comment from: maccam

My PayPal experience has been so poor that I will not buy from any online site that has PayPal as its only option.

Dec 12, 09 - 04:10 pm Comment from: Brulek

Java's offer of the write once, run everywhere promise was big back in the day of the heavy weight desktop apps...but the number of languages offering this is growing all the time- albeit scripting languages for the most part. Nevertheless Java is a very important language that does certain things very well (think servlets, etc). There are also a number of phones that use java 2ME, so what not try to leverage that and the large number of java programmers out there in the world? The problem I have with iphone development is that as a developer you have to pay apple to make products for their phones (this is VERY microsh*t-esque). Nevertheless I don't see a java store doing much any time soon.

People try to cut the world into marketing people and engineers. I agree that many of these two groups need to learn a thing or two from the other side. But you do have people with both skill sets. I do. I have extensive marketing experience with Fortune 100's and I also happen to know how to program Java and also Cocoa/Foundation.

I can see how Java guys like J. Jedi would want to stick to Java like an ostrich but really, come on, Objective-C is not bad either. Much less verbose than Java. You like verbose? Try Pascal!

Anyway, just to prove I have a technical clue, let me just state that the power of OS X over Java is not so much the syntax but it is the super frameworks that you tap into via the APIs. THOSE are the real powerhouse behind the apps.

Give me Cocoa Touch any day over Swing, please! I'll even write assembler if I can just use those decades proven human interface elements from Apple.

Besides, I got the App store right in my pocket anytime. Java? I gotta go to a computer and log onto a Website???

@ T

I've used Java and Obj C. The real power of Obj C is not Obj C at all, it is Apple's Cocoa and CocoaTouch libraries. Do some research next time.

Java is bloated, slow, sucky, and it always has been. Enterprise departments shoved it down developers throats and Java is part of the problem with computer science today. Java solved no problems whatsoever. It is a rounding error in the short history of computer science and losing favor each and every day.

Java? No thanks.

Just say no.

Misc points...

A. Yeah.. the java store is kinda dumb (at best).

B. Java desktop is very widely used in corporations. Just because you didn't like it when you took your programming 101 class doesn't mean it's not useful.

C. Strongly, statically typed, GC languages are what the world uses when you want reliable maintainable code. You're average php/ruby based site doesn't count for much in those situations.

D. The power of java comes from the libs... Just like Cocoa is a really nice set of libs/widgets, on a mac. For scalable backend stuff java is really, really hard to beat.

E. Get off my lawn...

Dec 13, 09 - 04:49 pm Comment from: Brulek

For those who think java is slow you might consider that run time is about 10% slower than compiled c++ and in some instances, like I/O can actually be faster. Where Java does fall down is Swing. It's pretty ordinary and I imagine writing ActionListeners as anonymous inner classes really confuses some. Objective-c on the other hand is a nice language too- though the function call syntax is more than a little goofy and takes a bit of getting used to. The addition of garbage collection to obj-c 2 was a major step in the right direction.

@Planar: you're seriously deluded and have little understanding of the purpose of java and what it did/does/will do based on the nonsense you're sprouting. Java has an enormous developer community. I get the impression you tried java and it owned you so now you have the hates for it and are hoping it goes away, taking your defeat shame with it. Sure the original design purpose of writing once and running anywhere was thwarted by microsh*t (bastards) but the idea was good.and it still does a great many things that are more difficult with other languages. Perhaps trying to be all things to everyone is a problem because often you end up being nothing to no one. Nevertheless, Java is going to be around for a looooooooooooong time yet.

James Gosling, the creator of the Java programming language...the man who helped guide NASA to the "Spirit" and "Discovery" Mars rovers on their missions to enlighten us all. The creator of the language that moves mountains of data through enterprise data systems daily that controls our lives.

If you have a programming language that your prefer to conduct deep space missions, weigh in.

@Sean: I agree Java is a top programming language. I would still defend Java as such as I've studied it as a student.

But the real issue here is what makes sense to a NASA scientist won't be understandable to business people or the average consumer. How many of these people will understand terms like "rounding errors". James Gosling needs to leave marketing of this Java Store in the hands of real marketing people.

Yes, java seems like crap... until you realize that it IS crap. Something slower, less object oriented and more convoluted might come along but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.