Sun Down

I have been a software guy for about 40 years. I also know the hardware side of things, and have invented many things (of which I now own nothing.)

Sun was a computer vendor that I admired during the days of very, very bad IBM PC's and toy Apples. They had very nice workstations, very nice software, and many intelligent employees. They developed so many things it is hard to remember them all.

But I would have to say that Java is the one thing that strikes me as a very big loss now that Oracle has consumed Sun and all of its IP. Although, technically, Sun owned Java, it had never charged for it as a programming language. There may be products made from Java that were for-pay, but even those are frequently free of charge.

I actually don't like Java, except for a few aspects of its abilities. I know it, I write programs with it, but there are a lot of things about it that prohibit me from using it for serious work.

Number one, it is always interpreted, or compiled into an intermediate byte code, for whichever machine it runs on. There are ways to optimize Java, sort of, but its very nature as a "hidden object" system makes it work very hard on the inside so that the programmers on the outside don't have to explicitly allocate and free memory, or worry about what happens after a function is disposed of, etc.

C is extremely the opposite of Java (except for most of its syntax). Everything is right out front. Getting all tangled in your own rope and hanging yourself with C is quite common. It is exceptionally close to machine language, so it is more easily optimized for whichever platform it runs on. But it must be compiled, in advance, before it can execute.

C++ is sort of a cross between C and Java. It allows you to hang yourself and shoot all virtual copies of yourself in their virtual feet, as well as pretend that you know all the big words which are used to describe the components and object mechanisms like overloading multiple inherited protected methods. But C++ also has the hidden object problem, only made worse when some system like .NET tries to mix C++ and C# and Visual Basic and J# ad infinitum into the same bag of worms.

But, as much as I like the bulls-eye, sniper rifle effect of C, and as much as I put up with the haughty, but effective maze of highly optimized C++ objects -- I will still miss Sun's Java. It isn't that I won't use it anymore, or that it will disappear altogether as a language. It isn't so simple as that.

When Sun owned Java and the world trusted Sun, it was like a bright and shiny day. But now that Oracle has bought Animal Farm, you know that the dogs, chickens and horses are not going to be treated as equal as the pigs. And now the very word Java is like the word Dark. The Sun has set, and I hope that the night is not a dreary darkness, ruled by Larry, Prince of Darkness.

Oh, Bother

There are many things that bother us in life -- insects, diseases, money problems, love problems, other people in general and a host of other bothersome things.

I doubt that there will ever be a time when there is nothing to bother us, Perhaps after death, in a peace beyond peaceful, there will be no bother. But then there will be no awareness of it, so it is not helpful. If there is "life after death" then there will always be something to bother us, or torment us, as the case may be. I would imagine that even Heaven would have something bothersome, such as eternal light, or too much singing, whatever.

In this time of our lives, we who have been blessed or cursed with life during these times must endure the effects of overpopulation, of over-reliance on chemical pesticides in our food, of pests that can't be eliminated at all. There are politicians who lie more vehemently than ever, with propaganda more insidious than ever, with more pleas for violence and destruction.

We must endure the financial collapse, the loss of our life savings to perpetual thieves who run the stock markets and banks. We will become slaves for those who love to enslave. We will starve while the thieves gorge themselves. We will die while the thieves restrict all medical services for themselves.

Although this is what is happening, it was once thought that we were the luckiest generations. We live in a world of technological profundity which has never been known before. No emperor or king ever had access to the comforts of life that even the most modest homes provide, with plentiful clean water, communications devices to reach to all points of the globe, cleaning devices that can keep our homes spotless and bugless. Sure, the kings might have had 100 wives or whatever, but that is little different than having 100 girlfriends to wine and dine with our V8 powered golden chariots and splendid silk-like clothing bought for a few dollars in Walmart.

But all that is disappearing -- reserved now for the very rich and powerful. The rest of us will seemingly be disposed of -- the not-so-pretty girls, the not-so-useful old, the not-so-lucky of us all. Our luck has run out, and the seas will become oilier, and deadlier, to the point where, someday, the rich will have to eat food made by machines from bacteria and fungus -- the most resilient lifeforms of the Earth.

Of course that future is not certain. It may be that when the majority of us die that the minority can once again live in the splendor of overabundance. When the value of human life has increased from 1-in-a-billion to 1-in-a-few-thousand, perhaps we will treat each other better. When I say "we" I don't really mean "me" -- I'm certain to be not long for this world. I only mean the survivors -- those of us, and those of the animals and plants, that survive the great dying.

There have been many exterminations of life on this planet. Perhaps only a modest percentage of the total will survive, with some events worse than others. A huge asteroid being worse than a few volcanoes; a sudden heat wave perhaps worse than a sudden cold snap. And life under the sea has less direct exposure to the events that kill most everything on the surface.

Even an event that completely kills everything, and evaporates away all the water, might leave behind spores that could live again should enough water return, even if only under miles of nothing but rock.

It would be unfortunate if such a thing happened because of nature, from the effects of stars and planetary alignments. Eventually the Sun will vaporize all life on this world anyway. But it is very sad that a small congregation of greedy thieves would subject an entire planet to destruction and starvation.

But that is what is happening now. It seems that our duty as citizens and mothers and grandfathers is to do everything and anything to prevent such acts of criminality from ever occurring. If the population must be reduced, so be it -- have less babies. If the food supply must be protected, so be it -- pollute the world less. If the way we power our cars and factories is killing the world, then stop it. Replace those old technologies with new ones -- which are sane and sustainable.

Yet, the criminals always seem to win. Then nuts in Iran, the nuts in our own government, the nuts in North Korea, the nuts that own all the oil, all the coal and all the chemicals. They always seem to win while the rest of us can only make them richer or nuttier.