Could Python supplant Java?

[marsd]

"Chad Myers" <cmyers at N0.S.P4.M.austin.rr.com> wrote in message news:<PXU89.123764$Yd.5538192 at twister.austin.rr.com>...
> "goose" <spammenotguse at hobbiton.org> wrote in message
> news:3D640BCE.4090201 at hobbiton.org...
> > Dan Johnson wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > Serious question:
> > >
> > > What is so developer-hostile about Windows?
> > >
> >
> > Serious Answer(tm):
> > 1. No development tools come installed with it. Without
> > even a single compiler, how does a "developer" develop ?
> > The result is usually to download/purchase a development
> > tool.
> 
> That's largely irrelevant. First, because there are many
> freely downloadable tools, second because most tools
> shipped with the OS are out of date by the time they're
> pressed to the CD and require updates anyhow, third because
> most developers are commercial and paying for development
> software is not a bad thing.

> 
> MS got where it was by cowtowing to the developers. Why
> do you think Win9x hung around so long? If MS was
> interested in purely pleasing end users, they would've
> ditched Windows at 3.1 and gone immediately to Windows NT.
> Instead, developers wanted to continue writing their crappy
> code which hooked into all parts of the OS and caused all
> sorts of instability (which they promptly blamed on MS).
> Only recently has MS been taking a tough stance on developers
> with 2K/XP, security initiatives, logo programs, etc to
> get them to stop shipping crap code and making MS look so
> bad in the process.

This is BS. Microsoft getting tough on security? Get real.
Consider Internet Explorer and IIS.
I daresay that the reason the NT kernel is now as compartmentalized
as it is, is that it makes it easier to control the amount of damage
anyone can do easily. That failed too.
Either that or to make it easier for MS to write applications that
fail and blame it on developers who don't understand the NT 
core.

> 
> Windows may not be as C friendly as Linux, but it is
> developer friendly and, indeed, many developers develop
> products for it. This is as obvious as sun light.
> 
> > 2. No proper scripting environment to do nightly
> > build & test cycles (cron'd to run at midnight).
> 
> Task manager supports scheduled tasks. That was in
> Windows 98, or IE 4 for Win95, IIRC.

Yeah and dig the security model. Wow. You have to lock out half of 
the shell and associated programs to secure the task manager with
these win variants. Useless. At least my crontab is my crontab.

> Also, NT 3.1 (or maybe 3.51) had the 'at' command
> which would schedule commands to run. So I'm not
> sure where you get your information, because you're wrong.
> If you must type 'cron', then you can either make a batch
> file to call at, or download cygwin.

at is the ugliest app ever and in the documentation there is caveat 
emptor everywhere. Basically unusable.
Cygwin? I thought you were talking about a usable MS environment here?
 


>But Windows on the desktop is an invariant.

Did you stop to consider why or is this just another brilliant 
flare of the obvious?
 
> > 3. The inability to easily let everyone use *the* *same* *machine*
> > to compile, all at the same time (via an ssh shell, or an xterm
> > if the developer likes GUI IDE's).
> 
> Hrm, I've worked for 4 companies now that have build machines or
> build farms using Terminal Services or a combination of other
> utilities. 2 of them had automated build and integration
> environments for eXtreme Programming that would monitor VSS or
> CVS for changes and automatically build and integrate changes.
> All Windows.

Lucky you, I guess...

Basically your post was mostly supercilious nonsense that I've seen 
negated in actual use many times.