Why MS-extensions?

[james at westongold.com]

> Unless "the code" is not in the best interest of the community.
> I have yet to hear a good reason why the Microsoft extensions
> to Java are a good thing.

The delagates thing is a a convenience, but, hey, if that makes
life easier then what's the problem?  It doesn't seem to
stop Perl being popular, or indeed VB.

Personally, I feel that the most important extension stuff is
the COM integration and the ability to control Excel and the
various data interface libraries, and to write add-ins for
Excel etc, and to be able to write extension libraries in
a Java-like language that interface handily with VB and VBA
is just so useful that 'Pure Java' can go where the Sun
doesn't shine.

I'm not sure how relevant this stuff would be on platforms
other than Win32 but that's not the point - it is a huge
advantage for the MS Java platform.

Not everyone needs it, but in practice it is more useful
for me to have a Java implementation that does this, than
to have one that wants to be a better VB or Delphi, or
that wants to provide cross-platform RAD portability.
Others may have requirements here that materially differ,
of course, but anywhere to get traders, marketers or
accountants this stuff is really useful.

Given that I'm going to write code with VJ++, and some of
that code WILL use the extensions, then it would be
nice to be able to reuse it on the rare occassion that
I need to take it to another platform.

The main problem for me is that if I write core code in
Java 2 then I can't reuse THAT code in VJ++, and I don't
like havng to choose between ease of interfacing to the
front end technologies that matter and ease of reuse of
non-GUI Java 2 code.

If Kaffe provides a bridging technology then that would be
a Good Thing, though the MS JVM is a pretty tough act to
follow.

> able to as well. It is always good to be open minded, but how many
> times does Microsoft need to lie, cheat, and steal before we should
> stop trusting them?

Please, this anti-MS polemic is SO boring, and SO pointless.

Its also misleading in that so far as I can see (having been
on the receiving end of MS' failed promises, screwups, changes
of mind etc since Windows 1.04 and then via OS/2), MS actually
does deliver a great deal more honest product at reasonable
prices than anyone else, and so far as I can tell their lies
and deceipt are on the same level as other recent goodies such
as:
 - risc workstations are cost effective
 - the crappy FPU speed of intel chips will make your option
   models much slower than on our risc workstations
 - hotspot will make your code faster than C++
 - hotspot will be out soon
 - there's no performance problem with Java GUI code
 - write once, run anywhere
 - Kaffe is the best JVM
 - Linux is standards compliant

James