dunno much about linux

[rabbit]

Ender, you're forgetting that there are open-source programs that still make assloads of money.  Apache is among them.  Apache, PHP, MySQL, GNU, and most of the big-name open source softwares are all open source and recieve thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of dollars in donations from corporations.  Open source generally DOES NOT WORK in a corporate setting.  Why?  Think of it this way:

A program is released open source into the software world, and is picked up by a few people.  Someone decides they want to change something, so they do, and then they redistribute it.  Other people pick up on it, and change it more.  Some of the original people don't like the changes, and don't implement their own.  Instead, they change something else, and in turn release that.  Over the years the original program evolves to the point where there are thousands of distinct and different versions, some more obscure than others.  A certified expert in one is not necessarily a certified expert in another.  Corporations hiring experts have to make sure they hire the expert with the right certification, which is hard, because every version of the program is still called the same thing.  Fracturing and even more updating occurs.

This program is called Linux.  There are THOUSANDS of distributions of Linux, and guess what they are all called?  LINUX.  Companies don't want to say "Should we use Slackware or Red Hat or Black Hat or SELinux or Fedora or Ubuntu or Knoppix ...".  They want to say "Let's use windows".  There's not really any trouble with selecting Windows.  If you're aiming for an environment for your employees you go with XP or Vista.  If you want a server, you go with Windows Server.  A certified expert in Windows is essentially a certified expert in ALL VERSIONS of Windows.  Also notice that most Windows servers run IIS and ASP, not Apache and PHP.

[Newby]

By storm I don't mean it's dominating. I mean that it's breaking through as a reasonable alternative and the executive guys at software companies are realizing the benefits to running linux. It's also growing ~_~.

Learn to word your statements. And it's not breaking through. It's only at 24%, whereas Windows is at 55.1%. Did I mention that by 2002, there were only a few server products, the most potent being Win2K? Microsoft has revamped a lot in their products, and Win 2K3 is way more secure than Win2K nowadays.

I like this quote:

"Microsoft generates about the same amount of OS revenue in 3 days as the entire Linux industry generates in 1 year," IDC notes.

In three days, Microsoft generates the same amount of OS revenue as Red Hat, SuSE, etc. do in one year combined. If they're taking market, it isn't noticeable to Microsoft.

I'd personally like to see some statistics for real time. Or at least 2006. Look some up for me to validate your claims that it's breaking through.

How much more does paying a sysadmin or two cost over buying a license for a whole corporate-network-full of Windows? Corporations and countries have already made the move (e.g., Thailand).

Also, if you're going to run Windows you probably do want to hire a security expert, because Windows security by default S.U.C.K.S (e.g., LM hashes). So I don't know if Windows is really that much cheaper than Linux, even in the very long run.

Let's say you purchase a license for $500. Tech support comes with the price tag, so calling them to get something fixed is a sinch. Let's say they don't hire anybody to do maintenance, because it is so simple in Windows that hiring someone is insane.

Let's say you hire someone to install SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) for $30/hr. In a matter of 20 hours, you've paid more for maintenance on your Linux system than you have for that license.

Guess what? That's only 20 hours of maintenance. You've got to maintain that system as long as you're in business. So you're constantly dumping money into a guy that's underpaid, overworked, and the problems often come back.

And the third party countries have made the move because they can't afford it. The instant they can afford it (i.e. starting off corporations often use Linux because they can't afford it) they would switch.

Windows behind a good firewall and running good anti-virus and anti-malware is as secure as any Linux or Unix OS. It's all about how you configure your system. You should realize that corporations aren't going to use a default installation of Windows...... the fact that you didn't kinda saddens me and wonders if you're just blindly arguing or you actually believe that. :|

Something that opened my eyes a bit ago in terms of security: take a look at that page. Look at all the Linux Kernel vulnerabilities. Now count the ones for Microsoft on that page. Total. Now subtract those that are third party programs that run on Windows.... yeah, I think Linux loses in security on that page. Sure, they aren't all extremely terrifying vulnerabilities, but truth be told most on Windows aren't either. The fact is that those are security vulnerabilities, and corporations don't want any. Microsoft may patch some under the table, but for the most part it is good about announcing what vulnerabilities their security patches fix. And with their new model towards security (with Vista mainly) it can only get better.

Linux software is also quicker to advance itself than windows software, as is the case with open-source software.

Wrong. Dead wrong. Open source software is written as a hobby, whereas products written for money are driven to be written by the sound of the dollar. One of the two will last as long as they need it. It isn't the open source software.

No, you're dead wrong. Look at the rate of linux distros and upgrades vs. that of Windows. Look at all the GNU software. Look at all the great open-source software and technologies that are predominant in the software development world. Apache webserver. Putty. Perl, python, and ruby. Do I need to continue? One of the founding philosophies of OSI is that software can evolve faster when it's open source.

The rate of Linux distros? What?

Predominant? Hahahahaha. That's a gusty word to use. Apache? You can run that in Windows. PuTTY? That's based on OpenSSH, which also can run in Windows. Perl? Python? Ruby? One word: .NET. It blows those languages out of the water. You can still use them in Windows if you wish...

Software may be able to evolve faster when in open source, but it won't live in the long run. How many open source projects have I seen dead when attempting to find solutions to my problems? At least one each time I use Google for a solution. It's sad that they die.

Eventually you have to come to terms with the fact that open source software may be driven by the world, but eventually the corporations paying for a product are going to keep a product going (you realize the open source programmers have to have jobs to pay for taxes, etc. They need money.) well past any open source project.

I didn't think I needed to provide facts for this statement. Linux allows you to go GUI-less with servers. Windows doesn't. Kapeesh. (Vista is excluded from this statement.)

...

The GUI adds up to how much lag and overhead in a modern system? Close to 1% maybe.

And services run in the background, so even if your GUI is sitting there a portion of your system is dedicated to running background processes (something you can finetune in Windows somewhere iirc, between performance and background processes) so it really won't matter.

You can also boot Windows without a GUI. You realize that, right?

Take your ignorant "Kapeesh" and research something before you say it so arrogantly. I don't mind arguing so long as you don't say shit like it's the be-all end-all truth.

[Ender]

Do you realize that you are also being condescending? Do you realize that you were the one who started this attitude which has persisted in both of our posts?

I did research. I never said that the open-source software that I mentioned didn't run on Windows. It is, however, a part of the open-source development world. I was arguing more about how the world is becoming more and more open-source and how Microsoft will have a hard time with that.

And you can't argue with that. Two other dominant open-source applications I didn't mention are firefox and eclipse. 26% of the people who visit w3schools use Firefox and less than 60% use IE. That's a tremendous accomplishment, even though it's only on the w3schools site. The reason I mention w3schools' statistics is because it probably is a good representation of the web programming branch of the software development world.

Yeah, so you may be saying, so what all this software runs on Windows. Well my point is that the world is becoming more and more open-source and Microsoft is going to become more and more uncomfortable with that.

And by the way, Windows security will suck if you don't hire a security expert. It takes literally 1 minute to crack an LM hash. The security holes in IE and the viruses for Windows are extraodinarily common and persistent.

Did you read my comment about how Thailand moved towards Linux? Even though (IIRC) they didn't end up using Linux, they OWNED Microsoft! http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html. More countries will start doing this.

Unfortunately, I think Vista will change things. My whole argument excludes Vista =P.

[rabbit]

I did research. I never said that the open-source software that I mentioned didn't run on Windows. It is, however, a part of the open-source development world. I was arguing more about how the world is becoming more and more open-source and how Microsoft will have a hard time with that.

Microsoft is currently busy laughing in the face of open-source.

And you can't argue with that. Two other dominant open-source applications I didn't mention are firefox and eclipse. 26% of the people who visit w3schools use Firefox and less than 60% use IE. That's a tremendous accomplishment, even though it's only on the w3schools site. The reason I mention w3schools' statistics is because it probably is a good representation of the web programming branch of the software development world.

Exactly.  Developers.  90% of the internet user-base is NOT developer.  IE still dominates 70-odd percent of the marketshare.

Yeah, so you may be saying, so what all this software runs on Windows. Well my point is that the world is becoming more and more open-source and Microsoft is going to become more and more uncomfortable with that.

It's not really becoming more open-source, it's just that there is some successful open source which is drawing more and more attention to the arena.

And by the way, Windows security will suck if you don't hire a security expert. It takes literally 1 minute to crack an LM hash. The security holes in IE and the viruses for Windows are extraodinarily common and persistent.

Why would a server be browsing the internet with IE?  Securing Windows isn't all that hard.

Did you read my comment about how Thailand moved towards Linux? Even though (IIRC) they didn't end up using Linux, they OWNED Microsoft! http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html. More countries will start doing this.

Wow.  One third-world country almost went Linux.

Unfortunately, I think Vista will change things. My whole argument excludes Vista =P.

...

[Newby]

I did research. I never said that the open-source software that I mentioned didn't run on Windows. It is, however, a part of the open-source development world. I was arguing more about how the world is becoming more and more open-source and how Microsoft will have a hard time with that.

Uhm, ok? No arguments there. Microsoft OS products (what we were arguing about...) are still top of the line. I doubt any open source operating system will usurp them any time. The programs you run on them are really the choice of the company. Odds are they'll just use what comes with the OS (IIS vs Apache, .NET vs other web languages, etc.) so in reality while that is an evil tactic, it'll win.

And you can't argue with that. Two other dominant open-source applications I didn't mention are firefox and eclipse. 26% of the people who visit w3schools use Firefox and less than 60% use IE. That's a tremendous accomplishment, even though it's only on the w3schools site. The reason I mention w3schools' statistics is because it probably is a good representation of the web programming branch of the software development world.

Eclipse is an IDE for Java....... omgz, an open source IDE for a crappy language!

Firefox is just an example of how open source can win. Firefox, while being more secure than IE, still has security holes in it. The problem with security holes in Firefox is that you have to update it by downloading an installer. Only recently have they integrated patching from inside the program. Patching IE7 (which is nice, by the way; I'm using it right now) is simply the task of running Windows Update. You're not only patching IE7 but you're also patching your entire system. Two birds with one stone. When you have thousands of computers to keep up to date, I can safely say doing 2 updates per computer will be a bitch. Automatic patching makes keeping IE7 up to date even easier. Firefox should be worried. Sure, IE7 does not support CSS as well as Firefox, but in the end, 60% of the web still uses IE and the web developers will have to support the lowest common demoninator in order to run a successful webpage. So until Firefox manages to take 50% (I doubt this will ever happen) of the market, IE7 will still reign dominant and webpages will be coded for it.

Yeah, so you may be saying, so what all this software runs on Windows. Well my point is that the world is becoming more and more open-source and Microsoft is going to become more and more uncomfortable with that.

No they are not. Why would they be scared? They basically run the desktop and server markets. Office suite? Office 2003. Operating system. Windows. Embedded systems? Windows Embedded. The only markets Linux has a niche in is supercomputing, and Microsoft has an answer for that.

No matter how much market open source takes from Microsoft, it won't be enough to scare Microsoft. The only marketshare that has really done damage to them is Firefox taking from IE, but seeing as how Firefox got advertised in newspapers and such, it's no surprise. If you saw an advertisement in a newspaper for some web browser, wouldn't you want to try it?

Microsoft doesn't need to advertise and they have 60% of the marketshare.

Did you read my comment about how Thailand moved towards Linux? Even though (IIRC) they didn't end up using Linux, they OWNED Microsoft! http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html. More countries will start doing this.

I am unmoved. Heh. You'd get a better reaction out of me for what Europe did to Microsoft. Thailand is tiny, poor and doesn't matter in the long run.

No, more countries will not start doing this. You shouldn't make accusations like that. They're beginning to bug me that you think Linux is the Microsoft killer. The only worry Microsoft has is that it will have no competition, making it a monopoly.

I'm surprised you have so much faith in Linux beating Windows. Even Red Hat says Linux can't beat Windows. Their goal, as I said earlier, was to take market from Unix and specialize in embedded processes. Unix is dying and Microsoft is taking marketshare as well (it's not the only one interested in Unix server marketshare), and Microsoft Embedded is the answer to the latter half of their goals.

Vista won't change things. They're rushing it. I don't have much faith in Vista changing anything except maybe desktop market. We'll have to see how the server product based on Longhorn goes...

And by the way, Windows security will suck if you don't hire a security expert. It takes literally 1 minute to crack an LM hash. The security holes in IE and the viruses for Windows are extraodinarily common and persistent.

Security holes in IE on a server.. hmm... I don't think that'll be an issue. Even so, ever wonder why IE has so many holes? It's 70% of the market. Why would people write exploits for Firefox, Opera, or even Links/Lynx? Because they are roughly ~30% of the market. They'd rather prod at holes in IE since there's more of a chance to cause havoc.

Viruses on a server in IE.. hmm... I think you'd be more worried about remote exploits versus viruses. I doubt anybody will be double clicking "BRITNEY_SPEARDS_NUDE.JPG.MPG.EXE" anytime soon on a server. And behind a good firewall, no worries about exploits on much of anything you don't want exposed to the world. So basically they'll have to exploit IIS or even worse, Apache.

One word: Exchange. Without an alternative to Microsoft Exchange, Linux will NEVER take from Microsoft in large doses. The corporations love Microsoft Exchange.

[MyndFyre]

Do you realize that you are also being condescending? Do you realize that you were the one who started this attitude which has persisted in both of our posts?

Q_Q

I did research. I never said that the open-source software that I mentioned didn't run on Windows. It is, however, a part of the open-source development world. I was arguing more about how the world is becoming more and more open-source and how Microsoft will have a hard time with that.

And you can't argue with that.

Why can't you argue with that?  I don't think Microsoft is having a hard time with OSS.  A lot of stuff MS is doing these days involves sharing source code with their big partners, and they've opened their source code to some toolkits (for instance, the Shared Source CLI which works on Red Hat and OS X without adaptation, and of course Windows).

You need to learn how to word your arguments.  You're making an argument of opinion.  It's not logical and it doesn't help debate when you say "you can't argue with that."  I can say, "Windows is the best there is because so many desktop users use it, and you can't argue with that."  That qualifier doesn't make me right.

Two other dominant open-source applications I didn't mention are firefox and eclipse. 26% of the people who visit w3schools use Firefox and less than 60% use IE. That's a tremendous accomplishment, even though it's only on the w3schools site. The reason I mention w3schools' statistics is because it probably is a good representation of the web programming branch of the software development world.

Sure, it's a tremendous accomplishment, and I suspect it's in large part due to tabbed browsing.  I personally don't really care for tabbed browsing that much (I'm used to alt-tabbing around everywhere, although I suspect Vista will annoy me enough to use it), and that tabbed browsing support is going to be hit with IE 7.  Before you talk about security vulnerabilities "laden" in IE, let me tell you this much: I've been running my computer on the DMZ for my router (all incoming traffic gets routed to my machine), running XP, and using IE, and in the past two years I've gotten no virii.  No adware.  I'm not running any anti-virus software, the Windows software firewall is disabled, and I don't have any other firewall (they annoy me), and I don't use adware scanners.  It's not really that amazing.

Yeah, so you may be saying, so what all this software runs on Windows. Well my point is that the world is becoming more and more open-source and Microsoft is going to become more and more uncomfortable with that.

I think Newby's point that Microsoft doesn't really feel any revenue loss is well-said, and I haven't seen you provide shred of evidence #1 that MS is "uncomfortable" with an open-source-using world.

And by the way, Windows security will suck if you don't hire a security expert. It takes literally 1 minute to crack an LM hash. The security holes in IE and the viruses for Windows are extraodinarily common and persistent.

Who uses LAN Manager these days?  Everything on a Windows network since XP and 2000 is done via Kerberos unless you're using REALLY old stuff.  See above for my review of Windows and IE "vulnerabilities."

Did you read my comment about how Thailand moved towards Linux? Even though (IIRC) they didn't end up using Linux, they OWNED Microsoft! http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html. More countries will start doing this.

Let's talk about the Thailand market.  Now, I don't want to downplay the importance of being a global competitor everywhere.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Thailand's annual GDP (in parity) is $560.7 billion US.  The United States' is $12.36 trillion.  That makes Thailand's roughly 4.5% of the US market - what Microsoft makes in a year in Thailand, they can make in the US in 16 days.

Yeah - they really "owned" Microsoft.  

Unfortunately, I think Vista will change things. My whole argument excludes Vista =P.

I don't know why everyone seems to think Vista will be so revolutionary.  I think its security "feature" is annoying as hell.

[MyndFyre]

Eclipse is an IDE for Java....... omgz, an open source IDE for a crappy language!

LOL

[Ender]

I'm too lazy to make mad quotes, because I have three people to answer to and a lot of answers apply to all three ~_~.

@everyone:
"To prevent Linux from running away with Thailand's subsidized "people's PC project," Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) TechNet Security Center: Tools & Guidance to Defend Your Network Latest News about Microsoft has dropped the price of its Windows and Office packages from nearly US$600 to $37" (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html).

$600 -> $37
Thailand bought the Windows and Office packages for around the price of a hardcover Harry Potter book. They lowered it to 6% of the original price. That's ggnore.

@everyone:
I don't think Linux will beat Windows. I think that it will earn a lasting place in the corporate software development community for development and server purposes.

@everyone:
Microsoft hasn't come out with a new OS in what, 5 years? After 5 years a lot of shit piles up on an OS (I mean security holes). Microsoft has a chance to fix a lot of this with Vista. That's why I think it will change things.

@Myndfyre:
Evidence for Microsoft being uncomfortable with open-source? Going to the extremes of dropping lowing their prices by 93% to prevent a country from moving towards Linux. Having no open-source software of their own. Sure, they share a lot of their development process in IE with the community, and that's good. I admit that I can't say that Microsoft won't embrace open-source in the future. It may be a very smart marketing move.

@everyone:
.NET should be shot, hit with a golf club, blowtorched, and then buried in Thailand.

@everyone:
If Java is such a sucky language then why is it commonplace in software development? Evidence: look at all the Java work Apache has done. A heavy-hitting software foundation chooses to make a lot of java products...

[Newby]

@everyone:
"To prevent Linux from running away with Thailand's subsidized "people's PC project," Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) TechNet Security Center: Tools & Guidance to Defend Your Network Latest News about Microsoft has dropped the price of its Windows and Office packages from nearly US$600 to $37" (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html).

$600 -> $37
Thailand bought the Windows and Office packages for around the price of a hardcover Harry Potter book. They lowered it to 6% of the original price. That's ggnore.

They can afford to do that, since any profit at this point is profit altogether. That's not a "ggnore", that's marketing. If they know they're not going to sell, why bother keeping it at a ridiculous price? Lower it and give people incentive to pay for it. They're a poor country.

I don't think Linux will beat Windows. I think that it will earn a lasting place in the corporate software development community for development and server purposes.

It will take from the Unix and Solaris marketshare on servers. That's about it.

You should remove "corporate" from the software development community. Corporations don't develop software for Linux, lmao! Corporations are out to make money. Why develop for a product that has less than 3% of the desktop marketshare and 25% of the server marketshare, when you can develop software for 97% of the desktop and 50% of the servers and charge for it accordingly? You really can't charge for Linux software... it's ridiculous. You'd have to offer tech support, and Linux distros vary so much that it would be an absolute bitch to offer support altogether.

@everyone:
Microsoft hasn't come out with a new OS in what, 5 years? After 5 years a lot of shit piles up on an OS (I mean security holes). Microsoft has a chance to fix a lot of this with Vista. That's why I think it will change things.

Wrong. Read:

By that measure, Microsoft has improved Windows by a far greater degree. In the same time frame, it has shipped Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (and 2005 UR2), Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Windows XP Home and Professional N Editions, Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2, absolutely a big Windows upgrade), Windows XP Embedded, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, and Windows XP Starter Edition in various languages. Heck, I might be missing some versions. No, they're not all major releases (The N Editions? Eh.) But XP x64, like Tiger on Intel, was a major engineering effort. And Apple has nothing--absolutely nothing--like the Media Center and Tablet PC functionality that Microsoft has been refining now for several years. So let's put the silliness about Microsoft doing nothing for five years to rest, shall we?

@Myndfyre:
Evidence for Microsoft being uncomfortable with open-source? Going to the extremes of dropping lowing their prices by 93% to prevent a country from moving towards Linux. Having no open-source software of their own. Sure, they share a lot of their development process in IE with the community, and that's good. I admit that I can't say that Microsoft won't embrace open-source in the future. It may be a very smart marketing move.

The fuck does that have to do with anything related to Microsoft being uncomfortable with open source? If anything, it shows they aren't giving in to "peer pressure" (if you will) and open sourcing software of their own....

As for lowering the price of the product in Thailand, read what I said above.

And no, moving towards open source would not be a good marketing move. You can't make money on open source products like you can a closed source product.

@everyone:
.NET should be shot, hit with a golf club, blowtorched, and then buried in Thailand.

Care to explain the reasoning behind this? I don't think you have any facts behind this, I just think you have a grudge against .NET or something Why? .NET is amazing.

@everyone:
If Java is such a sucky language then why is it commonplace in software development? Evidence: look at all the Java work Apache has done. A heavy-hitting software foundation chooses to make a lot of java products...

It's common place? I was unaware of that... as far as I know, everything I use it not written in Java. I can safely say that for the rest of my family and anybody's computer I've fixed.

Care to state your source on that Java is "commonplace" in software development? As far as I know, .NET is what's in right now.

[MyndFyre]

@everyone:
"To prevent Linux from running away with Thailand's subsidized "people's PC project," Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) TechNet Security Center: Tools & Guidance to Defend Your Network Latest News about Microsoft has dropped the price of its Windows and Office packages from nearly US$600 to $37" (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32110.html).

$600 -> $37
Thailand bought the Windows and Office packages for around the price of a hardcover Harry Potter book. They lowered it to 6% of the original price. That's ggnore.

Yes, we've all read that, and we all posted thoughtful replies.  You have not read our replies and replied thoughtfully.

@everyone:
I don't think Linux will beat Windows. I think that it will earn a lasting place in the corporate software development community for development and server purposes.

That's not what you've been saying.

@everyone:
Microsoft hasn't come out with a new OS in what, 5 years? After 5 years a lot of shit piles up on an OS (I mean security holes). Microsoft has a chance to fix a lot of this with Vista. That's why I think it will change things.

Right, so new and untested software *doesn't* have security holes and bugs?  Oh, you mean to say when billions of people aren't pounding on it to try and make it break, you don't *know* about the security holes.  Gotcha.

@Myndfyre:
Evidence for Microsoft being uncomfortable with open-source? Going to the extremes of dropping lowing their prices by 93% to prevent a country from moving towards Linux. Having no open-source software of their own. Sure, they share a lot of their development process in IE with the community, and that's good. I admit that I can't say that Microsoft won't embrace open-source in the future. It may be a very smart marketing move.

I don't think they need to move to open source.  And even then I don't think the OSS community would be impressed.  Microsoft is the demon - have you seen the Bill Gates Borg picture on /.?  End of story.

@everyone:
.NET should be shot, hit with a golf club, blowtorched, and then buried in Thailand.

Whatever man.

@everyone:
If Java is such a sucky language then why is it commonplace in software development? Evidence: look at all the Java work Apache has done. A heavy-hitting software foundation chooses to make a lot of java products...

Oh look, Apache also supports PHP, Perl, and *gasp* ASP.NET!  I have news for you: Apache is not the end-all of what makes good software.

I'm fairly certain you've never used either .NET or Java, otherwise you would understand the obvious deficiencies in Java and benefits of .NET over Java.

I'm too lazy to make mad quotes, because I have three people to answer to and a lot of answers apply to all three ~_~.

It's pretty apparent to me that you didn't actually read our replies, and that you're just spouting off the 12-year-old bullshit that every forum kiddie likes to say to look "l33t becoz I r teh linux expret".  If you can come back with some actual facts, statistics, and maybe thoughtful replies to what we've said, then I'll continue this discussion.  Otherwise I'm done.

[Rule]

Eclipse is an IDE for Java....... omgz, an open source IDE for a crappy language!

LOL

Eclipse was written in Java, but it's not an IDE limited to only Java.  When asked why Java is not commonly used for writing large software applications, Java advocates often cling to Eclipse as their big example (they can't really point to much else, as it's one of the only major Java projects).  However, it happens to be an extremely slow running and bloated IDE, which I think is certainly the fault of the language it was written in.  On the other hand, MF, your favourite language (I think), C#, is more similar to Java than to any other language.

[Newby]

That's sad that it is written in Java, though I don't think they'd rewrite the whole thing at this point. Just stick with what you have.

And I did not know it could do other languages. Downloading the JDK normally comes with an offer to download Eclipse, so the thought of "Eclipse is for programming in Java" stuck to my head. Ignorance I suppose on my behalf.

[Rule]

That's sad that it is written in Java, though I don't think they'd rewrite the whole thing at this point. Just stick with what you have.

Well, I think it was written in Java as a promotional gimmick ("see what Java can do?!?!").  Sure, it might have impressed a few clueless comp sci undergrads, but I think that choice has backfired on them in the professional development market.  The effect has been more like "see what an inefficient and bloated language this is?"

[MyndFyre]

Eclipse is an IDE for Java....... omgz, an open source IDE for a crappy language!

LOL

Eclipse was written in Java, but it's not an IDE limited to only Java.  When asked why Java is not commonly used for writing large software applications, Java advocates often point to Eclipse (one of the only major Java projects).  However, it happens to be an extremely slow running and bloated IDE, which I think is certainly the fault of the language it was written in.  On the other hand, MF, your favourite language (I think), C#, is more similar to Java than to any other language.

I don't disagree, but have you ever used #Develop?  It's an open-source IDE written in C#, and it's not *nearly* as slow and clunky as Eclipse.  Hell, Visual Studio isn't either.  No project I've ever written in C# has ever been exceptionally slow, except in case of programmer fault (an old bot of mine was horrid - I've since learned how to keep less than all of my data in memory when not in use).  

But here are a series of things that Java does not support that C# is particularly good at:
* Type-safe delegates.  Delegates are objects that behave like function pointers of C and C++, except that they are type-safe and runtime-checked.  To have a callback in Java, you need to create a new object and implement an interface.
* Value typing.  Developers can create UDTs that behave like primitives - that is, they are passed by-value via the stack rather than by-reference via the heap.  
* Non-wrapped value-type objects.  The runtime does not nead to create wrapper object instances (such as java.lang.Integer for int) in order to call methods on them.  An int primitive can have the System.Int32 methods called on it directly.
* Pointers.  For tasks that need to be particularly fast and bypass indexing checks, for instance, C# developers can use pointers to, for instance, traverse an array.  I replaced extremely long code in the BLP2 to PNG Java converter into a simple loop to do the same work in creating a bitmap in C# for my WoW bot.
*Type-safe enumerations.  This has been addressed in Java 1.5, but it's still worthwhile to point out since C# had it from day 1.  Previously in Java, to create "enum-like" things, you had to declare a class with several public const variables, which were not type-safe.  In C#, if you ask for an enumeration instance as a parameter, you're guaranteed to get a primitive passed as an enumeration field.
* Declarative programming.  To my knowledge, Java does not allow the creation of custom metadata for your reference.  In C#, it's very straightforward.  for instance, this is an excerpt from my WoW project:

Code: [Select]

public enum WoWEventType
{
    [Use(typeof(MessageChatEventHandler))]
    MessageChat,
}
I wrote a generic class that takes a type parameter for plugins when performing event notification registration.  The class automatically detects the metadata provided by the type parameter, and ensures that the right type of delegate is being used for the specified event.  It makes contractual programming easier and clearer.
* XML code documentation.  Javadoc is nice, but C# (and now VB.NET) produce XML.  I doubt anybody is questioning the utility of XML these days.

There are several other nice things, but I don't really feel the need to go on.

[Rule]

I know C# gives the programmer a little more discretion than Java, and also provides a few extra features.  But they still are remarkably similar languages .  Out of curiosity, do you know of any advantages to using Java over C#? 

I haven't tried #Develop, but I'll take a look at it now.  In terms of features and layout, Eclipse is a pretty good IDE; so it may be quite helpful for those who don't mind being extremely wasteful with diskspace, RAM, and processing time.  On the other hand, it can't really augur well for Java when a glorified text editor consumes ~2GB and further causes my 2.7 GHz P4 Laptop (with 512MB RAM) to linger in suspense on every letter I type.