

Joel on Software: "By installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java" - twampss
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/01/12.html

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BigCanOfTuna
How many times does "Joel on Software" show up on this blog entry? I count 5
times, including the Title and email address. Pot...kettle...black.

~~~
swilliams
Ok, let's analyze this "burn:" Instances of "Joel on Software" on the linked
page:

* Header image that states "Joel On Software" and links to the homepage. This is a common website device. One

* Another text link before the article title. Ok, this one seems extraneous. Though since the first is an image, this is more SEO friendly. Two

* Not mentioned anywhere in the article.

* The footer contains another link. Again, this isn't really irregular. Three

* The email for the author of the article. Would it satisfy you if Joel had used another domain for his email address? Four

So there are a grand total of 4 appearances on that particular page, and with
the exception (maybe) of one, none are spammy.

Did you come into this discussion solely to diss the author? Joel was pointing
out something inane in a wizard dialog box, and you essentially call him a
hypocrite.

~~~
BigCanOfTuna
Let's be clear on one thing. I didn't "essentially" call him a hypocrite, I
"really" called him a hypocrite.

~~~
nailer
Perhaps the both of you can settle your differences by reading more Joel on
Software whilst experiencing the Power of Java?

------
mechanical_fish
_If you can’t think of anything to say, maybe you should just up._

Although Joel's writing a post about omitting needless words, I think this
sentence needs an additional word.

Sometimes I wonder if blogs could use a "typo alert" button.

~~~
11ren
great idea, not a full-blown comment, but a small link (like "flag") that
gives room for a one line description. Most typos are pretty short, and are
covered by something like the below. Even if the description happened to be
ambiguous, it would be enough of a heads up for the blogger to find it. I'd
think it's not attractive enough to spammers to warrant a captcha.

    
    
      s/just up/just shut up/

~~~
mechanical_fish
What I have in mind would be a direct message to the author, not a public
message. That should further discourage spammers -- I imagine they're not
particularly interested in sending spam to one blogger at a time.

You might want to have some feedback that informs a person who is about to
report a typo that 4 or 5 other people have already reported a typo on a given
post. That might help discourage the phenomenon where a single typo generates
a flood of 10,000 helpful reports.

~~~
jrockway
> I imagine they're not particularly interested in sending spam to one blogger
> at a time.

I get a ton of spam via the GitHub web interface. It is really annoying.

~~~
pjhyett
How much spam qualifies as a ton?

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mattmcknight
Given the JVM startup times, shouldn't it say "Please Wait.............Java
Loves You". Ha ha...ooops not really actually funny at all. I'll leave it
though. Sorry.

(I'm not bitter, I just had to restart tomcat over 50 times today. It has its
upside: 12145ms x 50, enough time to read a couple of items on hacker news. I
wonder how much this post will cost Sun? There will probably be a bug in their
tracker by morning. Maybe Joel's just making an issue out of these little
things so their bug tracking will be overwhelmed and they'll have to turn to
FogBugz?)

~~~
trapper
Why on earth did you restart 50 times? zeroturnaround.com?

~~~
mattmcknight
Hot redeploy not working for this app in development.

------
bprater
Could we actually have some real conversation about the topic?

~~~
presty
It would be nice if the topic had some real subject to talk about.

------
voidpointer
Well, it has been pointed out before, but this is just too funny. I hadn't
looked at joel's site for some time and I had to check some other posts to
tell whether the blurbs under the real posts were there for humorous reasons
or whether they were an actual part of the page template. Unfortunately the
latter is true. He could just put "Joel loves developers."

What's there sounds like the same kind of marketing department cool-aid that
the poor engineers at Sun are forced to put in their installers.

Now, if you are tempted to say something like "the inmates are running the
asylum" in Sun's case that may very well be true:
<http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/santaclara/agn.htm> :-)

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gills
He missed the seventh 'Java' in the title bar...

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stcredzero
Why should users ever install a VM? Why couldn't Java be distributed as a
meta-environment where the right version just downloads and installs itself,
and a particular application only sees the most recent available version of
the runtime environment that it can run against?

~~~
johngunderman
meta-environment? That's basically what a VM is in the first place. As for the
automatic download-install, linux package managers will already do that for
you. Of course, not for web apps, but who wants a web app telling their
computer to download and install a program???

~~~
stcredzero
So why not add another level of meta? Why should the user even have to go to
the package manager? If the user has stumbled across an app for which she/he
doesn't have the right VM+runtime, why do they have to do any more than wait
for the download to happen?

OS X has a mechanism such that a program only sees the versions of system
libraries that it needs. There's no reason why Java couldn't have one as well.

We programmers may not like a web app telling the computer to download and
install a program. The average user would rather have the system do it for
them -- just so long as they don't have to worry about anything they don't
understand.

~~~
johngunderman
That's exactly what the package manager does. If you install a program that
needs the JVM, it will automatically download and install it. Can you
elaborate on what you mean by "another level of meta"?

~~~
stcredzero
You're talking about ordinary desktop applications. For that, a package
manager like dpkg and apt-get will work just fine. I thought that the article
was talking about applets, which aren't meant to be permanently installed on
the local machine. However, they have a dependency on a Java runtime which is
installed there. If the designers of Java were a little more forward thinking,
they wouldn't have created this dependency. The desktop JRE would be managed
by whatever mechanism on the machine, but the applet JRE would be managed
separately. The entire thing could be managed by a program implemented in just
about any programming language. Let's say it's the 1st version of the JRE.
Combine this with a mechanism that effectively sandboxes an applet with
whichever version of the JRE it needs or is most compatible with, and at
worst, a user will be notified that they need to wait for a download.

In this regard, the designers of Java were thinking like programmers and not
thinking of naive end users. Flash does a better job in this regard.

------
megaduck
I wince everytime I see something like this pop up. The JVM is an awesome
piece of technology, and the Java language is a good replacement for C++ in a
lot of cases. There's also a neat little ecosystem of alternative JVM
languages sprouting up.

Unfortunately, it's hampered by Sun's TERRIBLE marketing and crappy design on
things like the installer. I'm glad they finally open-sourced Java, as it
gives us the option to fork the platform instead of constantly worrying that
Sun's going to screw it up.

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falsestprophet
Welcome to <http://zombo.com>. This is zombo-com. You can do anything at
zombo-com--anything at all. The only limit is your self.

------
hs
being succinct is un-java

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drcode
<sarcasm> Why do we have previews in movie theaters before the movie starts?
The screen could just be black until the main feature begins. Or, the screen
could just read "There are other movies coming out" that would pretty much say
the same thing. </sarcasm>

~~~
johngunderman
nah, its more a preview that goes as such: "Check out this movie! Critics love
this movie! Come see this movie! It has action, romance, comedy! If you watch
this movie, you will know how much you like it!"

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axod
No idea why you would install java using some UI like that in the first place.

~~~
astine
Because it's the standard installer on Windows and the one that millions of
people who just want to use some Java-based funcationality on some website are
directed to?

~~~
axod
Java applets? eek ok,

