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From: wolf@beowulf.ho.att.com (Thomas Wolf)
Subject: Re: What is JAVA?
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References: <4apfjl$fuf@brtph500.bnr.ca> <4aq444$gqd@qualcomm.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:36:23 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:165198 comp.lang.smalltalk:32180

Nasser Abbasi (nabbasi@qualcomm.com) wrote:
: In article <4apfjl$fuf@brtph500.bnr.ca>, gilbertb@bnr.ca says...
: >
: >What is JAVA 

: Java is YAPL.  
: Yet Another Programming Language  :)

...The rest is something the Nasser must've gotten out of press blurbs,
because it's a pretty superficial/inadequate description of Java's purpose:

: Java allows one to write a program so one can interact with the
: Web page one is looking at in a more dynamic way.
:
: You can draw things on the web page, click using the mouse to 
: change things on the page, do calculations, enter numbers, get 
: back results and values.
: The Java program is running processing your inputs and perfoming actions
: based on these inputs.

You can do anything in Java that you could do with any other language -
it's not just for interacting with Web pages in a more dynamic way.
IMHO, the three important features which JAVA has over other popular OO
languages/implementations are:
	- Platform independence
	- Network "awareness"
	- Security

: You insert the Jave source code inside the HTML source code itself.

That's just plain wrong.  Java programs are compiled into a platform-
independent byte-stream that gets downloaded & executed in a Web browser
when the user selects the URL representing the Java program.
Maybe you're talking about JavaScript?

: A Java program can make the web page become more alive, where now it is 
: mostly static. 

Again, Java can do anything you want it to do.  Making web pages b "more
alive" is its least important feature from a technical/programming
perspective.

Just my $.02,
Tom
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| Thomas Wolf   | (908) 949-6283           |...Still can't think of anything
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Disclaimer: These are my opinions and not necessarily those of my employer.
