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Discussion on: What was the most over-hyped software movement?

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

"Write once, run anywhere" for Java
XML as the universal interchange format (we're still dealing with CSV :D)

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jhuebel profile image
Jason Huebel • Edited

I'll take "Over-hyped Technologies From The 1990's" for $100, Alex. ;-)

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Valentin Baca

+1 for XML. JSON ate it for breakfast.

But I don't understand: Java fulfilled that promise? Java has been the Top or 2nd Top Language for 15 years1

On top of that, the JVM allows programmers to target the JVM instead of worrying about Operating Systems.

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rhymes profile image
rhymes • Edited

"Write once, run anywhere" wasn't about popularity, it was about writing the code once and running it literally anywhere.

They created JVMs for basically anything (from personal computers to washing machines), but there was obviously a fault in that logic: virtual machines don't completely isolate you from the operating system.

Also remember not all JVM implementations were the same (I'm not sure about the current state).

See also what happened on the client side with Java applets or well... do you remember Java Mobile Edition?

That's why that slogan was "over promising and under delivering" :)

Java and JVM as you said reached immense popularity, but the title of the thread is about "over hyped software movement" and I think this one deserves to be here.

I wonder if WebAssembly will be the "write once, run anywhere" promise fulfilled of the 2020s or if in a few years it will be mentioned in another thread like this :D

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ahferroin7 profile image
Austin S. Hemmelgarn

On top of that, the JVM allows programmers to target the JVM instead of worrying about Operating Systems.

Only if you're doing relatively simple stuff and don't need amazing performance. The VFS layer in particular still shows a lot of the underlying OS behaviors.

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JOHN

That's why Docker was created, we do not need Java anymore