this is probably a little touchy to ask...

[Eirik Øverby]

On 10. sep. 2010, at 16:29, merlyn at stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote:

>>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Sommer <msommer at somware.com> writes:
> 
> Mark> That's a pretty idealistic view of the upcoming release of HTML5.
> Mark> I have yet to see a release of HTML that is compatible across
> Mark> browsers, i.e.  adapted universally by all browsers uniformly.
> Mark> Java is still a very viable platform, even on the browser.
> 
> Whenever I see Java firing up on my browser, I cringe.  (Flash too.)
> 
> There are darn few things either of these do that a good modern
> cross-platform library, like jQueryUI, can't do instead.
> 
> Except for video playback, which HTML5 fixes as well.  And yes, until
> then, we're stuck with Flash.
> 
> We needed Java before we had good JavaScript.  Now we have good
> JavaScript.
> 
> I repeat... Java had its day.  Time to move on.

You are forgetting - or conveniently ignoring - that many still NEED Java support in their browsers - and not of their own choice. Banks, insurances, digital signature services etc. Still frequently use Java as carrier for their services. Often this cannot be changed easily as such organizations have long turn-around times and make investments in the long term. 

Java is still very much alive, and until html5 can validate and run signed code it'll stay that way even on the client. And that is just one of the reasons/scenarios. 

I'm not using FreeBSD on the desktop for just this kind o reasons. I'm sure it would be a great choice in an ideal world but we are unfortunately living in a real one. So either one takes the time to implement what people _need_ in addition to what you would prefer them to need, or the desktop can as well be ditched and focus moved to improving FreeBSD for servers, where it already excels. 

/Eirik


> 
> -- 
> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
> <merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
> Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
> See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-java at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-java
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-java-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
>