"Of course, I'm biased. IFC is modeled almost entirely on
Nextstep, the object-oriented application development environment
that was developed by NeXT Software (and recently acquired by
Apple Computer). The class libraries were written primarily
by Jayson Adams, who used to write demo programs for NeXT tech
support before leaving NeXT and setting up shop with his
partner, Scott Love. The two created a company named Millennium,
and another called NetCode. It's NetCode that wrote IFC and
a companion program, Constructor. The company was _sold to
Netscape_ last March."
Looking at Andy Stone's Create Jr., I'm beginning to suspect
there's something to this all... very cool, very NS-lite.
Of course, I'd rather use IFC or JavaStep standalone, not
within a browser. So Simson is right "One of the problems with
these class libraries is that they aren't built in to the
current generation of Web browsers." -- only in the performace
context, though. I think these classes can be much more
important than web browsing.
Don't forget, too, that so far this is only the visual part
of NS. the nonvisual Pasteboard, Distributed Objects, databases
access, etc, is also critical.
RK
--------------------------------
The Silicon Mule
Microsoft and Netscape have competing Java class libraries,
and again Netscape comes out ahead, shaking Microsoft's
Foundation
Isaac Asimov's _Foundation and Empire_ series made a big impact
on me when I read it back when I was 10. The stories chronicle
the dying days of the First Galactic Empire and the establishment
of the Foundation, a center of science and learning which is
somehow supposed to help rebuild a Second Galactic Empire.
The whole thing has been predicted, of course, by a professor
named Hari Seldon and his science of psychohistory. But
something goes wrong when a strange Mule with phenomenal mental
powers is born, who starts his own empire and changes the
course of human evolution.
Netscape's Foundation is the _Internet Foundation Classes_,
a class library written from the ground up in Java and built
for creating full-featured, complex, mission-critical
applications. IFC is a complete class library that contains
classes for more than a dozen different kinds of user-interface
objects, including a multifont text editor, support for
drag-and-drop, a color chooser, a font chooser, and of course
the standard assortment of scroll bars, sliders, text fields,
menus, windows, and more.
Microsoft's Foundation, meanwhile, is the _Application Foundation
Classes_, another collection of Java classes for creating
full-fledged application programs. Engineers at Microsoft
created AFC because they too couldn't stand the limitations
of Sun Microsystems' Java Abstract Window Toolkit, or AWT -
Sun's Java application development environment. In particular,
they wanted to be able to easily subclass user-interface
elements to subtly change their behavior; using AWT, this is
remarkably difficult to do.
Both Netscape and Microsoft are distributing their application
kits royalty-free. Both say they will be building the classes
into future releases of their Web browsers. Both seem to be
saying that they really aren't interested in using their
foundation classes as competitive advantages - they just want
to give programmers a better environment for writing code than
Sun's AWT.
But there are deep differences between the two Java-based
foundations. Microsoft's AFC is built as an extension to Sun's
AWT. You can actually mix calls to AWT and AFC in the same
Java applet. Because AWT uses the built-in primitives in each
operating system to display push buttons, create scroll bars,
or manipulate pop-up lists, programs that use AWT look different
and sometimes run differently on different Java platforms.
Netscape's IFC, meanwhile, is written entirely in Java. As a
result, applications written to use IFC look exactly the same
on every platform. They also seem to run a lot faster, although
as yet I'm at a loss to explain why. Perhaps it's just better
designed.
Of course, I'm biased. IFC is modeled almost entirely on
Nextstep, the object-oriented application development environment
that was developed by NeXT Software (and recently acquired by
Apple Computer). The class libraries were written primarily
by Jayson Adams, who used to write demo programs for NeXT tech
support before leaving NeXT and setting up shop with his
partner, Scott Love. The two created a company named Millennium,
and another called NetCode. It's NetCode that wrote IFC and
a companion program, Constructor. The company was _sold to
Netscape_ last March.
My sources say that IFC is better than Nextstep in a few ways,
but it's basically the same because Objective-C, Nextstep's
object-oriented language, has an object model that's very
similar to Java's. So it's relatively easy for old Nextstep
programmers to port their wares over to Java.
One of the first applications ported was _Create Java_, written
by my friend Andy Stone at _Stone Design_. Create Java is a
full-featured drawing program with a lot of cool effects and
gizmos. Andy's actually done quite a few Java applets with
IFC that are on his _Java Objects and Gizmos_ page.
Another application is Pencil Me In, a neat Java-based scheduling
application from _Sarrus Software_ that's being distributed
over a Marimba channel. (As a matter of disclosure, you should
know that Sarrus also sells an address book that I wrote back
in 1992 called SBook; I'm hoping they rewrite that one in Java
as well.)
One of the problems with these class libraries is that they
aren't built in to the current generation of Web browsers.
This means they have to be downloaded with the applet - a
time-consuming process - or they have to be separately downloaded
by users and installed in their Java ClassPath libraries.
Future versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer are sure
to include one of these class libraries. Unfortunately, it's
unlikely that Microsoft will want to include IFC in theirs,
and it's unlikely that Netscape will want to include AFC in
theirs.
All this spells confusion for users, who are now going to have
to know if they're using an AFC-based Java application or an
IFC-based one. Unless Netscape and Microsoft work out their
differences, this is likely to be one more thing shattering
the promise of Java to provide a write-once, run-anywhere
platform.
I'd like to point you to some neat programs written with
Microsoft's AFC, but I don't know of any. According to Microsoft,
"We are not prepared to comment on these unannounced products
specifically. The reason we developed AFC is that our internal
Java application efforts quickly discovered there were no good
'industrial strength' class libraries on the market, so building
on our extensive Windows experience, we developed AFC and
decided to make them available to all developers."
Gosh, Microsoft should have just downloaded Netscape's IFC
classes. It would have saved them a lot of time.
So here's my question. If Bill Gates is Hari Seldon, and if
the reign of Microsoft is supposed to last a thousand years,
then is it just possible that some Mule out of Silicon Valley
will upset the Galactic Empire and lay waste to the best-laid
plans of the millennium?
Stay tuned.
[Simson Garfinkel]