The Great Java Wait... and wait... & waaaiiittt

I'm sitting here waiting for a Java "file manager" gizmo to load. In this case it's the one on MySpace -- so that I can load a photo.

(Still waiting.)

This Java idea has been going on for, what?, a dozen or more years?  Enough already. Let's all move on.

In the beginning it was a good, though hardly unique, idea to make a standardized "virtual computer" that would run over any hardware and operating system combination. This is actually a pretty old idea in computer years. It goes back to at least VM/CMS on the IBM mainframes but I'm not a historian so maybe it's even older than that.

On microcomputers -- that is, PCs and Macs and such -- the first publicly used virtual computer that I remember was the "P-machine". 

(Still waiting but I think it's still "working")

When microcomputers started selling in large numbers there were more hardware versions and operating systems than you could shake a stick at.  There was zero standardization for developers to work with, so, whatever platform you programmed for, it was a fraction of the market. That's just the way that it was before the IBM PC and MS-DOS came along.

So the idea of the P-machine made perfect sense back then. The idea was that version of the P-machine could be made for any system out there and then any program written for the P-machine would work on that system. Super.

It did have limits and performance issues and all that, of course. I just goes with the virtual computer idea that those things are going to be there.

(Still waiting, but it just told me that my Java was up to date. Swell.)

Those issues have been there for every virtual computer attempt since -- including Java.  But such a huge and heavily promoted &/or supported and widely used attempt ought to be getting to some new, high levels of performance and usability.

What we have instead is lots of promotion, lots of programmers and designers talked into it but just the same old stumbling performance that every other microcomputer virtual machine has suffered.  (Not talking about VM/CMS here. That one works, but that's comparing Abrams M1 tanks to oranges.) 

So, look; how long are we supposed to keep drinking this java-flavored KoolAid?