Babylon 5 & the Great War of Java | Hacker News Reader

Babylon 5 & the Great War of Java

jroller.com

15 pointsbigstorm9 comments

as a huge fan of Babylon5 myself, I must commend the author on this analogy. For me, this makes perfect sense.

Also, I just decided, that it's probably time for a rewatch - it has been two years now since I've last seen the series.

Don't forget the official books: http://b5books.com/

What would it take to get the enterprise to look at alternatives to Java (programming language and/or platform)? If COBOL is any indication, then Java software in the enterprise will continue to be developed for the remainder of our lives.

So, unless you find working with the COBOL of our times enthralling, I guess now is as good a time as any to jump ship on Java. Not that most HN readers haven't done that already.

Last I checked, a couple COBOL programmers I know were making some serious dough updating mainframe code at the bank I used to work at. Not a bad place to be if that's all you want to do. May not be the target demographic for this crowd, but if it pays the bills...

Yea, there is still huge money in "legacy" languages like COBOL. There is plenty of financial sector software out there on COBOL that still works fine and is simply so massive after 30 years of development that rewriting it has never been successful.

Luckily, I think most of us Java devs have had the benefit of the shift towards a more polyglot style during the last several years. I think our generation of developers, if you can call it that, are more capable of weathering the storm; ultimately, we will be fine if Java dies.

You know, there was a similar proliferation of languages in the 1970s. COBOL survived, and who uses PL/I and MUMPS now?

Yea it is time to rewatch babylon 5 .

Java is not a great language but scalability, cross platform and corporate support made it what it is today, if the company behind Java leaves it alone, in time less and less people will choose it in long term mission critical deployments, then it will die.

Or maybe another language will rise after the death of java which can be better in the long term.

I am both happy and sad that java is dying.

Speaking of Babylon 5, for those of you who haven't seen it--or those who wish to rewatch it--all 5 seasons are available online for free at AOL's online TV/movie site, SlashControl.com.

Series page: http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/babylon-5

Start here: http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/babylon-5/season1/...

(There are one or two missing episodes--specifically, I know season 1 #13 isn't there--but you can get whatever's missing from iTunes, etc.).

The pilot is there, as Season 1 ep 1, but the other movies are not (I'd recommend seeing "In the Beginning" just before watching Season 5, if you can).

Anyone tempted to watch it on NetFlix should know that their copy is pan-and-scan 4:3 instead of the original.

(Also, how cool is it to have correctly predicted widescreen TVs in 1993?)

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