Re: Netscape the Big Win

[Ray Cromwell <rjc@clark.net>]

Jon Lasser wrote:
> And from what I've heard about HotJava (not seen it yet, can't comment 
> strongly) there needs another jump in PC power before it would be useful 
> at the home level.  Part of why we were stuck with DOS for so long is 
> that it was what got the job done when the revolution happened.  For that 
> reason, I agree that HTML/Integrated browser solutions are what we're 
> looking at, and at the same time don't have strong hopes for HotJava, 
> though I would like to see it succeed.

   HotJava runs fine on a 486/33 with 16mb running WinNT 3.5. 486s are
pretty much standard. 1995 and '96 will be "the year of the pentium"
Entry level systems are now Pentium 90s with PCI and 64-bit video. Pentium
120 systems now cost less than my 486/66 system did a year ago. HotJava
is compiled into efficient byte-code with the option to be translated
to machine code at run time. This is the same principle behind the Newton.
Since the majority of the CPU time is spent in native-C code function
calls to the user interface, and network latency is high, the "slow"
interpreted code is hardly noticed. In fact, I wouldn't call the
Java runtime slow, it beats the performance of many Lisp interpreters
which have been adequate for "home" users. (e.g. Emacs Lisp) HotJava is
not meant for writing applications to decode MPEG in real time. It's best
use is for interactivity on web pages. It doesn't take a powerhouse
of CPU to put up a slider, "sleep" for an event, and they call a ScrollList()
routine. There's going to be a huge use of Java for doing sales catalogs
and online ordering on the web.

> most PC users like "pretty" better.  And they made the best "pretty" 
> software.

  Netscape software is not just a pretty user interface, it also has the
best layout algorithms I've seen of browsers. That's some pretty hefty
dynamic programming there. Mosaic and Arena frequently produce poor
or incorrectly formatted pages. (or less optimal pages than I've seen
Netscape)
-Ray