Bell Labs' Alternative to Java

[Wink Junior <winkjr@teleport.com>]

Looks like Java might have some competition.  Perry and others who are
concerned that Java has inherent security flaws might want to get a word
in with the Bell Labs folks while the project is still in development.

Wink

>BELL LABS, RITCHIE "DO SIMPLER RIVAL TO JAVA"
>(February 20th 1995) AT&T Corp's Bell Laboratories is working
>feverishly on a rival to Sun Microsystems Inc's Java, according to
>the San Jose Mercury News. The paper reckons that the project has
>been accorded such a high priority that most of the 10 or so software
>engineers working on the Plan 9 OS have been pulled off that to get
>the new language, code-named Inferno, finished. 
>
>According to Silicon Valley's local paper, Dennis Ritchie, credited
>with creating both Unix and C, made a brief reference to Inferno in a
>speech last Tuesday night at UniForum and was reluctantly persuaded
>to enlarge on it a little later. He said that while Java has been the
>beneficiary of a lot of hype, the underlying idea behind it was
>compelling, but he was worried that Java had become too large and
>complex; he also suggested that any Bell Labs version would be useful
>in a wider variety of machines, including future television sets.
>"Java does not go far enough," he said. 
>
>Ritchie did not say how far along Inferno was, and implied that no
>decision had been made about whether it would ever be brought to
>market as a product. Bell Labs is of course in the early stages of
>moving - not physically but in its allegiance - from AT&T to the
>$20,000m-a-year fledgling Lucent Technologies Inc.