[HN Gopher] VisualAge for Java 1.0 - Let the Future Begin (1997)
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VisualAge for Java 1.0 - Let the Future Begin (1997)
Author : rufus_foreman
Score : 50 points
Date : 2021-01-23 17:20 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tug.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tug.ca)
| nathanwallace wrote:
| Fun fact ... "VisualAge for Java was implemented in Smalltalk and
| the Team facility used ENVY/Developer under the hood" [1]. Of
| course eventually that product and team morphed into Eclipse.
|
| I was lucky enough to play as small part as a college-age intern
| working at an Object Technology International [2] Lab in Sydney.
|
| I soaked in the pair programming, watching the screen flash by. I
| read every book they gave me (e.g. The Toyota Way, this was
| before XP / Agile books existed). I was amazed they actually paid
| me to work on these problems. I was so proud to make
| contributions and still remember fondly the hand-drawn diagram of
| the architecture passed down like a relic through the team. I am
| still inspired by their passion and commitment to delivery.
|
| I definitely would not be the person I am today without the
| career defining experience working for Adrian Cho [3] and Dave
| Thomas [4] during that time. Periods like that are rare in a
| career - grab them if you can!
|
| 1 - https://paulhammant.com/2017/09/01/smalltalk-envy/ 2 -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Technology_Internationa... 3
| - https://www.adriancho.com/ 4 - https://www.davethomas.net/
| rzzzt wrote:
| Eclipse used the same "running man" icon for the "run" command
| until version 2.0, IIRC.
| maire wrote:
| Erich Gamma worked for Object Technology when VisualAge was
| being developed so using XP/Agile before the XP book does not
| surprise me.
|
| I worked with Erich before Visual Age when he developed the
| Presentation Framework. He came up with a process identical to
| XP. When XP came out I realized that Erich and Kent Beck were
| friends.
|
| Erich is so prolific that he doesn't remember everything he
| invented. He is also generous.
| osipov wrote:
| Erich is also one of the Gang of Four, the authors of the
| Design Patterns book. The fact that IBM did not recognize him
| as a Fellow and let him leave for Microsoft tell you a lot
| about why IBM's stock is in the gutter.
| g051051 wrote:
| VisualAge for Java was an amazing tool, far ahead of its time.
| blinkingled wrote:
| Yeah it was surprisingly polished and usable - I used it first
| around 1999 and there wasn't anything close to it at the time.
| g051051 wrote:
| It was based on their previous VisualAge for Smalltalk
| product, which was a really amazing and solid product as
| well.
| guenthert wrote:
| I particularly liked their handling of Java Beans. It not
| only created the stub code, but even after one filled in the
| blanks, the IDE could continue to modify the code using the
| GUI (e.g. connect different beans). Other IDEs at that time
| allowed you to only create the stub code and once you
| manually modified it, they were unable to assist you further.
|
| Seems others didn't quite appreciate this "visual
| programming" as much and the idea died out.
| sorokod wrote:
| Beg to differ, Symantec Visual Cafe was way better.
| blinkingled wrote:
| Possible, I never heard of it until now. How was it for
| server side development?
| pdevr wrote:
| I was lucky to see and work with this IDE in a real project, long
| after it stopped "existing". The company had code written using
| Visual Age, and it needed to be ported out of it. Wasn't too bad,
| considering how old it was.
|
| Now I look at VS Code (Disclaimer: I haven't looked at the source
| code of Electron), and there doesn't seem to be much innovation
| visually. Most IDEs seem to follow the layout of websites - a
| left sidebar, a main section, and an optional right sidebar, with
| a footer.
|
| Note: If someone here builds a different UI for IDEs, I will be
| an enthusiastic beta tester.
|
| Behind the user interfaces, a lot of things have changed for the
| better. Integration with other tools in the DevOps pipeline,
| ability to test quickly, autocomplete tools that understand
| frameworks, technologies and even contexts - all that has
| happened behind the scenes.
| madhadron wrote:
| > If someone here builds a different UI for IDEs, I will be an
| enthusiastic beta tester.
|
| The interface you're seeing is still alive and well in most
| Smalltalk environments. If you're on Windows, try Dolphin
| Smalltalk, which is now available for free.
| bdcravens wrote:
| "Thus, Java has the potential, at least, to break the hold that
| the hardware and operating system monoliths have on the computer
| world, and could make hardware and software tycoons like Steve
| Jobs and Bill Gates as obsolete in the 21st century as railway
| barons have become in the 20th."
|
| The author had an idea that while we laugh today, had a glimmer
| of truth - it was open source, and not Java itself, that ensured
| that "tycoons" didn't a have a stranglehold on the industry.
| mastazi wrote:
| Page seems to be temporarily down. Archive link:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210123172552/https://www.tug.c...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| There's a "Contact the Web Master" link. Also from 1997.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| An aside to this specific product, but unfortunately IMHO we have
| gone backwards in terms of being able to visually layout GUIs (at
| least in the mainstream).
|
| Regardless of the other merits of modern ecosystems, in terms of
| _purely visual layout of GUIs_ (WYSIWYG with drag & drop mouse
| interface IOW) I think:
|
| - '90s/'00s Java IDEs > Modern Java IDEs
|
| - Dreamweaver/Frontpage > Fast Refresh Cycle
|
| - Visual Basic > Modern .NET
|
| - Interface Builder > SwiftUI
| dvdkon wrote:
| I think the demise of WYSIWYG GUI builders was partly just it
| "going out of fashion", but also partly because of rising
| requirements for dynamic GUIs, meaning actually changing the
| layout programatically, but also things like arbitrary resizing
| and dynamically switching based on device type ("responsive"
| design).
|
| All of the popular 90s RAD design tools dealt with resizing as
| an afterthought, which made them obsolete in many cases and
| probably contributed negatively to the reputation of the whole
| class of software. Today's WYSISYG tools (I'd say as early as
| mid 2000s or even before) have certainly rectified these early
| mistakes, but I guess fashion moved on by then.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Motif, Windows Forms, WPF, Swing all support responsive
| design via layout managers, and the tools do support them.
|
| And there are such tools for Web development as well, however
| they are oriented for the target market that actually pays
| for such kind of tooling, for example
| https://www.outsystems.com/
| pjmlp wrote:
| Visual Basic == VB.NET with Windows Forms
|
| It isn't flashy, but it is still there. Did a project on it in
| 2016. Not that long ago.
| pulse7 wrote:
| I still have the original VisualAge for Java installation CD.
| Came from Smalltalk and wanted to have a similar IDE for Java.
| After initial releases IBM didn't make any new version for a long
| time... they built the Eclipse in "stealth mode" and released it
| as open-source... and made VisualAge for Java obsolete...
| alblue wrote:
| Me too :-)
|
| https://twitter.com/alblue/status/1266322655604588544?s=20
|
| I interviewed Mike Milinkovich about the VAJ->Eclipse
| transition in 2013:
|
| https://www.infoq.com/interviews/Milinkovich-past-present-fu...
| sorokod wrote:
| I remember it as a ponderous resource hog.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| "First, you'll have to consider the prerequisites, which are
| pretty significant, particularly for RAM. You'll need Windows
| 95 or Windows NT 4.0 or OS/2 Warp V4, an SVGA display, and, IBM
| says, 32MB of RAM (with 48MB recommended), at least 45MB of
| free disk space for the software (with an additional 30MB free
| disk space for swapping), and lastly, an unzip program"
|
| I think 32MB would have been about what a typical desktop would
| have come with in 1997, so yeah, it was a hog. I remember my
| manager buying extra memory for us and having us install it
| ourselves because he didn't want to wait for IT.
| nfrankel wrote:
| Funny to see that. I used it 20 years ago. Now I definitely feel
| my age...
| chopete3 wrote:
| VA for Java would have survived much longer had it not make a
| fundamental mistake. The complete project data, UI,
| configuration, classes, files, etc.,) was stored in a single
| file. That file appeared more like a database file. That helped
| it show errors in realtime, keep the project always accurate, and
| screen transitions slick. It was difficult for multiple
| developers to work in a single project. It was around the same
| time source control systems were becoming workplace tools and the
| concept of multiple developers working on a single file. In those
| days, it was not still possible for multiple developers (Visual
| SourceSafe) to work on a single file at a time
| nfrankel wrote:
| Definitely. I used it at my job and the registry (as it was
| called) was saved on a Windows network drive. As you can
| imagine, sometimes the network was not so reliable and the
| registry became corrupted. We had to copy the one of another
| developer and lost all our work in the process. Fun times!
| projektfu wrote:
| There were a few, e.g. StarTeam and CVS, that allowed
| concurrent development and merging.
| nathanwallace wrote:
| True. It was an incredibly powerful model, but developers like
| files they can see.
|
| I mentioned in my earlier comment a "hand-drawn diagram of the
| architecture" - it was in fact a picture of the exact layout of
| this database including all the pointer blocks etc between the
| classes, methods, versions, etc.
|
| One project I did was to convert that file format & pointer
| model to support larger database sizes of 16GB (IIRC). Fun
| exploring and updating that code. For testing I built a massive
| fake DB with random classes, methods, etc. The crazy thing was
| when that fake repo zipped down to almost nothing because it
| had so much repetition in the names!
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(page generated 2021-01-23 23:00 UTC)