The purpose of this section is to provide a forum for our readers to voice their opinions and thoughts on issues related to OS/2. If you have an observation, concern, gripe or compliment regarding something, please feel free to send them to the OS/2 CONNECT editor for inclusion in this section, at: Title & Publisher or complete the form at the bottom of this page.
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In response to your January 1999 Editorial: I think your faith in Java, IBM, and the DoJ are greatly misplaced. The OS/2 community needs to move more towards the Linux mentality: i.e., stop worrying so much about what IBM is doing and focus more on we as developers and users are doing.
Regarding Java: IMHO every writer pontificating about Java should be required to disclose, in a footnote, whether he or she has personally written any substantial (say >1000 lines of code) Java programs. I recently wrote such a program for a client-- a substantial but essentially straightforward app which periodically polls a site for news updates-- and found Java to be an absolute nightmare.
Simple things like chained dialogs (one dialog has a button which brings up another dialog, etc.) did not work at all prior to the most recent releases, and there are still problems. The threading model is inconsistent and buggy. When I would finally get something working on OS/2, it didn't work or behaved differently on Windows 95. So much for, "Write once, run anywhere." I finally had to give up on some features and hand the project over to a more experienced Java developer - and now he's having problems.
For the record, I consider myself a pretty competent programmer. I have over 10 years of software development experience - mostly C/C++, but many other languages also. It is very unusual that I just cannot figure out how to implement something - and these were not exotic features. (I had no trouble writing the equivalent app as a native OS/2 PM program.)
So I would take IBM's Java obsession with a grain of salt. Ditto for this silly "Workspace on Demand" concept. The latter seems to spring from some atavistic instinct whereby IBM still thinks of computer users as clones and drones who just want to feed off of a central host. This is exactly opposite from the concept of individuality which has fueled the tremendous PC revolution. With hardware prices steadily declining, the idea that people want to move back to 1950's style computing in order to save $100 on a hard drive is just laughable.
I'm not too concerned about the lack of a Warp 5 client. I have the Aurora beta and will be testing it soon. The main features I care about are the SMP support and >512Mb memory space. I think either IBM will release this functionality via FixPaks or some clever 3rd party developer will patch it in.
I look at OS/2 as both an outstanding OS and a tremendously fun research project. The most frustrating thing about OS/2 is that despite its strengths, it has some obvious things which need fixing and IBM seems totally indifferent to making these fixes. But again, the right approach is to work on developing it ourselves and stop worrying so much about IBM.
I still support the idea of an updated Warp 5. I just recently bought an HP 300 Mhz machine and wanted a better system than Win98. Warp needs to be updated to handle the new videos and large hard drives without having to go back and manually change your installation disks.
I should think this shouldn't be difficult. While they are at it they should develop the programs so that Win95 stuff runs under OS2 (assuming that any of it is worth using). It appears that some folks are working on it but with IBM muscle behind it, maybe it would go faster. I hope IBM is listening!!
In the past I have stated how the OS/2 community could come together. I have been off the Net for a while, busy with projects at work, but I wanted to share something with you, the OS/2 community. My manager wanted to migrate the 85 users I support from OS/2 to NT, primarily because the users wanted Office 97 compatibility. I explained to him this could be achieved by giving them a product that could either meet or exceed the Office Suite. He accepted my challenge. Thus another victory in the OS/2 arena.
I simply stated to him, since he uses UNIX also, "do you try to find MS products for your UNIX workstation???" Of course his reply was "No."
Then I asked him, "Then why are you trying to find MS Products for OS/2???"
I made a few suggestions regarding the Office Suites, and pointed him to the attached URL's where he also found that our organization was not the only one still using the King of Stability, OS/2.
Case in point.....
If you want something that works, don't go with the flow, find what your looking for; if you want apps for OS/2, look for them. They are there. Kudos to the two site web masters.
The 13th Floor - The OS/2 Alternative
http://www.tstonramp.com/~freiheit/os2apps.shtml
LOS2CL - Company Listings that use OS/2
http://rover.wiesbaden.netsurf.de/~meile/los2cl.html
I don't know what the future has in store for OS/2 users, but I hope that JAVA keeps OS/2 alive, well, and growing.
I have been an OS/2 user since WARP 3.0 and the reason was, the hope that JAVA would really shoe-horn the MS operating system (and applications) right out of my computer.
The amazing thing is, after all this time, my home business continues to grow based on my OS/2 based system. All my computer cartoons are generated with OS/2 native applications. I consider myself lucky that I don't need more, but even so, I'm confident I could acquire more native applications for OS/2 than ever before.
I guess most people just don't realize they had other choices due to lack of good marketing.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I have made a link from my OS/2oons Cartoon Webpage to OS/2 CONNECT. I get many hits on my webpage from 32BitsOnline. I'm hoping that visitors will take the time to explore OS/2. I figure I can lasso more visitors into OS/2 this way.
Keep up the good work and enjoy the new year!
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