The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

My own VM

If I had created my own VM 10 years ago and started marketing it like .NET, would I be successful today? Or would I have to have had the languages to go with it?

Anon
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Yes, you would have been successful, and right now would be sipping margaritas at oceanside in Miami Beach. Too bad.

Angry Coder
Thursday, May 27, 2004

I don't know I think Pascal and VB also had some sort of VM. Well Java has one for sure.

A VM is just anything that compiles to bytecode? If so there have been a lot of them and only two populair (java & dotnet) and one semi (pascal)

blaZ
Thursday, May 27, 2004

VM's without any means of programming them were all the rage back then. If you had handeled the IPO right, you'd be rolling in it.

Just me (Sir to you)
Thursday, May 27, 2004

The AS/400 had a VM long before Sun or MS - and it was beautiful. Well, you see where that machine is now. Rest easy, the software development community doesn't give a wit about what's good. They only care that it's the same software they learned in freshman year. Why do you think Linux is so popular? Because some idiot made an OS that looks like the same crap (Unix) people learned as freshmen.

If you'd have made an elegant VM, it would be sitting on the dung heap of history along with most other beautiful software. Long live Linux!

anon
Thursday, May 27, 2004

So now linux, java, *and* .NET all suck? uh huh....

vince
Thursday, May 27, 2004

x86 is a VM given that:

-while the byte-code is standardized across multiple manufacturers, it is converted to vendor specific microcode in the core.

-x86 apps on processors made in the past two decades are sandboxed in protected mode, with effectively no access that isn't explicitly allowed by the ring 0 kernel.

So yeah, VMs are nice.

Dennis Forbes
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Yes, you would have been hugely successful and by now would be rich and retired. Look around at all the successful VM's that don't have languages associated with them. Why, there's... umm... uhh... well I just know there are plenty.

But not all is lost. You just need to look around and see what the next big thing is going to be in, say, five years. Develop a product around that idea and you'll be a tremendous success. The best part is that anyone can do this with relatively little effort with the techniques I have developed, which I will share for you for the modest sum of U.S. $195.

Should be working
Thursday, May 27, 2004

[quote]If I had created my own VM 10 years ago and started marketing it like .NET ... [/quote]<snip>

If you could market it like .NET you would already be filthy rich and it really wouldnt matter what it was or when you thought of it, or how good it was (sorry .NET ppl).

There have been 100's of VM's before .NET and Java and there will be 100's more.

The key to what you have written and the key to the riches is "marketing".

James
Friday, May 28, 2004

"Or would I have to have had the languages to go with it?"

Except .Net has languages that goes with it, and libraries, and a lot of documentation, and a lot of example code. You're comparing apples to oranges.

The .Net VM by itself - no languages, no libraries, no documentation, no examples - would be a total failure.

Oh yeah, it also helps to have the marketing might of a multibillion dollar company to push it along a bit, too.

Aaron F Stanton
Monday, May 31, 2004