Being scared may be just the motivation they need to keep innovating, and potentially culling some more fat. They dropped notebook and some other services last year, which, while a bit crappy for those of us using those services, was probably ultimately a good move which freed resource to be better spent elsewhere.

As we're all fond of saying, MS tends to get things right on the third try (or just eventually). MS themselves got scared enough a few years back to actually put together a good search engine this time. Yeah, it took them awhile, but they've got a decent chance of becoming a good alternative to Google again. I've used Bing as my main search system for about 4 days after launch, and it was fine. I find myself alternating between google and bing about once per day now.

What if MS was able to use Bing to get back to a 30-40% search market share in the next few years? That would certainly change the dynamics of the search field again, and I think it would be changed for the better.

True, but a 1541 is at least original Commodore equipment.

This just reeks of desperation, to me. Five years ago I might have thought this a good idea, but damn if this just doesn't look like copying for copying's sake. There's already been some discussion of this around other sites, but here's a few issues off the top of my head:

* Consistency. Apple controls the hardware and software platforms, and will even now limit apps to certain platform versions (all new apps must be iPhone OS 3.0). Given that there's not a lot of consistency between various platforms that run "Java" (a cellphone, TV and a desktop, for example), this will end up being a logistical nightmare for Sun's QA/testing (assuming they do that) and a UI nightmare for people using the store.

* Limitedness. Sun likes to claim billions of Java 'installations' because of JavaME on cell phones. By and large, those aren't upgradeable. Additionally, many of the likely millions of desktops running Java aren't going to be candidates for upgrading or installing apps on due to Nor are many of the millions of desktops running Java in corporate environments. This seems to leave primarily the consumer/individusl and 'small business' market, which is what Apple targets for iPhone stuff. But even there, Apple's only focusing on an 'app store' for one piece of hardware, not an entire ecosystem.

Likely more details will emerge in the next few weeks, but this just feels like a JavaFX announcement - a copycat 'me too' announcement which is designed to get attention but ultimately won't go anywhere fast in the next year or so.

If it was limited to *only* work for Windows XP/Vista machines, for example, or just a new breed of televisions with embedded Java, I'd actually think it'd have a much more reasonable chance of success, especially as a first iteration of an 'app store'. But somehow I see Sun attempting to cover a much larger segment of the Java world right out of the gate, and I don't see that working.

I suspect it still doesn't have an outline mode.

From the new features page:

Outline levels within paragraphs

Writers of documents with complex ordering formats can now specify a new paragraph and paragraph style attribute "outline level". This transforms a normal paragraph into a heading, independent of any list style or paragraph style.

Almost looks like it might be it, but I doubt it. They'd have just said "outline mode" if that's what they meant. Perhaps in another 5-6 years OOo will have an outline mode?

I'm torrenting it right now to try, but it will still take a bit of time. Anyone who's installed it care to set me straight?

It's pronounced "newkyaler" - the S is silent.

# Insert optional configurations by project (and not by host);

-1 You can already do this via .htaccess sans security resourse limits which should be per host on shared hosting.

.htaccess only works under Apache, and then only in the context of a web request. If I'm working PHP shell scripts, .htaccess is useless to me.

They made it extensible with a standard port that hasn't changed too much over the years, and managed to get a bunch of other manufacturers to support it with extra gizmos and such (remotes, speakers, etc) from a very early point in the product's history. Anyone wanting to compete with ipods needs to have a plan for fwd hardware compatibility and a product ecosystem, not *just* focus on UI and 'features' in the product. One of the 'features' of an ipod is the ubiquity - any gadget I want has probably been fitted to work with the ipod already.

Doesn't seem to be an easy way to get biz connection. I've submitted forms a few times to them, which is (was?) the only way you can seem to contact them about getting a biz-class connection. They don't seem to want my business that much, but then, they don't really care. In my neighborhood, they're the only player for broadband. I live 4 miles from an Embarq regional headquarters building, and Embarq sees fit to send me glossy mailers to get me to sign up for DSL, *but they don't provide DSL service to my area*. They just provide annoying glossy mailer service. :/

http://www.igniterealtime.org/issues/browse/JM-1212

This bit me last year, and it's apparently still not fixed. :(

*THAT'LL SHOW 'EM!*

Oh wait, then Google News wouldn't have any content and no one would end up going to Google News anymore. Hrm...

For example, on a hung system where a poweroff like that might happen, your Firefox config file could be lost.

But, on a William Hung system, you might lose your 'shebangs'. That might be data loss we could all live with.

Define 'small team' - 5 people? 200? What's a 'small team' at Google?

The fact that Google makes such a big deal about only hiring the best and brightest and PhDs and such also indicates this isn't 'easy'. If it took a team of people who are regarded to be the best and brightest in their industry, with numerous PhDs on the team (or at least at their disposal on campus) *18 months* to do something (even part time) that still means that this is going to be a bigger issue for most companies.

Consider that the bulk of Google's apps that would need to be 'converted' have been written in the past 3-4 years (docs, maps, earth, etc.), and likely were written by people who put modularity and efficiency much higher than the average developer does (or is allowed to, in many cases) and you'll conclude that average developers who've inherited undocumented legacy code from previous average developers will have a much harder time than expected.

The core problem (as someone else pointed out) is consumer-level adoption - ISPs, routers, etc. It's somewhat chicken and egg, and perhaps having Google announce 100% support for it, this will give other players in the field the encouragement to put more effort in to transitioning over.

Lastly, why didn't Google (of all companies) bake IPv6 in to these main apps when they were first written?

I just haven't been able to justify the cost of moving to series 3 yet, and the netflix deal (and some other functionality) was only available for series 3 boxes. For something as basic as streaming or downloading a movie, series 2 should be fine (it was for amazon unbox, who, IIRC, cancelled unbox???).

Looking forward to learning more about this.

How do you "put it back"? I set up a custom theme in Gnome, then I 'try out' a new theme. It's just 'done'. I can't "go back" to my previous one.

So, use a compiled language and do web stuff. .Net and Java are two platforms that encourage compiled languages (groovy/ironpython/etc notwithstanding) and they're not going away any time soon.

Between Flash, client-side tech like google gears, html5 canvas and other progressive tech, 'web' development can be as advanced or as basic as you want it to be.

The OP was also concerned about 'commercial' development experience. It's going to be easier to get that, and get it fast, in the web dev arena (in most areas, anyway).

There will always be a niche for low-level stuff - hardware drivers, embedded systems, etc. - but that's clearly not where the future of professional/commercial software development lies. Telling the OP what you think they want to hear rather might not serve them well in the long run.