Java inventor James Gosling says he isn't losing much sleep over Microsoft these days, despite the software giant's effort to stem Java's popularity with its own Java-like language. The next battle in Web services software development pits Microsoft against Java creator Sun Microsystems, along with Java adherents IBM, Oracle and others. Crucial to Microsoft's effort is C#, a Java-like language that will soon be part of the company's new Visual Studio.Net package of software-development tools, which was released to developers Wednesday. Gosling, a Sun vice president, is dismissive of C# but admits he and others at Sun initially "panicked" when they learned of the language.
"The trite answer is, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery--thank you very much,'" he said this week. "But the other answer is, 'You guys (at Microsoft) still don't get it,' because it's sort of Java with reliability, productivity and security deleted."
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