<OT> Some interesting java news

[Joel Hammer]

This from the Wall Street Journal. (It requires $$ registration, so I
pasted it below.)

Joel

Sun Shines on Mars

Mars rotates around the Sun, but geeks at Sun are dancing in circles
over their pivotal role in the latest expedition to the Red Planet.

Let's face it, the folks at Sun Microsystems have not had much to
celebrate the last couple of years. But when the six-wheeled Mars rover
"Spirit" landed on the planet's frigid surface last week, a cheer could
be heard from Sun's base on earth in Santa Clara, Calif.

The scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena rely on
Sun's Java software to control the rover on Mars some 100 million miles
away. Java -- a programming language designed to generate applications
that can run on all hardware platforms without much modification -- was
used by NASA for its control systems on the ground. The software's open
and flexible qualities were a good fit for the myriad applications and
network protocols required to build a system that allows a robotic buggy
to be steered and maneuvered on the surface of another planet, says Sun
Chief Technology Officer James Gosling.

To see Java, which is used in mobile phones and millions of Web browsers
back on earth, make its mark on Mars is certainly a proud moment for
Gosling, who is sometimes referred to as the "father of Java." But for
the Sun scientist and NASA adviser, the pleasure has been all his.
Gosling says he watches in awe at the scope and challenges that the
space agency's engineers face. "I was just impressed as hell. These
things they do are just at the bleeding hairy edge of human capability,"
Gosling says.

Too often, NASA gets rapped for its failures while its many success are
taken for granted. Gosling says he tries to apply lessons learned at
NASA to such things as quality control and product development at Sun.
What's more, if he were ever to get bored with his job at Sun, NASA's
Jet Propulsion Lab would be one of the first places to which he would
apply. Says Gosling: "They work on things that most people consider
science fiction."

Back on earth, Sun's shares also have lifted off, surging over 20%, to
around 5.40 by Friday. The stock got a boost Thursday when Banc of
America Securities analyst Steve Bachman raised his rating to Buy from
Neutral, owing to Sun's plan to introduce servers with Advanced Micro
Devices' new 64-bit microprocessor and the revival in tech spending.