Two-Tiered Morality

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NYTimes – Barbara Ehrenreich

Only a person of unblemished virtue can get a job at Wal-Mart ? a low-level job, that is, sorting stock, unloading trucks or operating a cash register. A drug test eliminates the chemical miscreants; a detailed “personality test” probes the job applicant’s horror of theft and willingness to turn in an erring co-worker.

…What has been revealed in corporate America over the past six months is a two-tier system of morality: Low-paid employees are required to be hard-working, law-abiding, rule-respecting straight arrows. More than that, they are often expected to exhibit a selfless generosity toward the company, readily “donating” chunks of their time free of charge. Meanwhile, as we have learned from the cases of Enron, Adelphia, ImClone, WorldCom and others, many top executives have apparently felt free to do whatever they want ? conceal debts, lie about profits, engage in insider trading ? to the dismay and sometimes ruin of their shareholders.

But investors are not the only victims of the corporate crime wave. Workers also suffer from management greed and dishonesty. In Wal-Mart’s case, the moral gravity of its infractions is compounded by the poverty of its “associates,” many of whom are paid less than $10 an hour.

Java Dead? Three articles…

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At ZDNet, there is an opinion piece must read titled Tempest in a Teapot. A brutal indictment of Java on the desktop.

In this NetworkWorldFusion article some of Java’s biggest names question it’s chances for survival, including a Boland survey of corporate bigwigs. Check out the related JavaLobby thread.

At TheServerSide you’ll find a flawed, but good read – J2EE to Oblivion?. Pay particular attention to the message board. via rebelutionary

Java is getting squeezed on two fronts. One, it’s never put forth a succesful desktop platform. Don’t talk to me about applets. They are cool. But that’s about it. And Swing is too hard for the Windows VB and Delphi influenced world. And too damn slow. Why no desktop compiler that optimizes performance for the platform? That won’t damage write once run anywhere. Idealism be damned. Why no VB like IDE? Now there *is* progress on that front, but maybe it’s too late. Two, you now have .NET attacking Java where it has found a huge degree of adoptance, server side apps, and it will surely be simpler and easier to use. J2EE is extrememly powerful, but complex.

No, I don’t think Java is dying. Far from it. But I hope to see some real progress made on those these fronts in the future. I really think the Java platform is becoming bloated, the focus has been to encompass as many functionalities in it’s APIs as possible, and if the focus would shift to the big fundamentals – ease of development, ease of deployment, and speed (on the desktop – server side apps are just fine thank you), well Java would be really kick ass and it’s future secure.