This is my essay.








When I become busy with work, I sometimes beguile myself by doing some another thing except my job. What kind of thing it is will depend upon each person. Some one would read books, or others would enjoy music. I was one of them to read historical or to enjoy classical music in the past. However, in these days, I enjoy making the homepage or programming of the personal computer.

If it was 20 years or 30 years ago, when we would hear the word of "programming", we would think of the FORTRAN or the COBOL, which are classical programming language. But nowadays programming language has been changed drastically. The recent programming language, such as Java which moves on the HTML document, is far easier to treat than the classical programming language, such as the FORTRAN or the COBOL. Java, one of the new programming languages, is just like as the digital camera. If only you would push the button, you could easily take a good photograph. It means that we could make up a program of certain level, without special kind of techniques or skills. If only we would collect and combine the necessary parts of the software, we could make up a program. How easy it is for us to make a program now! This is my frank impression. Of course we should have the minimum knowledge of HTML and Java. But to think of the difficulty of FORTRUN in 30 years ago, I think that the present HTML and Java are incredibly easy language.

I sometimes think of new idea about my home page. For example, as I had many photograph, I try to make up a new homepage, to show them, on which the photographs are changing automatically, like a slide show. I would start to research the specialized websites or web articles through Internet. Then I could find some software or parts of program in public domain, which I need to make the homepage. I downloaded them and install them into my home page. I can complete it immediately, without special technique. How easy it is!

After the installation, I make it run. However it sometimes happens that the program suddenly stopped on the way. Why.... This is the time for me to make use of my brain. After I checked the whole program, I found that there was a bug. I should put ".", instead of ",". Because of this only one tiny mistake, my program stopped. I corrected the wrong part of the program from ",jpg" to ".jpg". Now I try it run again. Nice! It worked well. No problem. In our daily life, the difference of dot and comma is not always a big mistake. However at least the program is concerned, this stops all flow of program. In this field, this is a fatal mistake. This inefficiency has not been changed since the beginning of the history of the program. Anyway as my program worked, I am so satisfied. This is the pleasure of making a program. This program has the mechanism in which various kinds of photographs flies around freely on a screen. As too many photographs are flying around, I am about to feel dizzy. If I would click the screen, I could watch the each photograph of big sized. There is a limit that we can see only 20 photographs at the same time. However we could see another 20 photographs, if only I would click a certain button.

The recent parts of program are designed very well and are easy to attach to the main program. And that it took quite a short time for us to complete. This experience made me remind of the plastic model in my school days. The same thing happens now.
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When I was a schoolchild, making a model was in fashion among boys. Every school boys are making the wooden model of ship, tank, etc., most of which were awkward or poor. These boys were so eager to make them by taking lots of time and money. However exactly on that time, a plastic model was born and appeared on the market. It had a character that we could make such model as any kinds of feature in a shortest time. In addition, the completed model was more beautiful than the hand-made model. So I wanted to buy the plastic model. As it was rather expensive, a schoolboy could not buy it so easily by his pocket money. Under such difficult situation, I still could manage to buy the long-awaited plastic model of submarine. I was very happy and started to assemble it. I could make it in only about ten minutes. Because my expectation was too big, I felt as if I was cheated. Soon I lost my interest on the plastic model.

Apart from my old memory as above, returning to the present hobby of making homepage, I think I am doing the same thing as I did in my school days. Well, as I could manage this slide show, I will make the small icon, which moves itself..... Before that I will have to make the smallest icons using ten photographs. All right. I finished. As the next step, I make ten gif pictures. OK. Then I will combine these pictures to one animation picture. I let the animation move. I think it moves about too much all over a small screen. In that sense this is not a perfect one. However at least it will be recognized as an icon. So I should be satisfied of it.

After finishing assembling the icon in my homepage, it is the stage whether uploading these to my homepage address. I finished uploading. I will open my Website. At first I click a favorite and I am wondering whether my new home page would be successful or not. I named the new homepage as "the flying cover photographs". I found it moved well and no problem at all. The photographs are flying here and there. When I click the triangle mark, these photographs are flying aslant. When I make use of the mouse, photographs are responding its' movement. If I click the globe mark, photographs begins to rotate. I think I have done it successfully. OK. Perfect!

However, just after I was satisfied, the serious problem arose. When I was about to close the Internet Explorer of a browser, the screen became blue at once, the white character appeared, and it disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. That is, Windows XP has been forced to terminate. It rose again automatically in the meantime, and "This system has recovered from serious damage. Are you going to report to the Microsoft? " popped up. And after finishing the transmitting a report to the Microsoft, a new screen will come out and it states that "A concrete cause cannot be specified although a device driver is the cause." What is this? How come this kind of problem would occur in my PC?

I was so embarrassed to face this problem. Although I checked the program eagerly for solving it, I could not find out the cause. On that day I finally gave it up. Next day I check my homepage with another personal computer. Surprisingly there was no problem for me to see the flying cover photograph page. It moves very well and even if I closed the Website, nothing strange happened. I concluded that this strange phenomenon would occur only using my personal computer. So I just left it for a while. However, it is very inconvenient for me that I myself can not open my own homepage. Therefore I started to scrutinize the cause. This phenomenon is seen only the time when the new Java Applet moves by Internet Explorer. Therefore, seemingly it is the problem of the Java Applet. I therefore carried out the research. I applied cross-reference using the word "Java" and "Microsoft" Then, I found out unexpected fact.

According to an article, "Microsoft stopped supporting Java on and after February 3, 2003." First of all, Java is a programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems, which does not depending upon OS or hardware. Microsoft had made use of Java by contracting with Sun Microsystems. However, Microsoft is the company, which has raised the great profit by supplying OS of Windows monopolistically. If the program independent of such an OS would spread, the monopolistic status would be jeopardized. Therefore it is said that Microsoft realized this fact and developed the same kind of program as Java. Sun Microsystems appealed against this claiming that it was breach of a contract, and the trial started in 1997. This is first Java war. As the result, Microsoft admitted the claim and the trial ended by paying 20 million dollars from Microsoft to Sun Microsystems. It happened in November, 1998. And after the contract expired, Microsoft abandoned the contract. Seemingly, it brought a result of "Being stopped supporting Java". So to speak, it is called the by-blow of Java war.

I am not sure whether this article was right or not. But I thought that I understood very well. I investigated further and I found that I could get Java plug-in, which moves Java through the homepage of Sun Microsystems on a browser. The name of the Java plug-in is "Java 2 Runtime Environment SEv 1.42_03". I soon downloaded and installed it. I opened my homepage of the flying cover photograph. I succeeded. My personal computer has not been forced to terminate.

Anyway, the struggle between international big companies had influenced my small personal computer. Although it is a small incident starting from the small program, it was closely related to the monopoly problem of Microsoft. From the micro world to the big issue it was. How difficult and interesting the personal computer is!



(Sequel)

Since this issue, I have raised the concern about Java. I have downloaded various Java Scripts from various homepages focusing on a photograph collection. These Java Applet and Java Script had made my homepage more attractive and beautiful. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to these authors of Java, such as Mr. Tomyam, Ms. Nakagawa etc. Now I am on the way of studying the software. If there would be no Java, I dare to say that my homepage would be very boring one. As the programming is very theoretical, it is similar to making legal articles.

By the way, even if the same "Java", in fact, there are two kinds, "Java" and "Java Script". We sometimes mix these both up. Although neither is dependent on OS and language structure, the circumstances of development completely differ from the company which developed. Java is a programming language similar to C++, which Sun Microsystems developed. By attaching to this the small application "Applet", we can operate it. Java Applet needs a class file (.class). We usually insert the tag in a HTML document. The style of the tag is "<APPLET code="...">...</APPLET> " However, Java Applet needs to be compiled and takes time to operate. So nowadays Java Applet is not so frequently used as Java Script.

On the other hand, the Java Script is the script language which Netscape and SunSoft developed jointly. We can make it easily using a simple word processor. Of course, we need not to do "compile" work. The tag in the HTML document is "<SCRIPT type="text/javascript">... </SCRIPT>". Since we can easily treat the Java Script, this one is often used.

(February 14, 2004/ May 16. added)




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Essay of My Wonderful Life

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