IBM VisualAge for Java: Idiot-Savant at Large... minus the "Savant" part

by Christopher B. Wright

Recently, the development team for IBM's VisualAge for Java announced that they would no longer be developing their product for OS/2. Here is an excerpt of a post sent to one of IBM's newsgroups concerning this decision (this information was first reported on OS/2.org):

IBM won't ship VisualAge for Java 3.5 for OS/2.
This clarification was sent to the newsgroup
ibm.software.vajava.non-technical 2000-06-30:

The OS/2 operating system is recommending that developers move to a platform neutral
environment for the deployment of e-business applications by mid next year. Based on this
decision, the VisualAge for Java team had very strong discussion about developing a 3.5 for
OS/2 or not. I was part of the discussion. It seemed reasonable to not deliver a product that
will be obsolete by mid next year. I am sure a lot of you will disagree. What we want is for
you to be able to work on your platform of choice and to support you. If OS/2 decides you
should migrate, why should our team say something else. I understand you do not agree with the
OS/2 decision of asking you to migrate. What I do not understand is why are you blaming the
decision of not providing a tool.

Knowing that, I believe the OS/2 will help each of us successfully migrating to another
platform. And once again I will be frank. If you decide to migrate to a non IBM development
environment because of that, I will be sad, I will understand your decision and I will wish
you good luck in the future. If you decide to use VisualAge for Java we will make sure we
support everything you do. OS/2 is still supported as a deployment environment with remote
debug and EMSRV.

When I read this I found myself terribly confused. IBM claims that it has said clearly that it continues to support OS/2, only that it wants people to move to a "platform neutral environment." Supposedly this means that it doesn't care about your operating system, so long as you're using tools - like Java - that can run on all the platforms IBM supports. This seems like a reasonable interpretation, even a logical one.

That's not the interpretation the VisualAge team used, however.

What kind of interpretation did they use? Well, I try to imagine the meeting that took place where this decision was made, and in my mind, it goes a bit like this:

Manager: "Guys, IBM wants everyone to move to a platform neutral environment. So we need to stop developing Visual Age for Java for OS/2."

Developer: "Why's that?"

Manager:: "Because OS/2 is not a 'neutral platform.' If IBM is only supporting neutral platforms, then we can't support OS/2, because OS/2 is not neutral, it's OS/2."

Developer: "But OS/2 runs Java, which is a neutral platform."

Manager: "Yes, but VisualAge for Java doesn't run under Java, it only creates Java programs. So it's not really platform-neutral either, but I don't want to stop developing VisualAge for Java, because that's my job. Instead, we'll just stop developing VisualAge for Java for OS/2."

Developer: "But if we stop providing that tool, OS/2 users won't be able to create platform-neutral applications."

Manager: "Then they'll have to migrate to an environment that is platform-neutral, like Linux or Windows."

Developer: "But Linux and Windows aren't platform-neutral! I mean, it's not like you can run a Linux application on a Windows machine..."

Manager: "I don't have time to listen to this. I have things to do. Right now I'm going to cover my ears and run into that wall over there as fast as I can, over and over again, until I pass out."

Now I can't swear that the conversation went exactly like that - but I'm almost positive about that last line.