With all this fuss about Java, all I can do is wistfully imagine what this world would be like if more people drank tea. Perhaps the pace of life would be slower, people would be kinder to each other on the roads, and civility would reign supreme in the workplace. But the major advantage to me would be that the new programming language about which everyone is making such a fuss wouldn't be named "Java" but would sport the more civilized appellation "Tea."
On a surface level, the difference wouldn't be that great. Everything would be based on the TDK specification (available for free from the TeaSoft Web site, www.teasoft.com). You would have such products as Visual T++, TDesigner Pro, TBuilder, TWorks, and TFactory. Inevitably there would be others, such as HighT, URLGray, and DarjTLing. Developers would write complex, interactive programs in Tea that could access databases with the help of TDBC. Entire applications would be assembled solely from TeaLeaves components, which industry analysts would praise for their excellent object features, small footprint, and positive effects on your overall system.
There would be some differences, however. For starters, the so-called Web time under the Tea regime (of course it would need to be renamed Tea Time) would slow to a crawl. Applet development would become a social event, preferably taking place around three o'clock each afternoon. And you could only let TeaLeaves components "brew" in your application for a brief period of time, after which they would need to be removed and discarded. Some thrifty developers might try to reuse TeaLeaves in another application, but their efficacy would be severely weakened.
This may sound like wasteful silliness, but you must admit: If there had been more tea drinkers employed at Sun Microsystems Inc., the entire face of Internet and Intranet application development would be very different today.