I Can't Sit Down
By Michael Swaine
Finally! We can really wake up and smell the coffee. That would be #FF60C0 in RATML (Real Aroma Text Markup Language), a proposed (realaroma.com/) extension to HTML for encoding olfactory data.
Pending approval of RATML by w3.org, Java would become the only programming language with an official smell; that is, if Java==java==coffee, an identification for which I think the grounds are strong. The Java phenomenon certainly has that jitteriness that is one of the two well-known consequences of consuming too much coffee. Some Java-derived product names, like Roaster, are also apt; and there's that fellow named Valdıs who contributed to our June 1996 issue....
There's also Mocha, Hanpeter van Vliet's controversial decompiler for Java (www.brouhaha.com/~eric/computers/mocha.html). You might think it would be called "Decaf," but as the author has explained (at java.motiv.co.uk/mocha.htm) "Mocha" is really quite apt.
Of course, with an average lifespan of a URL being 44 days, the whole Web is pretty caffeinated. But for my nickel, Java is the real joe.
Is the name "Java" itself a stimulant? I have to wonder about that alternate universe in which Java kept its original name, "Oak." In that universe, is the Oak phenomenon slowly taking root, growing massive (but knotty) branches, dropping its seeds everywhere? And do developers in that universe imagine us as a bunch of fidgety kids who just can't sit down?
Not sitting down has an undeservedly bad reputation.
