SAN MATEO (11-06-95) - Telescript is back. Maybe General Magic Inc. will make a go of it this time. Last time, back when personal digital assistants (PDAs) were smaller than their wireless modems, PDAs used Telescript for their on-line services. I pooh-poohed wireless back then, and I was right. But I've been wrong so far thinking that Telescript, General Magic's interpreted language for network agents, is the next big thing in client/server computing.
Maybe I'll eventually be right about Telescript, especially now that it's solving problems on the World Wide Web. Or maybe I've actually been talking the whole time about Java, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s interpreted language for Web applets.
The Web has problems that Telescript and Java can solve. For one, the Web is now mostly noninteractive browsing of read-only Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) by, well, mouse potatoes. For another, Web browsers turn your 100-MHz 32-bit PCs into 3270-like dumb HTML terminals. And for a third, the Web forces us to poll a growing number of bookmarked URLs, so we can pull in important information when it changes.
Thanks mainly to HTML forms, the Web is becoming interactive. And thanks mainly to various downloadable Web viewers, the Web has been taking better advantage of your PC's computing power. Recently, viewers have become applets downloaded on the fly for execution on your PC.
Sun's Java applets and General Magic's Telescript agents are both written in interpreted object languages for network computing. Now that Java is hot, many have been asking, who needs Telescript?
In short, while Java solves the problem of your PC not having enough to do while you browse the Internet, Telescript gets the Web smart about what interests you and when to update you on it. Whereas Java is for programming applets that are downloaded for execution on browsing client PCs, Telescript is for programming agents that are uploaded from client PCs into network servers.
Having noticed the excitement that the Web and Java are generating, General Magic has reintroduced Telescript. It just held a Telescript developer's conference in San Jose, Calif., at which the company handed out alpha versions of the Telescript Development Platform.
This platform includes the Telescript interpreter for Unix but, sadly, not one for Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh, OS/2, Amiga, CP/M, or the 1401. You can get the Telescript language, source-level debugger, and TCP/IP facilities on CD-ROM and at http://www.genmagic.com.
So far, there is only one Telescript-enabled Web server at General Magic, which makes it hard to justify developing Telescript agent software. And there are no Telescript agent applications, which makes it hard to justify Telescript servers.
General Magic's plan for breaking this deadlock had better not be to rely on the huge companies with which it has formed partnerships so far. Apple Computer Inc., AT&T, Matsushita, Motorola, Philips LMS, and Sony Corp. have so far failed to bring Telescript into the big time.
Many small software developers have been excluded from Telescript's action to date, and so, predictably, there hasn't been much software hitting the market.
General Magic needs to get its Telescript interpreter in Mosaic and Netscape servers; in some unified development system with Java; in every Unix, Windows NT, and OS/2 server; and on both the client and server sides of Microsoft's Network OLE. Arranging for all these corporate partnerships to smooth the process of uploading and downloading software is going to take some pretty magical wheeling and dealing.
Now, loading software up and down among clients and servers has a lot in common with sneezing on someone else's dinner plate. Java and Telescript both have the problem that applets and agents might infect your PCs and servers with unhealthy software. Both companies say that since their applications interpret object code, they can scan the software and protect your system. Java and Telescript have the same credibility problems Netscape's encryption barriers do. Beyond that, they have to explain how an applet or agent can do anything useful without access to important resources.
Safe computing will eventually involve the encryption-based authentication of software sources -- analogous to a picture ID with attached medical history. In the meantime, if you insist on downloading a lot of software written by strangers, back up often and don't use your PC for anything really important.
(Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet in 1973 and founded 3Com Corp. in 1979. He receives e-mail at bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com via the Internet.)
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