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Industry Leaders Discuss Java Status Quo
Posted by
michael
on Tue Jun 24, 2003 01:00 PM
from the two-lumps-with-cream dept.
from the two-lumps-with-cream dept.
prostoalex writes "JavaPro magazine published a wrap-up report on Java discussions at the recent JavaOne. If you missed JavaOne, the video Webcasts of McNealy, Schwartz, Gosling et al. are available from this site. The round table mentioned above gathered people from Sun, Oracle, Borland, Novell, Motorola and others. The discussion topics included: Java vs. NET, integration issues, the impact of open source and top problems that Java is facing today."
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Enough! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Enough! (Score:4, Funny)
I thought this sounded familiar. It's the lyrics from that old Ink Spots song. Java Jive. [amazon.com]
Java script,
Java bean,
Java jive,
Java swing
Java status quo?
Java gotta go!
Go cat go!
Parent
Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying that everybody needs to stop contributing their pet projects to the communal good, but maybe the deal doesn't need to be made sweeter for these scummy companies that are building cheap foreign and selling expensive domestic. I'm starting to think that (L)GPLv3 should involve a clause invokable by the author of a project so covered that it not be used in any commercial application whether source is included or not.
The biggest irony is when movie companies using Free Software turn around and lobby our government to harm users of Free Software. This free ride shit has got to stop, there.
Parent
Re:Microsoft should have owned them a long time ag (Score:3, Funny)
Monoculture produces great minds, like yours!
You - and Mr. Gates - are quite welcome to whaterver is left, after the pursuit of your brilliant agenda.
Make JavaOne Open Source! (Score:3, Funny)
We need to be more agressive in building the respect and visibility of Java in the corporation. Only by doing so can we establish the necessary paradigm to determine the direction that the IT world, nay, the society in general has to take.
It makes me mad when I look across the look and see the cookie-cutter drones that spout Windows drivel without questioning their origins and more importantly their destinies.
Why must we live such a drab and empty existence? Why can't we challenge authority figures and build a better tomorrow. Not by force, mind you, but by knowledge. It is the only way to world peace.
So in summary, if you don't support Java, you're against world peace.
Re:What are you thinking?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Or is this just an opinion?
Re:Make JavaOne Open Source! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) JVM is an open specification (how you implement it and whether that is open or closed is up to you) There are many JDK's/JVM's that you can use to run Java programs other than Sun's (IBM, Kaffe, or whatever the open source one is (and I'm sure there are more than just that, etc)
2) You get the source code for all of the classes/libraries that come with java when you download Sun's JDK. These include the core classes like java.lang.String, etc, etc. The only thing missing, as stated above is the source code for the compiler/interpreter and other tools.
3) There are open source JVM's (i.e. kaffe, etc) although I've found them to be lacking, but they'll get there
So the argument that Sun has control of Java is moot, you can build/run/install and entire Java application without ever touching Sun tools.
Is Java/JVM totally free? Depends who you ask. Its free/open enough for me, personally, but I can see how some open source fanatics can get their panties in a bunch over this.
Also, unlike M$ products, I think the design of Java's classes shows insight, and well thought out design, so in a way I for one am for Sun keeping a bit of control over the language and "core" classes, but thats my opinion of course.
Parent
Java Status Quo (Score:4, Funny)
import music.blues.12bars;
public void static main(){
and.I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It).I.Like(It);
Here(We).go(o);
Rocking.all.over.the.(World);
}
Re:Java Status Quo (Score:4, Funny)
int MAX_CHORDS = 3;
Parent
Hey They Mentioned Me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I started out not knowing anything but ms products- learned VB in school and landed my first job writing database apps. As I learned more, and my employer's needs grew- we started realizing that MS was too expensive and we looked for alternatives.
Now we use linux and open source tools. I am learning to handle a system and use software that has been built by the open source community. I've even tweaked some code here and there for our own purposes.
While all this has been going on- I've been trying to look to the future and work on some projects of my own. I really wanted to learn a language that would be portable, and have good tools I could afford. I've finally opted to go with Java.
Java seems the simplest way to be able to work cross platform and have access to sufficient resources without having to shell out big bucks. In fact my development platform right now is a RedHat box with eclipse and Sun's JDK. I'm about 2 months into what I hope will be a long relationship. I think the article is right in that what is good for Linux is also very good for Java.
Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I'm a C++ person myself and totally agree that you can write tighter and faster apps using C/C++. However, if you MUST have a portable *GUI* application (ie. Win and Lin), Java really does make things very very easy for those without C/C++ backgrounds.
Parent
You can make a portable C++ app. (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows: MFC front end, C++ back end
Linux: gtk front end, same C++ back end
OS X: obj c front end, same C++ back end
It's more work but every platform has nuances that users like. Unless it's a true native app your users will generally not like it. As my boss says "Make it pretty first, that's what sells. Make it work next." Unbelieveable but true.
Re:You can make a portable C++ app. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, it's about static languages. Never mind.
Parent
Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! (Score:5, Informative)
You can find it here [sourceforge.net]
It can be run as an applet or application. (Something else I like is how easily you can move java to web stuff and vice versa) I run it as an application. It works well. And it didn't do everything just the way I wanted- so now I am fixing it to do just what I need. (that's an open source thing more than a java thing- but I love it) My IDE- Eclipse, is also a Java app that works well, on both platforms by the way. It does not seem slow or buggy to me.
Parent
Re:Hey They Mentioned Me! (Score:3, Informative)
I used Borland's JBuilder 4 on Linux at my last job four years ago for all of my developement with fantastic results.
Most of the developers at my company use Eclipse [eclipse.org] for their development, a pure java IDE that beats the pants off of any other IDE I've used or seen. The only reason I don't use it is because of the lack of VI keybindings, I use good ol' Vim [vim.org] instead.
The point it moot anyway, Java really shines in the Enterprise side.
Missed opportunities (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Missed opportunities (Score:4, Insightful)
That quote does not imply that C# is even starting to catch up with whatever lead Java has in developer base.
I think Java has many flaws and weaknesses, but I also think it has more than delivered on its goal to be the successor to the platforms that preceeded it.
Larry
Parent
Re:Missed opportunities (Score:3, Interesting)
It was never meant to be the best language possible, it was meant to be better than C++ (and honestly, how hard is that!?). A language with which you can develop mostly boring software using lots of mediocre, exchangable developers in a half-way predictable amount of time. A limited, but not too confusing step up from what everybody used back then in the early nineties in the direction of what smart people have
Re:Missed opportunities (Score:5, Interesting)
You're looking at this the wrong way. Try this phrasing instead: "Microsoft is losing half of it's VB developers to Java, rather than having them move to C# [or VB.net]".
Also, remember that C#/CLR is little more than warmed-over Java/JVM with the Microsoft label - it's not as though it's actually a different product...other than not being cross platform that is. ;-)
Java may well continue to be quite successful even though it has under-delivered, but that could mean little with C#, .NET, and whatever else comes out of Redmond. Does Java have enough momentum to thrive?
Will the 'whatever else comes out of Redmond' run on anything besides Windows? If not, Java will have a strong niche for the foreseeable future. Personally, I think Java and the JVM will outlive C# and the CLR. On the other hand, there is nothing preventing someone from coming out with a Java implementation for the CLR...
Java has the momentum to thrive, not just survive. Red Hat's recent offer to support an open-source implementation may prove to be another positive inflection point for Java....we'll see.
One thing that is very positive for Java - it is widely used in educational curricula, especially at the university level. That is a huge advantage over .Net.
Parent
I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does anyone use Java, ever? In what situation does it offer anything that justifies the pain and inconvience that it incurs?
Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?
Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application?
Can you think of a single problem domain where Java offers greater portability than the competition? Standard C, C++ or Python (depending on your desired level of abstraction) are just as portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform. And programs written in these languages just fit in, they find their libraries without fuss, they start up rapidly (in comparison) instead of seemingly spawning an OS within an OS.
I've felt this way about Java since the moment I first tried it, and I'm still at a loss. I just don't get why so many people decide that Java is the solution for them.
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I am a significant contributor to the audio editor Audacity [sf.net]. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It uses cross-platform libraries to do:
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trying to defend my choice but rather- just answering your question by describing what happened to me.
All the code I had written outside the classroom- prior to a couple months ago was written in VB6. That is what I get paid to do. As I've learned more, read more, and dealt with things like MS licensing for a company app that exceeded the cost of the server it ran on by a large margin, I've decided that I want to move to tools that don't leave me depending on MS.
I took a c++ class at a community college- I learned how to write stuff that ran from the command line. It was cool but I wanted to see the kind of progress I had working with VB. Writing GUI based apps in C++ was in a word daunting.
At the same time, working on a project to move a group of people at my company off of windows to linux, I needed to start working with an App written in Java. I found that I could do GUI work that ran on linux and windows with the same code.
Yes it took me a few tries to get things to run on each system. But I only had to figure it out once.
To be frank- and this may get a negative reaction- but if I didn't read
Java is accessible, launches you quickly into results that are enjoyable and runs on both platforms without too much effort.
And once again my disclaimer-- I'm not interested in arguing why Java is or is not better. As someone new looking to move away from something that has grown undesirable- Java has attracted me the most. This article encouraged me - because my one concern was- "will java be around for a while". I think so.
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:3, Interesting)
A big part of the "allure" of JAVA has to do with the history of your average programmer.
The typical programmer used to go to collage where they learned C / FORTRAN / COBOL or if they were lucky, mabye PASCAL. Then they went into industry where they solved a problem, wrote an app, and all was well. That is, until the bugs came rolling in. Somewhere between fixing the bugs, including new features, interfacing with the new library x.so (o
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
[background: I work in technology for the financial centres in London]
None of these are really technical reasons for Java being good at anything, but the combination allows enterprises to hire people easily, not have to cross-train them, and to get products out the door (usually within their own environment).
None of the places I've consulted at use Java extensively on the desktop. Mostly it's used for back-end work. Front end is Microsoft / web, with a little Swing occasionally.
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you actually tried writing a serious app in Java? Having worked on big apps in C, C++, and Java, I've liked it a great deal.
Of course, I don't really do GUI stuff much, and don't really care so much about how good the GUI is. That's someone else's problem.
I also feel like you're understating the requirements to get a typical C program running. You seem to have used well-packaged other programs and badly-packaged Java, but that's just a packaging problem. I've certainly had my share of C etc. prog
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:5, Funny)
Please allow me to translate
> Dear Mr. Moderator, please mod this up. I realize that it is posted every single time that slashdot posts an article on java, but this time it's serious. thanks.
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
- Enterprise Applications - The vast majority of the performance costs of Java occur at start time, when HotSpot is just starting up. Once you get the app up and running (like, for example, on a server), the difference in performace is usually negligable. This is especially true if you are a decent Java developer and understand what Java does well and what it doesn't.
- Embedded devices - There are hundreds of millions of Cell Phones, PDA's, and smartcards out there today that are running Java. Each make and model can have a different processor, memory size, display, etc...but your Java application will run on all of them.
- Web-Deployed applications - The ability to push an application out onto the web via a Java Applet or Webstart application, and have it run on every machine in your company, can save millions of dollars when deploying to a large orginization. Java is able to do this in a way that is reliable and secure.
Are you going to use Java to write a Windows desktop application? Probably not. But how many new Windows desktop apps are there left to write? That's why there are more developers using Java than any other language.Parent
desktop apps is not the only software development (Score:4, Interesting)
then, to justify...
Can you think of even one Java application that you use on your desktop and like?
You're assuming that desktop applications is the only applications being developed. You are incorrect.
Java is a powerful server side development language. Ever heard of J2EE? This is an entire framework, complete with a component protocol, called JavaBeans. Other protocols provided or supported by J2EE allow the J2EE server components ( called containers ) to provide services to the web applications it runs. Or maybe you're heard of JSP, aka Java Server Pages? Which is much like PHP on steriods. An HTML embedded scripting language
J2EE standard has been honored reasonabley well in the industry, with much of the J2EE components built easily moved from one application server to the other.
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:3, Insightful)
I've used Java from day one, loved it, and use it everyday in my career. It's changed a lot from when it first came out and my love for it has only increased.
People like me, who love Java, tend to do so because
a) We do not have to worry about the underlying OS (m
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:4, Informative)
Sure... Borland JBuilder, versions 3 through 9. Awesome IDE.
"Do you deny that it still takes a shell script to start most Java apps on Unix?"
Yes. Package it in an executable JAR. Runs on any Java system. Hell, with JBuilder 8 Enterprise I can easily build native executable wrappers for Win32, Mac, Linux and Solaris.
"Do you deny that developing and building Java apps requires that you adjust you CLASSPATH in order for the compiler to find the locations of third-party libraries you are linking against?"
Yes. See previous point. Or, do what we did, write our own dynamic ClassLoader bootstrap which searches out required libraries and loads them automatically.
This is really the heart of your pet peeve against Java, isn't it? You struggled with some annoying CLASSPATH crap, it frustrated you, and you decided you hated the entire language? I do understand... that stuff is tedious when you're trying to get into it.
"Do you deny that running Java applications still requires you to obtain a JRE from Sun?"
You don't have to go to Sun. There are plenty of third party JREs.
"And that many applications require at minimum a certain version of the JRE?"
All software has system requirements, what's your point?
Got some more questions?
Parent
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:3, Insightful)
uh... yeah? But even if you do, so what? Last I looked shell scripts weren't that big of a deal. Hell, if you can write the app I'm sure you're more than capable of writing a little itty bitty shell script to launch nicely with your favorite settings and perhaps even change your background to a nice picture of Lucy Liu while you're at. who cares.
Do you deny that developi
Re:I still don't get the allure of Java (Score:4, Interesting)
The applications written in Java that I use and like are 1 the IDE I use Eclipse which comes with all types of great plugins that let me do everything from debug an opensource J2EE container to work with my RDBMS platforms on the back end. I've also been using Freenet a great P2P app with lots of cool ideas that radically change the way information is distributed and consumed. Jabber a IM client written entirely in java. And think of it from a users perspective. If I'm going to spend time learning to use an application do I really want to have to go looking for a brand new application to fill that ones need everytime I want to purchase a computer that runs a different OS than the one I had before. No it's a waste of time and money. My only hope is either that the vendor of said product is generous and ports their application to both platforms or that they decided to write the application in an OS neutral technology such as Java.
In repsonse to: Can you think of a single language/runtime that feels so out of place no matter what platform you're running on? A platform that makes you deal with CLASSPATH, non-native and slow widgets, and shell scripts to set a thousand environment variables before starting your "portable" application? I suppose you think it would be eaiser to port an application written in C,C++ yourself (assuming you even have the source). Of my favorite applications listed above I haven't had to do any of this to get them to run on mutiple platforms (MS 95 - XP, FreeBSD, Linux (many distros)) so don't knock the entire Java platform just because the few applications you've tried this on reqiured a lot of work to get running. You are describing and implementation detail specific to the applications you run.
And you say: just as portable as Java as long as your libraries/toolkits are cross-platform.
And my last reason to use Java over C++, C is that garbage collection doesn't have to be integrated into my application, buffer overflows aren't an issue (at least at my application level) and just as a programmer of a Windows Application isn't resposible for se
Parent
The IDE's baby (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The IDE's baby (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The IDE's baby (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The IDE's baby (Score:5, Informative)
Eclipse www.eclipse.org is excellent and is backed by the industrial strength of IBM. It's open source and it's completely free.
IntelliJ IDEA www.intellij.com is also excellent, but it's not free.
Never tried Borland Jbuilder.
In my opinion as far as IDE's go Visual Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, and eclipse are on the same level.
Parent
Multilanguage support would be nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Java is too hard for many people to understand, something like Python or BASIC as an alternative language that targets the same runtime would help them fend off
I will say that in regard to
Java is not just client apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like any other technology, implementation is more key to the quality than the technology itself. I have seen some REALLY bad Java client side applications, but then there are some that are awesome. The GUI installer for Oracle is Java Swing. It looks identical on every OS you install it on (aside from options that may or may not be available to install on a given platform), and it works really well. Another example is Veritas' VMSA software. It is Java Swing, allows you to run it on multiple platforms, and you use it to manage your Veritas volumes on multiple hosts, networks etc. If an organization spends a $100k+ on a storage system, you can bet your ass that they would be mighty pissed if they had some "slow shitty client software" messing things up.
And don't even dis Java on the server side either. Java on the server side does not have to be slow like everyone thinks. One example is the application server Orion. You want to have some fun, go to http://www.orionserver.com, download it, and install it. Then do some apache bench comparisons between it and even a tuned Apache and Orion will serve static HTML pages faster. For even more fun, whip up a JSP with a database call to Postgres or Oracle, and bench that against Apache still serving static content. Orion will actually serve dynamic DB-generated content as fast or faster than Apache can handle static HTML.
I guess the point I am trying to make is don't just make blanket statements and put down a technology because of a bad experience. It is all about the implementation. Best technology with a shitty implementation will suck no matter what.
--Jon
What Java needs is GPL and experimentation (Score:4, Interesting)
I have developed lots of significant things in Java, but have repeatedly been confronted with bad / stupid limitations of the environment and implementations. Even expending considerable resources and being a full Java licensee, it has never been possible to get simple issues resolved within a reasonable time frame. Occasionally I see something being addressed 5 years or more after the corresponding project gave up on Java because of the lack of a reasonable response. Other issues are never addressed. As such, I do not trust the Java base to deliver the necessary tools, fixes, etc. I see release after release that fixes some things and breaks a number of others and there is no real recourse.
Swing is far worse for many applications than some of the toolkits it displaced. There need to be some larger set of viable competing UI toolkits, not just relying on Sun because they control the environment.
Another big problem is lack of a more efficient incremental class loader. I gave a presentation at Sun many years ago explaining how this could revolutionize web applications. I helped create prototypes that never made you wait and incrementally downloaded as needed, but there was never the ability to integrate the solution into the environment as would be possible in a GPL environment. As a result, you have the dilema that on the one hand, you would like to only load what a particular user will execute, but on the other hand, loading it class by class using the default class loader and http is completely unacceptable for complex applications, so you wind up with a jar file, and you may as well have had an executable file, as far as modular download goes. This is part of what makes it, for example, prohibitive to use your own UI library instead of Swing, because it cannot be incrementally downloaded.
Sun wants to control things, but does not innovate nearly as quickly as an open community would solving their own real-world problems.
If Sun would GPL Java, I would come back to it in a major way. But often the sorts of things I might add are the same sorts of things Sun protested when Microsoft tried, such as tight XPCOM support in Mozilla so that it has equal browser integration to Javascript, Python, etc. Sun clearly wants to suppress this sort of thing.
As such, what can be done with Java is largely limited to Sun's imagination, rather than that of the community. JCP does not seem realisticly useful or credible. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me and many I know of, for whom that perception is everything. I could go on and discuss a thousand issues. The wait time for required innovations is just too long from Sun.
I know I have been out of Java for some time. If this is suddenly different now, then I hope to hear about it. Any GPL effort started now from scratch should define a new open standard unless Sun is willing to work with a standards body to standardize its offering, IMO.
Java 1.5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out that Java 1.5 will have these features and more - one thing I am really looking forward to is generics.
The final advantage of C# over Java was that a C# program looked like it belongs on Windows - same widget set, same "feel". This is a bigger deal than most people realize. Windows users grow accustomed to doing things a certain way, and they don't like it when you try to impose something different on them. Swing just doesn't cut it in this regard.
Re:Java 1.5 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
.net interoperability issues -- bigtime... (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, if you're using
Java isn't a perfect language, but at least it supports linux, mac, solaris, atari, commodore, ti-99, etc.
Java is the new COBOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET (Score:3, Informative)
1. I believe Java is great for applications that do not have a fat client GUI. "Server-Side" components, and web applications, etc. seem to perform just fine.
2. Java is used the most by in house development teams. Many times in this evironment, the advantages of developing in Java outway the speed problem experienced by the users of a FAT GUI.
As a side note, I use IDEA for Java development, which is an IDE written in Java. The UI seems very responsive on my 1ghz linux laptop. Not sure wha
Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'm getting at is that a little goes a long way with display updates. Having a 'silken mouse' under Windows NT+ meant that even under heavy load the interface felt smooth and responsive (well, until you tried to open a window or do something requiring CPU) -- with Win9X/ME the mouse would jerk around under even mediocre load. X-Windows also felt like it was sluggish until I discovered you could 'nice -n -10' it. On the AS/400, heavy priority is given to interactive applications but batch jobs (which only run in the background) and compiles are typically executed at a lower priority.
My point is that they need to optimize the speed with which displays and user interface updates are performed to achieve the effect where the user feels like the application is crisp -- even if it impacts performance in other areas. It's a subtle user interface trick that they've missed out on, although I'll admit that Java 2 is making things a little better.
Parent
Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Java is a platform with multiple implementations of the compiler/JIT and (effectively) a single implementation of the libraries.
Java compilers/JITs achieve very good performance, having little overhead compared to analogous C code.
But the Java platform falls short in several areas.
First, the VM has an enormous memory footprint, and it starts up very slowly. VM sharing is supposed to address this, but it hasn't materialized.
Second, Java's native code interface (JNI) is inefficient and Java cannot efficiently access native data structures. That makes it difficult to reuse existing, mature C/C++ libraries, and to interface efficiently with operating system facilities.
Third, Java's libraries are not designed for speed: their APIs impose a lot of overhead, and the actual implementations aren't very good either. Also, Java's libraries are designed for generality first, and speed and high-quality cross-platform support distant seconds (things like Java2D just don't run very well on all platforms).
Sun JRE is slow. The JVM runs as another layer on top of the OS, so of course it will be slower than if it were native to the OS. All Sun has to do is make a JM (Java Machine) chip that can be put into motherboards to do the processing at the hardware level, not hardware-os-software level.
Raw CPU performance is not the issue. Java code runs very fast in Sun's current implementation. A Java native chip would not help at all (and would be impossible to make succeed in the marketplace anyway). The problems with Sun Java performance are platform design problems. In a sense, Sun's focus on CPU performance has distracted them from addressing the real performance problems.
Parent
Re:One issue with Java vs. .NET (Score:5, Interesting)
See the issue is not really with the JVM, but with the tradeoffs of the language. While it's possible to write somewhat snappy engines like jrocket, or integrate OS features like the windows version, there are certain fundamental issues which can not be handled transparently.
Firstly, hands-off memory management. It's difficult to heuristically discover deterministic memory patterns which would allow inner-loop optimizations. (I'm not even aware of anyone even trying this). The lack of explicit deletions/frees (even if only advisory) is bad in my opinion. It has fostered enormously wasteful memory utilization in enterprise level applications. And when your building blocks aren't efficient, how can you hope to build efficient apps. I use the java-based idea editor, and scrolling or doing a screen refresh requires one or more garbage collections, and I've already given the VM most of the memory on my system.
To a lesser role, the default virtualization of methods is a slow-down. To some degree a JIT can heuristically generate deterministic call-trees to remove the virtualization (e.x. if no subclasses are used/found), but this can be really nasty in the general case. This is much worsened when interfaces are used (method/variable lookups are non-constant in time, to say nothing of the overhead). And lastly, there is a growing trend in using reflection for general processing. This just about throws all optimizations out the window.
While I definately see the value in multiple inheritance (or at least java's interface version), and a language definately needs to dynamically map itself somehow, Sun's particular decisions do not lend themselves to high performance inner-loops; even if hardware accelerated.
Thus the only way to write performant / memory-safe programs is to make all your inner-loops use static/final, and to re-invent the standard libraries where-needed. And this is to say nothing of the libraries that can not be reverse-engineered (GUI, OS-interacting, etc). Though theoretically you could write material using jni, what's the point?
If you need jni to make something usable (in the common case), then the language isn't practical.. jni is for porting or special cases.
See, I agree with you basic point which is that java is a language, and this has little to do with the mapping to the machine-code. Ideally, java can be treated just like c, and written directly to assembly (gjc). However, due to the points above, even gjc has to use wrapper functions for these java-specific idioms, and thus the inner loops are no faster than in a nicely optimized jit.
And as I said above, none of this matters, if the APIs of the language encourage practices which do not scale. SUN learned this about their GUI in 1.0, and I'm seeing more and more performance friendly topics arising. However, much core can't be changed.
I am not completely familiar with
I think java is a wonderful language to program in, but all too often, modern software requires a scale that java just can't seem to comfortably live in. And thus I have my doubts about it's future.
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Re:#1 challenge? it doesn't solve the problem anym (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? Windows users have always been able to get their hands on a JVM, just not the Microsoft one because of the lawsuit. Nothing stopping users from downloading one of the many [kaffe.org] other [sun.com] implementations [bea.com] of the JVM on Windows.
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