Oracle Discontinues Free Java Time Zone Updates 405
New submitter Noel Trout writes "For a long time in the Java world, there has been a free tool called the 'tzupdater' or Time Zone Updater released as a free download first by Sun and then Oracle. This tool can be used to apply a patch to the Java runtime so that time zone information is correct. This is necessary since some time zones in the world are not static and change more frequently than one might think; in general time zone updates can be released maybe 4-6 times a year. The source information backing the Java timezone API comes from the open source Olson timezone database that is also used by many operating systems. For certain types of applications, you can understand that these updates are mission critical. For example, my company operates in the private aviation sector so we need to be able to display the correct local time at airports around the world. So, the interesting part is that Oracle has now decided to only release these updates if you have a Java SE support contract. Being Oracle, such licenses are far from cheap. In my opinion, this is a pretty serious change in stance for Oracle and amounts to killing free Java for certain types of applications, at least if you care about accuracy. We are talking about the core API class java.util.TimeZone. This begs the question, can you call an API free if you have to pay for it to return accurate information? What is the point of such an API? Should the community not expect that core Java classes are fully functional and accurate? I believe it is also a pretty bad move for Java adoption for these types of applications. If my company as a startup 10 years ago would have been presented with such a license fee, we almost certainly could not have chosen Java as our platform as we could not afford it."
ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Insightful)
The time to move away from Java was as soon as Oracle bought Sun.
I don't know if Python is the answer for everyone, and I know changing to a different language is about as big of a pain as there is, but the jig was up after Sun was bought.
Music to the ears of a .NET developer (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to sound harsh, but I heard from so many middle managers and CIOs over the years, "Why don't you use Java?" "I noticed you don't use Java, what's wrong with you?" "What about Java?" "Have you looked into Java?" I had one snarky middle manager buy me a Java book for Christmas one year.
Sorry, I don't use Java and every day more and more people are sayi
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is, thanks to Stallman and others, there are now open alternatives.
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like Oracle is the provider of the time zones. Java uses the standard and open Arthur Olson zone info ones, and only modify the zone files to fit within the java framework.
What it boils down to is that Oracle wants money for what they themselves are freeloading.
What's needed is for java to be able to use unmodified zoneinfo files, or an open source zone info compiler that can convert them for use by any java installation.
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it's Time to switch to python
Sorry, no. Perhaps it was time 10 years ago if ever. Now is too late. Even Google is using less Python these days.
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Why?
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Python is terrible and the primary implementation is far beyond terrible.
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The benchmarks game [debian.org] is the first link that comes to mind.
Feel free to compare it against other languages on the benchmarks game. Python, Ruby and PHP are the slowest languages in widespread use and to make it even worse Python and Ruby both have global interpreter locks because their implementations aren't thread safe. They're terribly slow even when most of their libraries are thin wrappers around C libraries.
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Interesting)
"Develop software - production software - in an interpreted language?"
What the hell do you think Java and C# are? Compared to C and C++ they are interpreted languages.
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Scrap the conditional. They *are* interpreted languages.
They are JIT-compiled, not interpreted. Well, okay, Sun JVM does some bytecode interpreting alongside JIT-compilation, but .NET is a pure compiler.
Just because compilation happens later doesn't make it an interpreter.
It's true that I haven't heard of any compiled versions of Python
PyPy is an implementation of Python based on a JIT-compiler.
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:4, Interesting)
it's Time to switch to python
Develop software - production software - in an interpreted language?
Not on my watch.
C# and Microsoft is looking better everyday.
Python is commonly compiled at first use these days, much like the Java JIT compilation process.
If you want a legitimate reason to avoid Python for mission-critical stuff, it's the lack of rigorous development-time type-checking.
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Your watch runs Java?
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that explains why my watch battery only lasts 15 minutes...
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Funny)
...and now displays the incorrect time in your locale.
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Do you not think that Microsoft is in nearly the same position as Oracle?! C# might have a number of short-term benefits, but you will end up in the same spot sooner than later.
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MS is the copyright owner of one particular implementation of C#, but the spec is out there, and Mono has been following it very closely. So C# can be forked just the same.
One other difference is that C# spec, and portions of .NET APis (in particular, all the fundamental classes - pretty much the kind of thing Oracle sued Google over) are covered by "open specification promise", which is basically a patent grant to anyone implementing that spec.
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but Python's bytecode is much higher-level than the bytecode used by the other three, because it doesn't have explicit typing of variables or direct integer manipulation. The performance implications are substantial if you're performing any non-trivial calculations. (Of course, if your process is I/O bound, this is largely irrelevant...)
Python also cannot be efficiently multithreaded, which is a killer for many high-performance applications.
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Too many weenies in the Go community. (Score:5, Interesting)
Go has the same problem that Ruby has: too many damn weenies in the community.
I don't mean an overabundance of men and penises, which is indeed a problem for both, but the smugness and the attitude one must endure when dealing with them.
I try to stay current with the technologies that others are using, so I've worked on some small personal projects in Ruby, Go and Python. I usually ask questions in IRC when I happen to get stuck.
When I was asking questions about Ruby and Go, the people there would constantly tell me that what I was doing, or even just aiming to do, was "wrong". So, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Hey, maybe I am wrong, and maybe they do have a better way. Yet every single time their suggestions would not help me attain what I wanted, would obviously not work, or were even outright harmful in some cases.
I never got this in the Python IRC channels. When I asked a question, they'd give me helpful answers, or at least help orient me in the right direction. They wouldn't take a holier-than-thou attitude with me. They wouldn't flat out tell me what I wanted to do was "wrong". They wouldn't give me suggestions rife with obvious security holes or other bugs.
The Python community helped me with my problems, and made me more efficient. The Go and Ruby communities just made me feel annoyed, like I was dealing with a bunch of know-it-all teenagers. Then again, maybe that is exactly what was happening. I was dealing with adult men and women when using Python, but I was dealing with passively-rebellious youth when seeking help with Go and Ruby.
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Sorry if you don't like pointers. But the coddling of CS students with Java courses these days is just laughable.
I don't quite understand it either. Isn't the point of Computer Science to teach people the principles behind the operations of the computers we use every day?
If you're not learning the premise of CPU registers, memory allocation, jumping, returning, and all that happy crap that I honestly wish I understood better, what in the hell is the actual science behind modern computing then? Doesn't it make sense to start with the raw assembler involved in the top three (or so) CPU architectures and then move up
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I don't quite understand it either. Isn't the point of Computer Science to teach people the principles behind the operations of the computers we use every day?
No. The point of computer science is to teach methods of reasoning about the behaviour of computers. Yes, this involves knowing those basic principles, stuff like what pointers are, how memory can be divided and allocated between different tasks, how it can be reused after it is no longer required, and so on. But much more fundamentally it involves understanding the principles of what a program is, how data structures can be built up from individual stored items, and so on, and this is much easier to tea
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Your own quotation doesn't seem to support your assertion:
Emphasis mine. One of the four "crucial areas" is the CPU implementation.
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Yes, and CPU implementation is a further subdivision of computer elements and architecture.
Then the details of register use are an even further subdivision.
I've done work in the field since the 70's. The last time I had to worry about CPU architecture was as a junior in college in 1971 when I was porting Spacewar from a PDP-1 to a PDP-8. Mostly these days it's all about algorithms in high level languages.
Aren't these details important to understand for what might be non-obvious reasons?
To give an example, take a look at gaming consoles. Performance and graphics get better over time because programmers write "to the hardware" with increasing precision as the product ages, and this provides a benefit that's almost completely unseen in modern general purpose computing.
The technique of "expanding the loop" to increase performance is a common tactic taken by programmers, no? I know I've done it with scripts
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Bytecode is but a concept and there are many different, incompatible implementations. Like programming languages and compilers.
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Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Funny)
it's Time to switch to python
Develop software - production software - in an interpreted language?
Not on my watch.
C# and Microsoft is looking better everyday.
Better let Google know they're doing it wrong then.
I always thought the Wars of the Reformation were a fascinating, if horrible, part of history. It's always fun to see them re-enacted in spirit with programming languages. Nobody is planning to destroy Bohemia though, right?
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Eddie Münster rebellion anyone?
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:4, Informative)
newlines are used in place of semicolons and indentation defines code blocks
in most other languages {} define code blocks and indentation implies code blocks to the reader, sometimes misleading the reader.
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we have a different definition of hidden.
Of course you can always find poorly formatted code that's confusing, but the bottom line here is that this is not an appropriate way of using white space. White space is for the purpose of separating elements and making it more readable.
The fact that most other languages use {} to denote blocks is a good reason to use that in other languages as well. It's something that works, is clear in intention and after all these years, nobody has come up with anything better.
It should be up to the developers as to how precisely they format their code for legibility, not the people writing the language.
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I can't believe this post isn't modded up more. More and more I feel like the readership of slashdot is a bunch of script-kiddies rather than professional coders. The idea that you would use whitespace to denote something as important as scope is ludicrous. In fact, the idea that you would use whitespace to denote ANYTHING is ludicrous.
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In fact, the idea that you would use whitespace to denote ANYTHING is ludicrous.
Yesyou'reabsolutelyright.Weshouldjustgetridofitentirely.Itsavessomuchtimetypingwhenyoudon'thavetousethespacebaratall.
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In fact, the idea that you would use whitespace to denote ANYTHING is ludicrous.
Yesyou'reabsolutelyright.Weshouldjustgetridofitentirely.Itsavessomuchtimetypingwhenyoudon'thavetousethespacebaratall.
CLOSEBUTYOUHAVETOGETRIDOFTHEPUNCTUATIONMARKSTOOITSCALLEDSCRIPTUMCONTINUUM
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Ican'tagreewithyoumore.Whitespacehasnoplaceinsyntaxatall.Let'sdumpitall.
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If whitespace is such a bad way of denoting scope
Because I might want to use it within the same scope for purposes of readability.
why indent in C?
Why indeed? I can write an entire C program in one line. But my boss pays based on KLOC, so the more white space, the better.
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Well you could with implicit line joining:
def square(x):
print(
'DEBUG: x=%x' % x)
return x*x
Note that the print starts indented but since a parenthesis is opened the rest of the statement can continue anywhere on the next line. Until the closing parenthesis whitespace rules are ignored.
http://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#implicit-line-joining [python.org]
But really you should use the logging module and set log levels. Debuggers are good tools a
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Presumably it was supposed to be stripped out and that was the reason for leaving it unindented.
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Spoken like somebody who hasn't ever coded. You've got ( ) { } [ ] and arguably "" and '' with which to surround things you want enclosed. Now, it is debatable as to whether the current consensus as to which to allocate to what is correct, but the fact of the matter is that if you enclose something with those pairs of characters that people will naturally get the hint that something has been enclosed.
Whereas using tabs and newlines in this fashion conveys no such thing.
What's more, because the newline term
Re:ORACLE = One Raging Asshole Called Larry Elliso (Score:5, Insightful)
If the whitespace still bothers you - it means you haven't even spent 15m using it.
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Or, you know, you had a merge happen that moved around whitespace without anybody noticing, which resulted in still syntactically sound Python that just happened to have entirely different semantics that destroyed a bunch of customer data. Just as a random example of why whitespace syntax is horrible.
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Braces allow for automatic formatting.
Whitespace shouldn't encode anything other than separation between meaningful elements. Definitely not blocks.
Besides, untyped languages are unmaintainable crap. They're nice for throwing crap together quick, but having to figure out what the code does (with typical level of comments...) is a painful experience.
Readability (Score:3)
*No* code is readable without either knowing the language or knowing something similar. Hence the word 'code'. (COBOL is a particularly perverse and ironic example.)
I find Java readable because I know Java, I know C++, and I like its style as a personal matter of taste, but none of those are a reflection on the language itself.
Alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
Do they want to promote an alternative? How does this affect the OpenJDK?
Cannot someone else do the updates ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The information needed to provide the updates is freely available, so cannot someone else provide the updates ? Just get tzupdater to download from a different place. I am not a Java programmer, so forgive me if I have got the wrong end of the stick.
Even better change the Java functions to get the information operating system, on Linux the tzdata, then Java is kept up to date as the OS is kept up to date.
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Perhaps JODA Time could pull it from the OS in Linux or a file otherwise. It's very much what upcoming time and date changes are going to look like anyway and are vastly better than the built-in support. Alternatively, it's quite easy to tweak a couple of the built-ins using their source to do the same and put them in the classpath before the supplied versions. Not pretty, but effective in the short-mid term.
Re:Cannot someone else do the updates ? (Score:5, Informative)
Joda already provides their own TZ update mechanism: http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/tz_update.html [sourceforge.net]
Also anyone NOT using Joda for dates/times in Java really needs to come to the light and experience the wonders of a well designed API.
Actually: Why are these needed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why doesn't java use the operating system to provide that information in the first place? At least on operating systems that provide that sort of information, which isn't just "linux" but pretty much all unices.
Also, ISTR the source updates maybe twice a year, and is free, so I don't see why java has to be so special. Then again, oracle is a very special company in that regard. Everybody needs this, and in fact needs everybody else to have it too, so it's stupid penny pinching that's going on here.
And it is very stupid, just like their handling of patches for critical holes turned out to be criminally stupid. It's not like their head honcho needs the money, seeing how he squanders it on airport fines and the like.
Re:Actually: Why are these needed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why doesn't java use the operating system to provide that information in the first place?
Because despite being called a portable language, the real Java approach is a portable environment. I'm not debating whether that's good, bad or indifferent, but that is the approach.
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Until all the API calls and all the hardware are identical across the various OSes, the only way of making code portable is via a portable environment. All the other languages that I can think of that are write once run most places do something similar. Ultimately, when you have differences in endianness and number and type of registers, you're going to be stuck with portable environments to get code running on all supported platforms with minimal fussing around with machine dependent requirements.
Re:Actually: Why are these needed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not about managing it / being able to do it. It's about what was easiest and most reliable.
There are plenty of old OS's out there that don't get automatic TZ updates on the OS level. The olsen DB is freely available, but you have to download it and run a couple of commands to get your machine dependent tzdata built. Rather than leaving that up to the OS and sysadmins, they do the compile themselves and provide a tool to grab that copy and put it into your java install.
It's really not that bad of a way
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Why doesn't java use the operating system to provide that information in the first place? At least on operating systems that provide that sort of information, which isn't just "linux" but pretty much all unices.
The problem is Windows. My understanding is that Windows cannot handle date dependant daylight savings rules. For example in 2006, Daylight Savings was extended for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and then reverted to the normal rules in 2006. The solution at the time was to patch Windows prior to the Olympics and then patch again at some point in the future.
KB909915 [microsoft.com] about the change includes these gems of advice:
Re:Actually: Why are these needed? (Score:4, Informative)
No. Windows handles DST rules in the registry, so it's perfectly capable of date-dependent DST rule handling. The article discusses those recommendations as a way to avoid problems caused by issues with Outlook and Exchange 2003, both of which have their own unique ways of handling TZ changes (basically, they fail to store TZ information with dates, so TZ changes screw up the display of appointments). The problems were largely addressed in Outlook and Exchange 2007 and completely fixed in the 2010 versions, which keep the appointments in GMT-plus-offset format.
There's legitimate complaints you can have with the way Windows handles TZ changes -- personally, I'm not a fan of having to install TZ patches from Windows Update and I really dislike how Windows keeps the RTC in local time instead of GMT -- but don't blame it for the failings of antiquated and soon unsupported Office programs.
Re: Cannot someone else do the updates ? (Score:3)
I have always wondered why this is something that couldn't be delegated to the operating system. Does anyone have any ideas? Is this something that could be addressed in OpenJDK? Can we use icu4j instead?
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I have always wondered why this is something that couldn't be delegated to the operating system. Does anyone have any ideas? Is this something that could be addressed in OpenJDK? Can we use icu4j instead?
Java promises applications that run the same wherever you run them. This cannot be achieved by relying on the underlying OS, which might vary substantially in the frequency of updates and/or accuracy of time zone data provided.
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Yeah, but since Oracle is breaking that promise already by making paid Java have TZ updates and free Java not, what's the difference? At the very least it could be a fallback mode for free Java.
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I don't know but I suppose it was for portability across different operating system.
Oracle fail (Score:2)
It seems clear to me that Oracle really doesn't want Java except for an easy way to gain control in the mobile interface market. It always seem merely collateral damage from acquiring Sun. The only real attention it seems to have gotten was rebranding. And with Google developing their own compatible engine for Android, Oracle's grand plan is now a pipe dream. Hence their crazed copyright lawsuit against Google for uncopyrightable APIs.
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Oracle doesn't want Java or he mobile market. Oracle wants money. Lots of money, now and in the future.
Cash grab (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising. Given the refusal to remove those bloody Java sponsors from the JRE. Piss off the end users and now the developers.
IBM to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)
IBM provides free access to the Olson database updates:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/dst/jtzu.html
Was this post even necessary?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=java+olson+database
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cheers...ank
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I've never heard the name Olson before in relation to timezone updates. Thanks for the enlightenment but yes, this article was at least a little bit necessary, if not as earth shattering as an approaching asteroid.
cheers...ank
OTOH, the original poster clearly had, so why he didn't google for it and find those sources is an interesting question. Or why he hasn't considered alternative approaches (using a 3rd party JRE; using OpenJDK and following the update process described here [freebsd.org], etc. Unless, of course, he's one of the many anti-Java nuts we seem to attract around here.
there's always Joda Time... (Score:5, Informative)
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Presumably, they are affected by this change, as well, but the good news is that I'm confident that they'll do something to handle it without my having to do anything besides tick up a dependency version.
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Joda actually provides their own TZ update mechanism: http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/tz_update.html [sourceforge.net]
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Joda Time is brilliant.
It's a pleasure to use, and obviously was created by people who thought long and hard about it, and had suffered with the problems of the standard Java date/time libraries.
If you still use Date or Calendar, then check out Joda Time.
Re:there's always Joda Time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. We switched 6 years ago and never looked back. The java.util.Calendar classes in Java are pretty horribly broken--usability aside, they get some key calculations wrong, like ISO week of year.
The best part is that Joda doesn't need or use the time zone database bundled into Java SE, so they aren't affected at all by Oracle's support policies.
What to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this make Microsoft or C# look so great? No way! They started out less free than Oracle is now and haven't really changed.
Why do I develop in Java (I also know C, C++ [and the assembler code they generate], Python, SQL [MS and non-MS dialects] -- so why choose Java?)? Because I want to write programs for my slightly less shackled Android phone.
And the next plan of action is...?
There are a bunch of options... for starters, google the problem. Next, just wait: some bright spark will put out a tool that uses local time zone info (configurable) to update some Java installation's (configurable) idea of time zones automatically (or not, configurable).
It happened with MySQL, it'll happen with Java. "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Douglas Adams' fictional book cover still has the right initial instruction: "Don't Panic!"
cheers...ank
The database is called "Olson", you find it here (Score:5, Informative)
Let me google that for you [lmgtfy.com]! But more to the point, writing a tool that will grab those updates for yourself and storing it where you need it looks like a bash script or batch file candidate. Our brains are more than a match for Oracle's bean counters. Let's use them!
cheers...ank
I was about to suggest openjdk (Score:2)
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How this impacts openjdk? does it uses the same Olsen timezone data or has another tool for updating it?
Stop complaining... (Score:2)
Should the community not expect that core Java classes are fully functional and accurate?
That's capitalism at work. Now maybe Google can come to the rescue by re-implementing all Java APIs in Dalvik (Android), after which they (Google), can push for wider desktop/server Dalvik adoption.
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Should the community not expect that core Java classes are fully functional and accurate?
That's capitalism at work. Now maybe Google can come to the rescue by re-implementing all Java APIs in Dalvik (Android), after which they (Google), can push for wider desktop/server Dalvik adoption.
ROTFLMAO.
Even APIs that are supposed to work in Dalvik are frequently barely functional. SimpleDateFormat, for example, doesn't correctly parse many strings with textual timezone names (e.g. "BST"). Google would have a *very* long way to go in order to get it accepted as a replacement for desktop or server Java.
How about distributing timezone info through DNS? (Score:2)
DNS is a great protocol for distributing a relatively small piece of infrequently changing information to a very large number of clients. It has a global infrastructure of caches, supports delegation of authority. Sounds like a good match.
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Not to mention great support for firewall traversal. It gets even into many places that HTTP does not.
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You aren't seriously suggesting that we replace timezone data with DNS lookups, are you?
TZ data does change often -- the summary itself says 4-6 times a year -- but not nearly often enough that doing it via DNS or anything similar makes sense. And not every application has 100% Internet access -- many have 0%, and even those that usually have access don't have it 100% of the time (but instead 99.999...%).
DNS doesn't have a provision for "well, I had data, but it's a few days out of date, and I can't seem t
Java (Score:2)
Considering that Java appears to be a flimsy screen door in any company's firewall, I would think that most SANE organizations would've started moving off of that platform YEARS ago...
Java lost me years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is that Oracle has seen the writing on the wall that many business organizations are solidly Java and can afford any "minor" fees involved. What they are missing is that many university CS departments are dumping Java in favor of Python as Python is becoming the defacto language of academia. My prediction is that Java will ever so slowly fade as it is ensconced in the business world and isn't going anywhere there. But that the cool kids will see it as their grandfather's language and actively avoid it. I am not suggesting that Python will replace Java just that with CS students not giving a crap about Java they won't choose it for new projects.
One thing that has long annoyed me about Java progammers is this whole, "Let's wrap every damn thing in a object." Then you end up with an architecture that looks like the traveling salesman problem done by someone on LSD.
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Java gets a bad rap (and Oracle doesn't help) but there's nothing wrong with it per se. If I had the choice of starting a project in C, C++ or Java I'd always pick Java--call it obsolete if you want but those alternatives are archaic. (And I'm not fully sold on interpreters languages either, partly because my applications are very sensitive to runtime performance and memory overhead. Are the JIT compilers for Python et al any good?)
The security exploits are in the Java plugin. I don't care much about th
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If I had the choice of starting a project in C, C++ or Java I'd always pick Java--call it obsolete if you want but those alternatives are archaic.
But are they? Between C++ and Java, only one language has anonymous functions with closure semantics (lambdas) today. Guess which one.
my applications are very sensitive to runtime performance and memory overhead.
If that is the case - especially the part about memory overhead - Java would be a horrible choice. The lack of guaranteed-stack-allocated value types other than primitives makes it very hard to write large apps with predictable memory usage.
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One thing that has long annoyed me about Java progammers is this whole, "Let's wrap every damn thing in a object."
Java was created when the current fad was "OO is the One True Paradigm". With a big enough hammer you can get any shaped peg to fit into a round hole. Alternatively you could choose a paradigm that fit the problem, but that risks being impure.
How to update TZs (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, Oracle are still updating timezones as always in updates to the JDK/JRE.
From an old Oracle post though there is this guide
https://blogs.oracle.com/coffeys/entry/want_the_latest_tzdata_support
Which breaks down the process for folks who want to build their own TZ updating tool.
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key link in that page is dead.
here's the situation: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/timezones-137583.html [oracle.com]
bottom line, you need paid support from Oracle to get correct timezone info
raising a question != begging the question (Score:3, Informative)
This begs the question, can you call an API free if you have to pay for it to return accurate information?
No it does not beg the question.
What is "Begging the Question?"
"Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.
A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.
What is it Not?
To beg the question does not mean "to raise the question." (e.g. "It begs the question, why is he so dumb?") This is a common error of usage made by those who mistake the word "question" in the phrase to refer to a literal question. Sadly, the error has grown more and more common with time, such that even journalists, advertisers, and major mass media entities have fallen prey to "BTQ Abuse."
While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage. This is why we fight
Write Once Pay Everywhere (Score:2)
Java's been as unsexy as a leaky toilet for a long time...
Java was a bad decision in the first place (Score:3)
Own up to your company's bad decisions, bite the bullet, and STOP USING PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE!!!
Seriously, you people who complain about all your own bad decisions are really getting on my nerves. Java was a bad idea 10 years ago even without the time restriction. Why? Because they throw in a time restriction whenever the fuck they want. Your company was stupid enough to be duped.
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They only bought Java because they thought they could sue Google (ie. Android) over the API.
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I remember back in the early 90s a friend of mine was so excited about Java. He said it was going to destroy Microsoft and desktop computers as we know it. We'd live in a wonderful fully networked world running completely on Java. It would make the problem of differing platforms obsolete because anything written for one platform would seamlessly run on every other.
I replied that while Java would have its uses, overall it would not make a dent in anything the general user actual does on computers. I think time has proven me right. The fact that Oracle is gripping it so tightly as to nearly kill it, isn't helping my friend's position either.
I said the same thing. Java's success was due to Sun's marketing department more than anything else. I guess the time had come for YALTEAL (yet another language to end all languages).
Before I get flamed, I should say I'm not anti-Java. It has its uses - probably more than I appreciate because Java isn't suitable for my work. However it is not a general purpose programming language, to the extent that such a thing can exist. It's not suitable for low level (device driver, deeply embedded, etc.) and its spe
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I've been reading this stuff for years now, and it was promised Java would run at native compiled speed from the very start but the only actual statistics I've encountered say the opposite. The truth seems to be that the Java run-time didn't quite life upto the expectations.
Not that the performance is a significant issue for many types of applications; many productivity and programming tools I use run just fine using Java. Except during garbage collection ofcourse, which is when Java absolutely sucks.
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Re:Java at least as fast as C++ (Score:2)
O dear,
Not this often repeated crap.
I'll give you that Java can be within an order of magnitude of C++ - but faster or as fast?
You're dreaming.
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I said the same thing. Java's success was due to Sun's marketing department more than anything else. I guess the time had come for YALTEAL (yet another language to end all languages).
Yeah. There hadn't been any for a while in the late 1990s. People didn't yet take scripting languages seriously, and trying to use pre-standard C++ (without a standard library!) as if it was Smalltalk had failed some years earlier.
Also, those of us who didn't take Microsoft seriously were impressed that Java came from Sun, the brave defender of the Unix legacy.
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Java may have made minimal impact on the desktop, but how many Android phones are out there? How many "dumb phones" running JME*? How many set top boxes running OCAP? How many Blu-ray players running BD-J? How many devices (ATMs, printers, cash registers, kiosks) running Java? How many web applications backed by server-side Java?
Java runs on billions of devices, all the way from embedded devices too massive distributed applications. It's fairly safe to say that everyone in the developed world unwittin
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I wonder if this is related to the problem BBC found with providing a time-zone accurate data to global users.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/06/06/012207/bbc-clock-inaccurate---100-days-to-fix [slashdot.org]
It would not be related.
The TZ updates have been available up until now, and the BBC could just get a support contract if that was the problem.
There might be some risk associated with providing a time service accurate everywhere, when you can't possibly know how the users depend on it ...
Absolutely.
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Hmm. Oh, look, OpenJDK 7 jdk\make\tools\src\build\tools\javazic has source code for a tool to... compile Olson tzdata into Java zi format. Well then. Problem solved, it looks like.