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Java Programming

JavaOne report 43

Posted by HeUnique from the more-support-from-Sun dept.
Over at LWN, there is a report from JavaOne writtern by Nelson Minar - things looks really promising with Linux and Java. Definately worth a read for both Linux users and *BSD users.
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JavaOne report

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  • The article states that Java 3D for linux is forthcoming, implying that it is not available yet. It is (not a production release, though), and I've been using it for about a couple weeks now, and its very stable and clean, and other than my machine being horrendously outdated, it performs well. See the blackdown.org [blackdown.org] site for more information.


    --
    "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
  • Maybe it's Jobs' fault, too. The Mac platform could have been much more widespread if jobs didn't decide to cut the clones. Obviously, Jobs didn't believe Apple could be the PPC Microsoft (and for a good reason: he was scared shitless of BeOS) so he wanted Apple to have much better control over their profits. So, the clones died and Apple has a much better profit margin, but the Mac marketshare is about 5% (worldwide, in US is about 10%) of the personal computer market. Obviously, Macs are considered expensive. For the same reason, there is not much hope for extending the market share, rather to leverage the very loyal customer base.
    Well, Sun wants more, and wants something different: I bet Linux will be much better supported, sicne it's rapidly increasing marketshare. Windows is much better supported for obvious reasons. Solaris is much better supported for (differeent) obvious reasons.
    There is a Java 2 platform being developed by Sun, for BeOS. That means Sun expects BeOS to increase it's marketshare, too. Maybe not in the PCs but in the IAs. Who knows? But the point is, Sun looks at an OS that will be widespread in the long run, and Linux (Servers and desktops) and BeOS (desktops and IAs) have a good shot at it.

    IMHO

  • This is really off topic, but how do I get vim syntax highlighting working when telneting into my FreeBSD box? I sort of have it work, as the keywords are underlined and bold. I just can't get it to be color.

    Thanks,

    -Jon
  • In the grand tradition of osm, I will now proceed to do the opposite of karma whoring.

    (This is version 0.1. Don't be too hard on me.)

    Cast:
    Catrin Van der Waals, a young nerd and the heroine of our story
    Naomi Doltson, Catrin's imbecilic assistant
    Rob Malda, a geek who occupies a vague position of authority
    David Duchovny, tall, dark and handsome star of the X Files

    Catrin is at her desk. She surreptitiously pulls a photograph from the top drawer.

    Catrin: Oh David, what I wouldn't give to be Tea Leoni right now.

    Enter Naomi

    Naomi: Hi Catrin (giggle) Whatcha looking at?

    Catrin: (hastily shoves the picture back in the drawer) Nothing... I wasn't looking at anything. And that's Ms. Van der Waals to you.

    Naomi: Oh. For a second I thought you were drooling.

    Catrin: (instinctively touches her lower lip) Remind me why I hired you again.

    Naomi: You didn't hire me, Rob did.

    Catrin: Of course. I forgot; your remind him of a blonde Natalie Portman.

    Naomi: Yep, he said I was teen of age, and pouting of... (Catrin interrupts)

    Catrin: I know, I know. I still say a blonde Natalie Portman is an oxymoron.

    Naomi: (tilting head like a cute, but very stupid puppy) What's an oxymoron?

    Catrin: (sighs in a frustrated manner) Go talk to Rob for a while. Please?

    Naomi exits.

    Catrin: I've got to get out of here. Maybe I'll go to that reading of Beowulf at Javaland tonight.

    to be continued...


    --

  • You may not be grateful to Sun for designing Java, but I am.

    And I am too, don't make any mistake about it. But I am not grateful for having been handed a proprietary fingertrap masqueradeing as a public standard.

    You say "We could have have done that quite well by ourselves, thank you." Are you serious?

    By "we" I mean anyone who is willing to contribute their language design work to the public. For example, Larry Wall or Guido Van Rossum (designer of Python). Yes, I'm serious.

    How many more brilliant languages are you planning to design and implement?

    You are wasting both our time by not reading before you reply. I wrote: "I don't care much about their code. I could have written it myself, and better." And I stand by that since I've done such things before. But I won't do it for Java because Java is not yet free, as in speech. Some others are willing to rewrite Sun's bloated, unreliable code, and my hat goes off to them. I'm not one.

    I hope that my interests and Sun's will continue to coincide

    You seem to have missed the entire point of "free" as in speech.

    If you can reimplement Sun's JDK on your own, as you claim, then I would be truly grateful to you as well. Many organizations have tried, but Sun's JDK still seems to work better than the alternatives.

    That's wrong. IBM's implementation is better. Microsoft's is too. Blackdown is darn good and is now intertwined with Sun's - Sun gets the benefit of expert programmers there, working for free. Kaffee is good too: though not yet caught up to the others, it probably will, and pass them. The problem is, even when Kaffee does catch up, Sun will intentionally move the goal posts. Are you aware that Sun charges big bucks for access to the Java compatibility test suite? Can you think of any good reason for this other than a desire to lock out the open source movement?

    The licenses are clear. If I don't want the code under those terms, then I don't use it.

    But that sounds so much like the situation with Microsoft. "If you don't like it, don't buy it". The problem is, Sun is trying to get us into a position where we *don't* have a choice, and I object to that seriously.

    As a language, Python is just as good - it does what Java is supposed to do, and does it without the bloat. But Sun has inserted Java into the niche that Python could have occupied. Should we be grateful for that?
    --
  • Good discussion. Some final points.

    I don't use IBM's implementation because they never released a version of 1.2, not even on AIX. 1.2 was a huge step forward, not simply "moving the goalposts" or "bloat." (Sun did make Swing and the new Collections available as jars for those stuck on 1.1.)

    I can't imagine using Microsoft's non-Java with compiled comment statements (shudder) that link unportable COM function pointers. MS supported 1.1 only after a court order, and will never support 1.2. In what way is J-- better than the JDK? Semantic's JIT is faster, so it can't be "performance."

    I develop for five different OS's. I would like to have an alternative to Sun's JDK for 1.2, but nothing else comes close. So I use it on their terms. If the terms become onerous, then I'll go back to someone else's partial implementation of 1.1. I expect Sun to understand this. Sun has no monopoly on hardware or software that can force me to use their version of Java. The language specification and API cannot be made un-free. Anyone with the time and talent can reimplement it and improve on it. Sun threw some brilliant designers and a LOT of time at their version. So I accept their gift with gratitude. If they wanted money, I would pay for the privilege of using the JDK.

    Sorry, I can't see the equivalence of Python with Java, but rather an excellent complement. I find JPython a wonderful way to script Java, for gluing together larger components, for on-site end-user customization, for an embedded command language, and for test code. (Like VBScript done right, with an actual grammar.) It's fine for smaller programs, but not for 100's of thousands of lines of code.

  • I really want it to be an international standard, set and maintained by an independent organzation.

    You don't. Trust me, you really don't.

    Standards set by committes stagnate in development -- the turn-around time is slow, and the number of improvements or changes are minimal. The only standards that really work arfe those set by actively developing organizations.

    If and when Sun decides that Java is a "complete" language (i.e., no more major additions or modifications to the core language), then that might be a good time to turn it over to something like the ISO. Until then, it needs to stay in the hands of Sun or others who have an active interest in the language's development.

    Can Sun be more open and responsive? Quite probably. But an international standards organization would do a far worse job than Sun currently does.

    --

  • Poor psychology. You aren't going to persuade Sun to make you a gift when you clearly will show no gratitude anyway.

    So you think being nice is the way to get Sun to come across? Hey, maybe you're right. But don't bet your life on it. Notwithstanding the fact that much that much of our free OS originated at Sun, we already know that Sun is not being nice. Witness their dance around the standards bodies. So we should be nice, yes, but also, we need some powerful pursuasion.

    Get this clear: Sun is not giving us anything by designing Java and giving it to us. We could have done that quite well by ourselves, thankyou. *We* are giving Sun something by elevating their trademark and reputation to a lofty position - by agreeing to make Java a true, public standard.

    If Java is always going to be proprietary to Sun, then we will be no better off with Sun as master than with Microsoft as master. Do get that clear. As long as Java is proprietary, we are much better of to deny it the full status it seeks, and to work instead with things that are truly public standards: the Linux kernel, Python, TCP/IP, all of GNU, etc. etc. Java only becomes useful to us in the long run if Sun lets go completely, so don't think about being nice when so much depends on it. It's not a matter of being nice, it's a matter of what our long term goals are.

    You evidently feel entitled to their code, and you're not.

    I don't care much about their code. I could have written it myself, and better. It's the design, the standard, etc that I care about. Now if they want us to work on their code and make it better than it is, because frankly, you can see from the outside that it sucks, they will have to open it up the rest of the way.

    As Larry Wall said, those of leasurely moral development often confuse giving with taking. Since giving is good, some think taking must also be good. Are you grateful even to the FSF?

    What a question. Of course I am. FSF gave us the GPL. FSF doesn't play games with standards. Now ask any member of the FSF whether they're "grateful" to Sun.

    By the way, when Java first came out I was an ardent supporter and I really saw it as the way forward. I believed what Sun said, about not trying to keep control of it and keeping only the trademark. That was quite a few years ago. I've had a chance to study the whole thing very closely. Did you? Do you know about the ISO and ECMA affairs? Have you read the Sun Community Source Licencse? Didn't think so.
    --
  • I dont look at it as a matter of choice. I look at it as a matter of intelligence.

    One of them is smart, one of them is less smart, and the third is just plain stupid. ;)

    Bowie J. Poag
  • In what way is [Microsoft's] J-- better than the JDK?

    Faster and more stable. Note: I detest Microsoft, Its business practices, and its founder and its founder's dog. Yet I'm not going to deny what's true.

    The language specification and API cannot be made un-free.

    Not the existing APIs, no, but the new APIs coming up, that's where the problem lies. That's why so many of us have a problem with Sun's behaviour at the moment.
    --
  • I don't know the exact details, but it's basically that any implementation of Swing made after even looking at Sun's documentation falls under Sun's licensing restrictions. According to those rules, there is no such thing as a "clean-room implementation".
  • I don't know the exact details, but it's basically that any implementation of Swing made after even looking at Sun's documentation falls under Sun's licensing restrictions. According to those rules, there is no such thing as a "clean-room implementation".
    That's not correct. Reading the API documentation does not keep you from making a clean-room implementation.

    Juergen, Blackdown Java-Linux [blackdown.org]

  • Sun doesn't get it (Score:5)

    by Lucius Lucanius ( 61758 ) on Sunday June 11, 2000 @06:17AM (#1010663)
    "I'm happy to say that Sun sounds like they're fairly serious about Linux support."

    NOW? How many years has it been? Sun has been so boneheaded with java, which was once considered a threat to Windows as a platform. Now it's just another language. Consider all the signs:

    1) A lot of the Sun java team quit right after it became a hit. This would have been unthinkable at MS. What does McNealy do, not hand around the stock option cookies?

    2) When java was taking off, linux support was lacking badly, and sun didn't give a shit. With the world's biggest volunteer hacker base aching to help, ignore them. Nice move.

    3) Sun invented java, and its own java products were among the least popular for development (compare symantec and visual j++). And it insisted on controlling java as its proprietary property.

    If they had been smart, linux+java could have been a formidable combination a few years ago. Instead, they are still being myopic at this stage.
  • Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. Sun has released a beta of 1.3 for linux with hotspot client as well as server which is much better than IBM's beta of 1.3. IBM's vms tend to be very buggy and unstable.
  • Well, you can check freshmeat more then once in a while you know..

    From their web site. There is a new version with bug fixes for many of the problems reported on the Discussion page.

    URL: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/linuxjdk

  • Give Sun *some* credit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I hate to see people bashing Sun for lack of Linux support for Java when the fact is that Linux has by far more support than FreeBSD, BeOS, and other platforms. Be happy with what you have... while the rest of us live without.
  • Hmmmmm. x86 only, simultaneous release for Win/Solaris/Linux but *not* Mac OS X, no official BSD port, and no mention of J2EE for the Mac. And this after fearless leader Steve Jobs appeared onstage during the keynote. Good to see nothing ever changes at Sun. Maybe if they focused a little more on promoting widespread Java use instead of focusing on killing Microsoft.....

  • Re:Java on FreeBSD (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just wish so much that Java was a free and open standard, that sometimes seeing these stories sends me off on a little bit of a melancholy fugue. Given how close MS came to killing Java I can't believe you really mean that. Be of good cheer; Java liveth and as the foul serpent of Redmond hastens to his end, Java shall grow in strength and freedom!
  • I agree, Sun has taken their sweet time to support Java on Linux. It's been a source of frustration for years, for Sun employees as well as the Linux community. That's why I asked at the presentation "why did it take so long?". The nervous laughter in the room was quite telling. The reply ("limited resources") is not the full story, of course, but it's probably all they can say publically. I believe the real reason is Sun can't decide if Linux is a competitor or an ally.

    The good news is that Sun is now going to do Linux releases. The bad news is that Java is still more proprietary than open. Java is still the best technology for Internet programming, so I'm going to continue to use it. At the same time I'll cheer on Sun to make their technology more open, and cheer on IBM and others for giving Sun some pressure in control of the Java platform.
  • Besides the nonexistant fallout from Sun's withdrawal from the ECMA, what boneheaded moves has Sun done?

    What are you worried about? What is a specific problem you are afraid of?

  • And disrupt the beautiful love story between you and Natalie?

    --
  • I'm perfectly happy with vim+syntax highlighting. :)

    Amen. I work with three other java developers - I use vim, a second uses emacs, and the other two use some windows GUI IDE things. Which development environment has caused the most trouble? The IDEs, again and again. F#@kd up classpaths, strange ideas of package structure, and other stuff I don't wanna think about. Long live vim.

    ----------------

  • Just to clarify this: The announced Java3D version is made by Blackdown. The version you use is Java3D 1.1.3 (and we have a final version of that right now). The version mentioned at JavaOne was Java3D 1.2, we have a working build of 1.2 but I want to do some additional testing before making a final release. Stay tuned.

    Juergen -- Blackdown Java-Linux
  • If and when Sun decides that Java is a "complete" language (i.e., no more major additions or modifications to the core language), then that might be a good time to turn it over to something like the ISO.

    Java will be "complete" when Win32 is "complete"... ie when it is abandoned forever. Dude, FORTRAN isn't "complete"...

    My point? Same as yours. Standards are oversold.
  • Except that due to licensing restrictions, people that would gladly write a truly free JVM aren't able to do so, and to them it's not worth the effort of doing it with Sun breathing down their neck.

    This is why Kaffe doesn't have Swing. The debian-java mailing list has a few discussions about this from time to time.

  • That's not correct. Reading the API documentation does not keep you from making a clean-room implementation.

    Ooh! Pretty! Someone should tell the debian-java folks, though, 'cause they just freak out every time it's mentioned...

  • You may not be grateful to Sun for designing Java, but I am. You say "We could have have done that quite well by ourselves, thank you." Are you serious? How many more brilliant languages are you planning to design and implement? I will become your biggest fan.

    I can't imagine working on large distributed programs without Java. Nothing about it seems inevitable. In fact it seems downright inspired. Java, as currently available, makes my life as a programmer much easier than if I chose to do without it. So I use it. In spite of being one of Richard Stallman's biggest fans.

    If you can reimplement Sun's JDK on your own, as you claim, then I would be truly grateful to you as well. Many organizations have tried, but Sun's JDK still seems to work better than the alternatives. It really is a lot of work. In the meantime, I am grateful to Sun for the productivity they have already given me. And I hope that my interests and Sun's will continue to coincide. But I do not feel than I am in a position to demand anything from them. What have I done for Sun lately? Nothing.

    The licenses are clear. If I don't want the code under those terms, then I don't use it. I would like to use Jini for example, but I don't like the license. So I don't use it. I don't resent Sun for not giving Jini to me, just because I want it. I'm no worse off than I was before.

    And I don't work on their source code because of the SCSL. That was their choice and mine. Nevertheless, it is THEIR CODE, and they can delete every last byte if they want.

    Personally, I wouldn't give my code to the ISO either. Ever wonder why you can't download a copy of the final ISO C++ specification off the web?

  • You have a small penis.
  • So what exactly is the licensing restriction that stops Kaffe from having Swing?
  • Sun has at least two engineers working at Apple alongside the Apple MRJ Team on the port of Java to MacOS X. It would be nice if Sun did all of the VM development work for platforms other than Solaris or Windows- but I tend to think that it better to leave that job to the people who created the "other platforms". I think that Apple engineers could do a better job of developing a Java VM for MacOS than a complete team of Sun engineers.

    If you are interested, I have some information on Java and the Macintosh on my web site: The Outlaw Cafe [outlawcafe.org]
  • direct article link [lwn.net]. Since it doesn't seem to be there in the blurb at the top...
  • There's a AWT on GTK port on the SCSL site, but they don't intend to do anything with it.

    Why the heck not? Because they're Sun, that's why, and they don't really care if linux users want a GTK version badly enough to write it for them.

    They have no plans to compromise on SCSL to be more GPL friendly.

    Is that a surprise? They will continue to have no such plans until they get it forced on them.

    I asked "why did it take so long to support Linux?", the answer I got was "limited resources".

    That's disingenuous. If they needed more resources they could easily have gotten them by making the SCSL GPL-compatible. The real reason is: "we thought Solaris needed a little help".
    --
  • Yup, I forgot to put it. Fixed :)

  • First off, the actual article is here [lwn.net]. The Slashdot link just takes you to their front page (which seems to be happening more and more on Slashdot.

    I really hope that the tighter Linux support for Java means that someone sits down and comes up with the right way to install a JRE under Linux. I'm tired of having to untar a binary tree and then screw around with web server configs forever to get it to work.

    It really is time for Sun to start releasing RPMs with good post-install scripts (or Debian packages for that matter).
  • I realize that this may be a very stupid question (I know very little about Java), but what about Java on other operating systems, such as BeOS and QNX or AtheOS? I realize that they do not have a large enough following for Sun to care, but is it possible for users of these operating systems to use Java in some way?
  • Since Java appeared on Linux I am builing
    RPM packages for each new release (for
    internal use). Hope some day SUN will ship
    RPMs.

    Good news is that IBM JDK does come as RPMs!

    Another sad thing about Javasoft, is that they increasinly become MS-centric. They release 1.3
    for Windows first, with Solaris (and Linux) version still not ready! If I were project manager
    at the SUN, I would never let this happen. After
    all Solaris is their own product and it makes sense to support it first.

  • A FreeBSD port is in the works! Not official yet.


    Well, that's nice to hear. Java can be done on FreeBSD right now, but it's nice to hear that, unofficially, an official port is in the works.

    I think that's a good thing, anyway.

    I used to like Java a lot. Heck, I was a Java Lobby member before the counter on their page turned 1000. :) I have 15 tomes on Java, most from Addison-Wesley's line. I haven't used them in a couple years now, though, because I lost faith in Sun's leadership of Java. Maybe someday I'll stop worrying about it and jump back on the bandwagon. Maybe having it officially supported at the same revision level on more platforms will help ease my worries. I dunno.

    I really want it to be an international standard, set and maintained by an independent organzation.

    Sorry, I'm just woolgathering here. I just wish so much that Java was a free and open standard, that sometimes seeing these stories sends me off on a little bit of a melancholy fugue.

  • Some comments (Score:5)

    by ChrisRijk ( 1818 ) on Sunday June 11, 2000 @05:37AM (#1010689)
    • Just got back from the first day of JavaOne. I'm happy to say that Sun sounds like they're fairly serious about Linux support. Lots of Linux visibility at the conference, several talks and BOFs. The biggest news I heard is that Java 1.4 ("Merlin") should be released simultaneously on Windows, Solaris, and Linux.
    That they'll all be simultaneous for 1.4 isn't exactly new news - they've been saying it for about 2 months now. It's also possible you might see a point release (eg J2SE 1.3.X) which is simultaneous for all 3. Btw, Sun haven't done the final release for J2SE 1.3 on Solaris yet either, and the final release for Linux is only going to be about a month later than for Solaris.

    J2SE 1.4 is winding it's way through the Java Community Process - see the (incomplete) specification lead [sun.com].

    • Yay! Pretty much all the standard J2SE and J2EE stuff should be coming out for Linux, including Hotspot (client & server), Java plug-in, etc.
    Btw, the Linux beta [sun.com] already has HotSpot Client and Server. AFAIK the current Linux Java port is not the same code-base as the Solaris one, but they're going to merge them.

    • x86 releases only for now.
    AFAIK Sun are leaving non x86 Linux ports to Blackdown who are already working on them...

  • A Good Thing. (tm) (Score:5)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Sunday June 11, 2000 @06:12AM (#1010690) Homepage

    Personally, I don't really see why we need more IDE's for Java. I'm perfectly happy with vim+syntax highlighting. :)

    Some helpful links for the unbathed masses:

    IBM's Java AlphaWorks SDK For Linux [ibm.com]
    IBM's VisualAge Java SDK For Linux [ibm.com]
    Sun's "Java 2" SDK for Linux [sun.com]

    Get crackin',

    Bowie J. Poag

  • As for FreeBSD, the people in charge of porting Java to MaxOS X, have mentioned bindings to the native GUI API. Yummy.

    As for your doubt of Sun, why? What could they possibly do? Begin charge money for Java? Hardly, that would be suicide (yes, I'm aware of the J2EE issues - but that's a completely different matter). Java not a standard? Hey, remember MS' attempt to pollute Java? Visual J++, where are you today. If MS couldn't do it, who can? Remember this [slashdot.org] article? What could make you lose faith in Sun a couple of years ago? That's the time Swing first appeared and we were all messing around with JDK1.1.6. That when Applet was still a buzzword, and server side Java was a rarity. That was before there was the support from many of the major Java advocates today.

  • If anyone is helping Linux gain respect as a Java platform, IBM is doing the most. Their JVMs are the only ones that show the Linux can do the job. Going through the JavaOne site, I do not see anything that reflects this..
  • Poor psychology. You aren't going to persuade Sun to make you a gift when you clearly will show no gratitude anyway. You evidently feel entitled to their code, and you're not. As Larry Wall said, those of leasurely moral development often confuse giving with taking. Since giving is good, some think taking must also be good. Are you grateful even to the FSF? Or did they only do their duty by giving you what you feel entitled to?

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