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Java Programming

JBuilder Foundation is Free - and for Linux 261

Posted by Roblimo from the excellent-toys dept.
ZioPino writes "JBuilder Foundation is a free, fully functional Java IDE. It's available for download now at the Inprise Web site. This version is 100% Java and runs on Linux, Solaris and Windows. There is also a very cool debugger. "
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JBuilder Foundation is Free - and for Linux More

JBuilder Foundation is Free - and for Linux

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  • It's actually often incredibly difficult to do anything important under win9x, unfortunately.
  • My guess on that --- and I don't _know_, because I work on Delphi, not JBuilder --- is that it was only _tested_ under RedHat, and so we aren't ready to claim in public that it works under anything else. (As a former tech support person, i'm very much in favor of narrow system requirements). I can't imagine any good reason that it wouldn't work under a different flavor of Linux that had a reasonable JDK, tho.
  • Yes and no --- the JDK is blackdown work, JBuilder isn't.
  • GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/

    User-Agent: lwp-request/1.39

    GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder --> 302 Moved Temporarily
    GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/ --> 403 Forbidden

    An Error Occurred

    An Error Occurred
    403 Forbidden

    Looks like they have "web designers" working at Inprise. Got the same when using NS3.0x.

    /mill

  • Pointers - EVERY object in Java is accessed by reference. Sure seems like a pointer to me. Of course, Java does not require you to use the &, *, jump to the left, lift your right leg and fart, method of referencing and dereferencing them. If it is passed by reference, why not have the language automatically do that shit for you?

    More on Pointers - No pointer math -- THANK YOU! Array bounds enforcement -- THANK YOU!

    #include - import only loads the classes you actually use in the code, not the entire package.

    Strings - They SHOULD be a class. If you want to treat them like C++ strings, use the StringBuffer class. They should have overridden the == operator though.

    Objects - DUH! Java is an OBJECT-ORIENTED language. What should it do, use procedures? Integer is an object, int is a primative. That is just what you should have learned the first day of class.

    Java is a tool, like any other language. Learn to use it and use it for the right job and it is a great language.
  • GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/

    User-Agent: lwp-request/1.39

    GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder --> 302 Moved Temporarily
    GET http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/ --> 403 Forbidden
    <HTML>
    <HEAD><TITLE>An Error Occurred</TITLE></HEAD>
    <BODY>
    <H1>An Error Occurred</h1>
    403 Forbidden
    </BODY>
    </HTML>

    Looks like they have "web designers" working at Inprise. Got the same when using NS3.0x.

    /mill

  • > I'm now seeing why ESR started the "Open Source" movement.

    Not to degrade your point, but ESR (Eric Raymond) didn't start the Open Source movement. That honor belongs more properly to RMS (Stallman). Both have done a great deal to promote Open (or "Free") Software, each in their own way, but it was Stallman who first came up with the idea of the GNU "Copyleft".

  • Point: Java DOES NOT ALLOW operator overloading however, Java Natively does Operator Overload.

    Example? +

    1+1 = 2
    1 + "2" = "12"
  • Does anyone know if there are any alternative download sites? all of Borlands seem to be umm not very responsive. :P Fr05t --
  • No, the previous poster was correct. a[i] is the value of a plus the value of i. Because addition is commutative, i[a] is correct as well. (It is poor C, but legal)
    --
    Mike Mangino Consultant, Analysts International
  • Free in this context generally does imply Open Source

    Err ... so what is the correct way to denote something which is 'software you don't have to pay for'?

    I think it makes more sense to use either capitalization (Free=Open Source, free=no paying required), or distinct terms (Open Source = open source, free = no payment required), especially since to everyone _not_ in the Open Source community, "free" means "you don't have to pay for it."

  • I've had a major gripe with both Java and Object Pascal over the lack of operator overloading; this is a feature that I desperately miss every time I get out of C++.
  • Sure, you *can* write stupid code in C++.
    You can write stupid code in any language.

    1) No pointers - This is good. People abuse pointers.

    Oh, I guess MacOS is better than Linux, because
    you have no command line in MacOS and people
    can abuse the command line. Linux is so crap,
    all you have to do is type
    # rm -rf /
    and you'll screw up your entire system.

    If you believe in disempowering people because
    they *can* abuse something your argument makes
    perfect sense.

    To me this summarises the entire java/C++ debate. The whole philosophy behind java is you can't trust the programmer,

    - no pointers, you might abuse them,

    - no operator overloading because some people abuse it, too bad if code is twice as long and hard to read, we must protect people from themselves.

    - we'll take care of the memory management because
    stupid programmers can't handle it. But we'll do a half assed job of it so JBuilder grinds to a halt with less than 128M RAM. You better make sure you've taken care of all those dangling references though. If you can't even take care of whether you've deleted your objects or not, stay away from programming altogether.

    - no templates, they're too complicated - we'll
    just force people to cast all over the place or
    write thousands of little utility classes.

    - no multiple enheritance, its too complicated to use properly. We'll just give you a cut down version in interfaces (although I kindof agree
    with this one ;-))

    2) #includes - this has been covered, but just copying the code into one big lump file is not all that great of an idea.

    WTF are you talking about
    #include files are meant to define interfaces

    3) Strings are a class - I think deep down they aren't, but this relates to

    if (you == "bozo")
    cout "I'll stick to C++ thanks\n";

    if (!you.equals("bozo"))
    System.out.println("but server side java works nicely\n");

    4) Everything is treated like an object - great! now you can prove things about your program.

    You can't prove anything useful about non-trivial programs. When you're ready to write some non-trivial programs, you might want to try C++. Just kidding, Java is not a bad langauge, C++ does have flaws, but this argument about protecting people from writing bad code just drives me crazy. A bad programmer is useless in any language. Designing interfaces for beginners only is bad enough, but designing programming languages for beginners only is too much.
  • I was using Java to build a GUI around a legacy C code program, and I was searching for IDEs to use. The best one out there that had a resource editor (which was necessary) was JBuilder. It was a nice environment, but it was filled with bugs. The editor was also not too customizable, so I had to keep manually tabbing myself a lot, and the tabs converted to spaces way too much, even though I selected the option to have it not do that. The resource editor is powerful, but unfortunately filled with bugs. It crashed on me so many times, and I lost so much work, that I decided to go back to MFC. But I can definately see it in the future as an excelent editor, once they work out some bugs.
  • I actually didn't mean RMS. By starting the "Open Source" movement, I meant that ESR started the movement to all this software "Open Source" instead of free -- a semantic change, meant to reduce this kind of ambiguity.
  • I did a 10 week course on Eiffel as part of my BSc. It sucked large hairy ones IMHO.
    I think the lowest point of that course was to be told in the 10th week that all the Eiffel compiler did was to translate your source into C, then it called CC on the intermediate file.
    I dodged the Smalltalk sessions and got myself on the C/C++ course :)
    And WTF is wrong with the Moderators today? Has a load of good, cheap crack started flooding the market? I've seen valid rants about Java dissed down to -1 Flamebait, regardless that they made good points, and piss poor attempts at sarcasm and humour ramped up to +3 Funny!
    Boy, oh boy am I looking forward to metamoderate your lily white arses!
    (Now watch this go to : Score -1: Made valid points but pissed off the 5krip7 k1dd13s doing the moderating today)
  • It seems already slashdotted... it's 1515h local time - the inprise-web-serber replies with tons of "access denied", the linux download-page is half empty, after I have fiddled out the three ftp/http servers not even one is either responding or letting me in! I tried it with good old "ftp" and also with "Webdownloader for X" - http/ftp. It's dead! Dead dead dead! Why do I have this dumb 2 MBit connection anyway?
  • Have you heard of the C++ Standard Library and at least strtok()?
  • First of all, thank you for a clear response to my post.

    I do disagree with a few things you've said, as well as understand that my post wasn't exactly clear, and I'd like to say a few things; perhaps, if you respond in turn, I may learn something.

    By your own statement:

    >The convention I use of capitalizing "Free" when I want to draw attention to the word and its meaning is by no means universal, the fact that ZioPino didn't capitalize it is an indication of nothing.

    Since you chose to capitalize "Free" to "draw attention to the word" instead of italicizing it, you'll have to forgive me for not being familiar with your personal conventions. From what I've seen of common usage on Slashdot, free is free-of-cost, while Free is free in the "Free software" sense.

    >I'm at a loss as to what the "nonpolitically stunted meaning" would be.

    Sorry for the lack of clarity. That was a combination of missing my morning coffee and irritability. What I meant was the "whatever definition of free you may have that does not mean free in the monitary sense", or something like that.

    >>All I'm saying is, there's no point in trying to start a flame war,
    >Than why do you appear to be trying to?

    To be an ass about it (meaning, don't take this seriously), I probably "appear to be trying to" because you're naturally defensive.

    To answer honestly, that was not at all my intent. My point was (and is) that I have seen people on Slashdot chided for using free in the financial sense to feel that perhaps those who assume that the word free taken alone means anything other than financially free are perhaps missing something.

    In short, it seems to me that Slashdot assumes that free means financially free, and that some of the most vocal Slashdot posters assume one of the other definitions.

    It's Rob's baby, and if he prefers free to mean free in the financial sense, it's his right.

    >>As such, what did you hope to contribute to the discussion with your post?

    I'm glad that you did not take this as flamebait, as it was not meant as such.

    Again, I'd like to thank you for responding in such a manner to my post, and I'd like to also say that if anything here sounds sarcastic/rude, that is not my intent.

    -chet

  • However it may not be stable. I'm running the Sun/Inprise JDK on the LinuxGrrls [linuxgrrls.org] site with JRunPro for the servlet engine, and it is faster than Blackdown's JDK1.2.1 prev2 (I can't run their 1.2.2RC3 until I get a glibc2.1.2 distro). It ran really well and seemed to be coping with a slashdotting too, but sometime this morning (GMT) died for no readily apparent (ie: logged) reason after serving nearly 90,000 hits in 36 hours, so I guess it's not ready for prime-time yet. It is only RC1 after all... It might be JRunPro of course, when I ran it with Blackdown it never got hit that much in so short a time, but other, quite large sites use JRunPro albeit probably not with Linux, so I expect it's not that.
  • 1) They say you shouldn't use anything before 1.2.2, what about 1.3beta? Has anyone experienced problems with it?

    2) All sites and mirrors appear to be very slow, not only for download, but also for the login. I once was able to see the login screen and click on 'new user', but it timed out again. Does one need different keys for Windows and Linux? What kind of information do they want from you?

    I might decide not to download after all...
  • JBuilder is 100% Java, there's not a single line of native code, let alone connections with Qt.
    KDE is the suggested platform since it uses a WM that showed to be very compatibile with the Linux JDK.

    --
    Paolo "ZioPino" Ciccone
  • Anonymous Coward wrote:

    First step - the download:
    it was ok so far, but you have to be a community.borland member in order to get your license code.
    ...
    Third step - starting it up
    The first time you start it up you have to type in your license code.

    I thought Roblimo said this was Free software? This doesn't sound Free [gnu.org] at all to me. I can't get to the site to check for myself, it gives me a "Forbidden" error.

    ----
  • We are setting up alternative sites.

    --
    Paolo "ZioPino" Ciccone
  • Java needs a poll() function so we don't have to have one thread per connection.
  • I used the Borland C++ Builder in school and it was very nice. Been wanting to learn Java and now is as good a time as any. Cannot wait to try this out.


    Things just keep getting better for Linux. Woo-hoo!

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

    "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
  • First step - the download:
    it was ok so far, but you have to be a community.borland member in order to get your license code. I already was, but newcomers should better be told that it's for free and doesn't come with any drawbacks.

    Be sure to use a throwaway e-mail address, though, unless you want to get a LOT of spam. Inprise doesn't seem to have quite gotten the message yet and keeps flirting with the RBL.
  • I love any sentence that includes the words "software", "windows", "fully-functional" and "free" since they're rarely ever together

  • Re:IDEs (Score:1)

    by hwolfe ( 531 )
    Well, I like to start developing the look of a GUI in an IDE, and then tweak the source to fit my needs. It's much quicker and generally easier. than doing it all "by hand." The problem with a text-based tool generating templates is that you don't get to see what the GUI looks like as you're progressing. Want to move or delete a widget? Simple in an IDE, but a text-based tool would require that you regenerate the code and run it every time you want to see what you've done.

  • Not to mention "very cool"...

  • Perhaps this should be moderated from Informative to Funny.
  • Actually, there were many packages available as source long before either RMS or ESR got well known.

    If you want to name anyone as the 'original' source distibuter in Unix, it's got to be Dennis Ritchie, who posted off lots of dec tapes labed 'Love Dennis'. This was in the mid 70's, a full decade before RMS created the FSF & started on GNU.

  • I've read most of the posts that preceed mine. One thing I find peculiar is why all the Inprise bashing? Inprise has had its share of problems in the past is and is finally turning itself around.

    At the Inprise Developer's conference, PrimeTime was demonstrated on Linux (and Solaris). Yes, it was buggy (the Linux version, that is). And, that was direct result of the Blackdown VM being buggy at the time. The PrimeTime Chief stated at that time that they were working with Blackdown to solidify the VM. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to screw over anybody.

    In retrospect, I recall a lot of praise was given to Linux and the whole Open Source movement. But, you have to remember, Inprise is a for profit corporation. The fact they are giving JBuilder Foundation away is nothing short of miracle. And, the provided a JIT and bug fixes for Blackdown. So, why all the long faces?

    I hear people complaining that its an IDE or that it uses this Linux or that enviroment and not mine. The argument is analogous as to why they don't support JBuilder on OS/2 or VAXVM or CPM. Hey, they have to draw the line somewhere, right? Why else do you think they are also working in conjuction with Corel? The fact that Corel and Redhat at the most popular Linux distributions (according to a recent study) just might have something to do with that?

    All programs have certain hardware/software requirements. As developers, we know that is the case. The survey taken by Inprise earlier this year clearly showed that RedHat Linux and KDE were the most prevalent in the community. Is this not so? Or, are the figures they used askew? I'd bet that Inprise did its market research this time (other than just the survey). They can't afford to be wrong again. They made some choices. You don't have to agree with them. But, they made their choices based upon reliable information and business accumen and not on personal bias.

    Now, all I want for Christmas is the forthcoming Kylix platform so I can move my legacy Win32 Delphi apps to Linux. To me, my belief is that RAD is GOOD and INPRISE is GOOD for the Linux community on the whole. I may be mistaken about some things, but I don't think so in this case.

  • Great news, with one gripe (Score:4)

    by matasar ( 8397 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @09:32PM (#1473506) Homepage
    It seems like Slashdot of all places should know better than to call something "free" without specifying whether they mean it in the beer sense, or the speech sense. I'm now seeing why ESR started the "Open Source" movement. I got all excited when I saw that Borland was releasing something "free" -- it's still great news, but I got my hopes up.

    A bit more on the subject at hand, I'm glad to see two huge Java announcements for linux in the last 2 days -- it's great news for Java developers. I intend to try out JBuilder as soon as I can

    Ben
  • I suppose this release will boost Inprise's stock even more. I was lucky enough to get in on 400 shares whe it was about 4, and now it's at 17 and a half. Wow.
  • So where are they? I've been trying to download it
    without any success for past 4 hours.
    Maybe somebody else left a copy in his or her /home/ftp/pub dir? Cable modem / ADSL users where are you?
  • This was on the borland newsgroup:


    Due to the unexpectedly huge demand for the JBuilder Foundation
    download, our server has been overwhelmed. If you are considering
    downloading JBuilder Foundation, you are advised to wait until next
    week when demand has slackened.

    --
    Ben Matterson
    Online Manager
    Borland Developer Support
    Inprise/Borland
  • I don't know about you, but a.equals(b) seems more intuitive to me then strcmp(a, b). Again, cleaner.
    And I think that $a eq $b is even cleaner and more symmetrical. Seems like Java is still approaching strings as some weird exception to be handled with HazMat gloves instead of recognizing them for the meat and potatoes of most programming.
  • Don't forget Visual Age, which is written mostly (entirely?) in Smalltalk, as was pointed out on here many months ago.
  • will anyone mirror this thing while they
    are being /.ed !? Please!
  • > I thought Roblimo said this was Free software?

    No, Roblimo [mailto]-quoting-ZioPino [mailto] said it was free software, not Free software.

    >rant>
    If you insist upon being a license zealot, at least try to be a literate one. There are few things that bother me more than people who cry wolf in terms of "invasion of privacy" or "misuse of term Free" before really even reading what they're berating.
    </rant>

    One of the highest-ranked posts on this thread so far mentioned being a developer who already uses a native version of this product and got some benefit from the Java version, which this story addresses.

    At least one guy benefitted from this.

    Several people moderated him up, apparently because they thought the information he had share regarding this program was worth the time of others. Apparently, more than one guy benefitted from this.

    All I'm saying is, there's no point in trying to start a flame war, when [hopefully] most Slashdot readers are intelligent enough to realize that free in this context did not imply open source (in the general, nonpolitically stunted meaning of the term). As such, what did you hope to contribute to the discussion with your post?

    Just a thought.

    -chet

  • I have just got (after two hours wrangling with hideously lagged the Sun website) JBuilder to work. My system is running Debian GNU/Linux [debian.org] and has no KDE packages installed.

    So perhaps they are just putting it in their because their installer wants to put an icon on the KDE desktop? Its interesting to note that the README file packaged with the new JDK also mentions a need for the KDM for no apparent reason.

  • The problem is that he's apparently trying to re-write the English Language. My dictionary lists 27 definitions of the word free, one of which is "without charge". This software *is* free. Is it free in every possible sense? No, but it is free. Should Borland have released it as free (ie. Open Source)? Well, it would have been nice, but it's certainly hard to criticize them for what they have done. Maybe free isn't as good as free, but it's certainly better then not free...
  • note the word "part" ?

    JBuilder works with, depends on and I think incorporates the JDK.
  • You need two things to run a java IDE:
    - a pentium II 300MHZ 128+ MB or better
    - a fast jdk (IBM, suns jdk 1.3 beta, inprise?)

    I've installed jdk 1.3 beta a few days ago on my NT PC (PII 350 mhz, 192 MB) and the result is very satisfying. The first thing I loaded was the swingset demo application. This is a good test since it contains a sample of all the swing components and forces the jdk to load just about all the classes in the swing package.

    In short it was substantially faster. It loaded very fast and once loaded there was no lag when you clicked on a GUI element, unlike all the previous versions of the JDK. It loaded in about 9 seconds on my PC and responded as fast as a native app after that.

    Next on my list was forte (used to be netbeans), this is a IDE comparable to what borland released today. It ran fast. It used to be a bit too slow with previous JDKs but all the lag seems to have disappeared. Switching between different workspaces is as fast as you could want it to be.

    Next was togetherJ, a UML 1.3 compliant modeling tool. Very nice app and once again performance problems have mostly disappeared.

    Then finally a swing application I wrote myself, again major speedup, faster loading time and very decent response.

    Seems like the java is slow argument has become obsolete. Now you only can claim it is memory intensive, but hey what's the price of a 128 MB upgrade?


    Needless to say that I'm not going back to 1.2.2. I managed to download jbuilder but have been unable to obtain a key so its just sitting there. I also tried to run it with jdk1.3 beta but jbuilder didn't like that. Apparently there are some hardcoded dependencies on borlands version of the JDK, so I don't think they can claim it is 100% java.

    If they don't fix that, I'll probably won't use it because being able to use the latest jdk is a must for me.

    In short, I can recommend the jdk 1.3 even though it is still beta. I have not encountered any crashes or anomalies and it sure is much faster than 1.2.2.
  • Last time I used java last year. SDK's were free, and you could use them to create commercial apps if you wanted. I maybe wrong, but I don't think so.
    I am now trying to download this thing. After 10 attempts I managed to guess my uid/password. I want 1.2.x for linux, so I click on it. Then, I get the license agreement. In it we have the following (quote):

    3.4 Licensee shall have no right to use the Licensed Software for productive or commercial use.

    If I am getting it right, I am not at liberty to use jdk to e.g. develop a commercial application in java and sell it (not a derivative of jdk, just an applet or something).
    Does that mean that only way to build commercial apps on Java these days is to BUY an IDE?
    Productive use, does that cover even school work?
    So let's get this straight, I can't use jdk for school projects, can't use it for writing commercial stuff, so then, what *can* I use it for? To learn java? (Isn't that "productive" use as well?)
    Someone please correct me here.
    Or is this just because it's a release candidate, and restrictions will be lifted for non-beta?
  • hankaholic wrote:

    No, Roblimo-quoting-ZioPino said it was free software, not Free software.

    Roblimo also used the term free in the title, which was not a quote. The convention I use of capitalizing "Free" when I want to draw attention to the word and its meaning is by no means universal, the fact that ZioPino didn't capitalize it is an indication of nothing. The term "free software" on Slashdot generally means "Free software", not "software you don't have to pay for".


    If you insist upon being a license zealot, at least try to be a literate one. There are few things that bother me more than people who cry wolf in terms of "invasion of privacy" or "misuse of term Free" before really even reading what they're berating.

    Who is being a license zealot? What about my post was illiterate? When did "invasion of privacy" come up at all? When did I berate anything? Did you actually read my post?


    One of the highest-ranked posts on this thread so far mentioned being a developer who already uses a native version of this product and got some benefit from the Java version, which this story addresses.

    At least one guy benefitted from this.

    Several people moderated him up, apparently because they thought the information he had share regarding this program was worth the time of others. Apparently, more than one guy benefitted from this.

    I'm glad to hear this, but what does this have to do with my post, or even with the rest of your response to this post?


    All I'm saying is, there's no point in trying to start a flame war,

    Than why do you appear to be trying to?


    when [hopefully] most Slashdot readers are intelligent enough to realize that free in this context did not imply open source

    Free in this context generally does imply Open Source. There was no indication in the article that it didn't in this case. Yes, I am intelligent enough to realize the term was probably used in error, but I had no way of confirming it, as the referenced site was down when I checked.


    (in the general, nonpolitically stunted meaning of the term).

    I'm not sure what you mean here. The meaning of the term "Open Source" is roughly equivalent to the term "Free", but with a more pragmatic and less ideological focus. The Open Source FAQ says "[Open Source is] a pitch for `free software' on solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological tub-thumping." I guess that would be the "politically stunted meaning" in your terms, but I'm at a loss as to what the "nonpolitically stunted meaning" would be.


    As such, what did you hope to contribute to the discussion with your post?

    I hoped to draw attention to confusing and inaccurate terms in the article. Roblimo is comparibly new at this, he might not have realized he was confusing the issue. Other readers might not have realized that we were not talking about Free Software here, in spite of the headline.

    ----
  • Its a development environment. Not a environment for running actual Java Applications within, although you can if you want to debug. Thus the portability of the IDE is irrelevant to the portability of the Java language.

    From what I've seen there are Java virtual machines for most platforms with enough processing power to handle it.

  • Actually, I'm complaining about the fact that a supposedly "pure-Java" application is platform-specific. Isn't this what landed Microsoft in the fire a few months back? If you gave a car, I wouldn't bitch at the colour. I'd bitch if it only took left-exits onto prime-numbered freeways, though. I think you misunderstand me. I'm a Borland/Inprise fan from way back. My first C environment, my first Pascal environment, my first Windows development environment, and my first relational database environment all came from Borland. I've a lot of respect for them. I've subsequently switched to MS Visual C on Windows (and gcc everywhere else) because Borland^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Inprise got too caught up in the "radpid development" craze to release a decent C compiler for Windows that could keep up with Platform SDK changes. That said, it is excusable for neither Sun nor Borland nor Microsoft to stamp "100% Pure Java -- Write once, Run anywhere" on an application that only runs on three very specific hardware/software combinations. Wasn't the whole point of Java platform independence? Assuming it is 100% Java, shipping the app as a JAR file would solve this. I'm calling their bluff, which is why I'm bitching. This is especially bad form for Borland, who had a pretty decent Windows->OS/2 PM cross-compiler a few years back. It would actuall translate Windows API code into the appropriate OS/2 PM calls. Cross-platform used to be a breeze for them to do very well.
  • Very odd when you consider that the distribution `requires' Red Hat Linux, yet it works perfectly under Debian GNU/Linux. Some things that you may want to check:
    • Did you download the latest JDK to use with it?
    • Are you doing the install as root? (Perhaps it reports 0Mb because it can't read/write.)
  • I have to admit that the start of my hate of RedHat comes from my experiences with it on the SPARC platform. RedHat 5.something (not their first release on SPARC, but their first in quite a while) shipped so broken out-of-box that I ended up having to cross-compile half of the libraries on a Solaris machine just so that I could reliably compile. Eventually, I got the machine running (keep in mind... I'm not a newbie. I've been an administrator on Solaris, SunOS 4, IRIX 5, IRIX 6, and Linux for several years), and I've tried to poke the configuration as little as possible. Hopefully, over this Christmas holiday, I'll have time to put either Debian or Solaris 7 on the machine. As far as other distributions go, I'm a big fan of Slackware on the x86 platforms. Installation's a snap, it installs only what you ask for. I've walked people through installations of RedHat where they specifically turned off any X support, and RH decided that some subcomponent of some package needed X for a frontend. So, RH installs X, and X needs this and that and something else, and fonts, and blah-blah-blah. I've briefly played with Debian on the SPARC. Its installation routine is definitely easier than RedHat's, although using dselect later to add packages can be confusing if you don't read the README files first. There's also the lack of precompiled software for Debian, as RedHat's RPM is very popular. Although, being a SPARC user, I can rarely find S/Linux RPMs, anyway. I guess my main gripe with RedHat is that they're showing their "true self" as a traditional American corporation, instead of an organization dedicated to furthering the sensible development of an operating environment. They tend to suffer from shovelware syndrome, have a tendency to ship OSes with beta versions of the C runtime library, and have very-much a black box mentality when customizing the OS. This all well-and-good for a new user (or is it?) who doesn't know his way around the OS, but it's damned frustrating to a Unix veteran. I'd been trying to port Slackware to the SPARC platform. However, Patrick Volkerding wasn't interested in blessing my work, as SuSE had burned him before in such a deal. That, combined with my workload caused me to all but abandon the probject. I dunno... people bitch about Slackware because it doesn't behave like a System V Unix. I bitch about Redhat because it behaves like "RedHat OS" instead of like a Unix-like operating environment. I guess it all boils down to the fact that RH 5.0 was utter crap, and they lost me as a customer because of it's instability on both SPARC and Intel platforms. They have this get-out-the-door-and-ship-erratas-later mentatlity that has all but killed HP-UX's credibility and continues to plague Microsoft. I tend to like things that work well out-of-box. If I have to recompile sendmail or ftpd because of some new exploit, that's perfectly acceptable. However, if I can't compile out of box because libc.a or the compiler is broken, that's simply not acceptable, IMHO.
  • Not nearly as much as a Java or C++. VB is also generally for simple or poorly managed projects leaving it at the bottom of the pay scale.

  • A few comments...

    - no operator overloading because some people abuse it, too bad if code is twice as long and hard to read, we must protect people from themselves.

    I think the argument generally goes that operator overloading hides the complexity of an operation. I don't really buy this argument, and I think Java probably should have it. Don't get used to me agreeing with you, it won't last long...

    - we'll take care of the memory management because stupid programmers can't handle it.

    Well, maybe they are right =) How often do you run a program which leaks memory or crashes (*ahem* netscape)? Besides, I hate to bust up your precious belief system, but garbage collection is a very good thing.

    1. Good GC is faster than hand allocation/deallocation. The main reason everyone thinks it is slow is because some types of GC cause the whole program to pause up. This is not true in general. And the reason Java is slow is not because of GC, it is because Java has all kinds of safety checks on every operation you do.
    2. Not having GC breaks the safety you gain by getting rid of pointers in the first place. If the programmer is required to free memory, he/she may end up freeing something which still has references pointing to it.
    You can't prove anything useful about non-trivial programs.

    Wow, this is just plain wrong. For one, people who design really important systems (ie, space shuttle systems) often have to go through and prove things about their programs. Secondly, Java actually *does* prove that your program does not break type safety (that is what we are really talking about here). A few elements of Java actually prevent it from being able to do this correctly (eg, allowing references to be null), but it does for the most part. Check out ML if you are interested. It is a strongly typed language, and you can't run a program if its type checker cannot prove that it is type safe.

    To me this summarises the entire java/C++ debate. The whole philosophy behind java is you can't trust the programmer,

    Even if this is what you believe, it may not be a bad thing. I don't really trust the people writing much of the software I use, because they have proven again and again to be unworthy of my trust (with a few notable exceptions, of course).

    Of course, this is only part of the story. Languages with real types (C++ types aren't worthy of the name) and a real type soundness theorem allow the type checker to prove that data actually is what you say it is. This in the end benefits the programmer by making designing and debugging faster and easier.

    Software engineering is in a pretty sad state today. Programs crash all the time, or just plain don't work, and we accept that as standard. This is just wrong. There is no reason for people to use languages that make it harder for them to write good programs, which C/C++ often turn out to be. Now, don't get me wrong, I think both C and C++ have a place, and some people are able to use them effectively. I don't think they deserve the great respect and widespread use they currently have however.

  • It's from Berkeley.


    Therefore, "D" is obviously Diethelamine.


    ;^)

  • You know what I mean.
    Almost everything written specifically for linux is incomplete and still in beta after what...3 years?
    And it's not just a matter of version numbers and calling it "beta". They really are incomplete - which gives them an excuse when bugs come up (like they ever would eh?).
  • The published portions of the Java spec include the language syntax, the entire VM (all opcodes, the class file format, etc), all the classes under the java. packages and the Java Native Interface. It's all covered in the Java series from Addison Wesley. Off hand, I can't think of any other info that would be needed to build a fully compatible Java 2 standard edition. Of course it would be extremely difficult in practice, but isn't this exactly what Kaffe [transvirtual.com] and Japhar [japhar.org] are doing?
  • There are several things that happen in AWT that make it interact with the WM. There was thread about this in th Enlightenment mailing list some time ago, it could be that the article is still on their website. Window positionin, cut-and-paste and DnD are some of the areas where AWT interract with the WM.


    --
    Paolo "ZioPino" Ciccone
  • Is it me, or is JBuilder30 a Windows NT only app because the JBUILDER.BAT file uses directory/file names of characters longer than 8 characters (which can be resolved if you install the IDE to a safe directory name like C:\JBUILD30\) and the fact that the batch file runner cannot handle long strings of characters to store in its environment variables. Couldn't it be the simplest thing to do to write a small program in C++ say that does all that for you? Or does anyone know any betteer
  • No more so than does gcc incorporate the linux kernel. :)
  • You need a 1.2 version of the JDK. I don't think 1.1.X will work, at least it didn't for me.

    I like InstallAnywhere, but I hate how it doesn't get you any feedback on errors(like class not found). A simple "Coun't find class swing.x" would be nice
  • Here, here, write once, debug everywhere.

    I've had to work around several bugs in the Solaris, Netscape and IE JVMs.
  • It may be that it runs on win 9x, but if you look at the specs on the web site, they specify NT as the doze os.
  • Imprise wold never have tuched Blackdown's code if they didn't nead it. Sending it to Sun for releas as some new JDK was an afterthoght.

    ( after thinking about the money Sun offerd :)
  • I was under the impression that we were discussing jbuilder here. As far as I know a native compiler is provided with that product but I'm not sure. Anyway there are plenty of native compilers. I used to run the symantec compiler when I was programming for jdk1.1. It was much faster and usually compiled my stuff in a second or so.
    The standard JDK from sun comes with a java implementation of the compiler (I wish they shipped jikes or something else instead). The speed loss it suffers is mainly due to the constant overhead of starting the VM.

  • Great, but... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice to see it ported to Linux, but memory system requirement is kind of high isn't it?

    http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/foundation/product info/sysreq.html

    And what's this thing with Redhat again? Can someone tell these boys Redhat is not the only Linux distribution in town. Cheers

  • 1) uhuhh 2) import is nothing like #include! 3) it's BRILLIANT that String's are classes! And nothing prevents you from writing a function like: public boolean strcmp(String a, String b) { return a.equals(b); } 4) Not true. Integer is a wrapper class for int's, which are NOT objects. So when you write a loop, you can do "for (int i = 0;....." and i will NOT be an object. Maybe you should read up on your Java? And the same goes for the moderators which moderated that post to a score of 2!
  • New Terminology:
    FreeB: Free (as in beer)
    FreeS: Free (as in speach)
    FreeSB: Free (as in speach and beer) Pronounced something like Frisbe

  • Re:Gripes with java (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seems like you might want to take just another semester of java.

    1. Everything in java is a pointer, when you call smth. with System.out.println( Object foo) there is only a reference passed to System.out but not the full object.The thing java is missing is pointer arithmetic.

    2. I would love pre-processor directives like #include, but import is just some strange language construct, on the other side, i think that import might be easier to optimize for compilers and thus allow faster compilation.

    3. Yes that is one cool thing about java, in fact the thing i hate most about java is that there exist native types like int, this can be a pain in the ass, this is the one thing (well o.k. among others) that kept Smalltalk alive for so long.

    I believe Java is quite cool, but it has definately lost movement it had when it was young(so much younger than today...). But Java is here to stay so you might get a nice book on Java and try to find out if can come to like it, after you understand it.

    cyberm_acc@hotmail.com
  • Yipes!!
    Does that make FreeBSD Free as in beer, Free as in speech, and free as in D? hrm. What's D? :)
  • Then what's FreeBS?

    ZDnet?


  • Interestingly enough, their minimum CPU specification is a 200MHz PII... pity that there's no such thing. The PII started off at 233MHz.

  • free java IDE for win95/98 (Score:3)

    by enmity. ( 124175 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @10:15PM (#1473623)
    I haven't been around the block much as far as Java is concerned, but from what I've seen in the last few months as I taught myself to code in Java, the freejava IDE (http://www.freejava.co.uk/ [freejava.co.uk]) has proven to be incredibly satisfactory.

    I read another comment posted in regards to this topic as to what a Java IDE had over a text editor besides color context, etc -- but it seems to me that freejava, coupled with the latest JDK and Franck Allimant's winhelp versions of Sun's JDK help files (available free at http://www.confluent.fr/javadoc/indexe.h tm [confluent.fr]) becomes to Java what I remember Turbo C++ for Windows to be -- a sleek, simple developing environment with enough functionality to satisfy both hobbyists and serious codehackers at the same time. (I won't claim to be more than a quasi-serious codehacker though, so don't come to me if freejava doesn't have enough oomph for your projects!)

    (freejava can even be configured to use those winhelp files at the touch of the F1 key -- by far the most useful of its features for someone like me.)

    enmity.

  • Re:Gripes with java (Score:5)

    by Eman ( 22576 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @10:22PM (#1473627)

    Just a couple of comments to your comments on Java. Note that I am not saying that Java is the best language in the world. My philosophy is choose the language best for the job. But I think that maybe you should expand your horizons a bit with programming languages. C isn't all roses either. (C has it's place, but again choose the language for the job).

    First your complaints:
    1. No pointers. It can't possibly be a programming language.
    Well, what can I say about this thought provoking comment (yes there is sarcasm there). First of all it could be decently argued that Java does have pointers (just not in the sense that C does). Excluding the primitive types (int, char, etc.) variables are references to objects. These references are pointers, although they are a bit restrictive. The reference is type bound to a specific object type so you have to cast it either explicitly or implicitly to have it point to a object that is not it's type, but C pointers have this issue also. IMHO typeless references to objects like found is Squeak (based on Smalltalk ) is much better.
    But even if you don't count references as pointers many good languages don't really have a pointer and we consider them good. From my (very limited) experience in functional languages there really isn't pointers. Just lists and atoms. So not having pointers is not a bad thing depending on how the rest of the language is implemented.

    2. People say it has no #includes, yet there continues to be this funny, mystical command called 'import'...
    I see why you would think these are the same since they seem like they have similar functionality. But they are actually pretty different. #includes are pre-processor commands that actually insert the text in that place before the code is run through a compiler. imports are more like namespacing in C++. You don't have to import a object or set of objects before using them. If those objects are in your classpath then java will already know about them. The only thing that importing does for you is allow you to not have to type the fully qualified name. This is vastly different than #including. Go back to your class if you don't understand this becuase any class should have made this clear.

    3. Strings are a class!!! /* snip the rest of this complaint */
    This is a good thing. It gives a string a formal defination instead of merely being a pointer to a bunch of characters (like C does). Given the equals method isn't exactly intuitive. A actual == would have been much better, but in order to do that Java would have to allow operator overloading which I don't believe it does. You could argue that it should have operator overloading, but as we have seen this can easily lead to abuses of operators (see C++ for a good example of this. Yea, lets use the bit shift operator to output to a stream). So what I am saying is that by having a string as an object makes it better because it makes a string more formally defined, and it allows it to be more uniform with the rest of the language. AKA a good thing.

    4. Java treats everything like an object./* snip the rest of this complaint */
    Another good thing. Actually one of my biggest complaints is that it doesn't treat everything as an object. It still also has primitives. This causes confusion by having both and Integer object and an int type. (there are also other primitives that are duplicated as objects). I'm not saying all languages should be all objects, but my thought is that you should choose one or the other. Either all primitives or all object. This mixing just causes confusion and inconsistancies in the language. That said, Java treating most everything as an object comes from Smalltalk. Smalltalk (such a great language) literally did treat everything as an object. This provided a very easy, simple, yet powerful language. The grammer of the language is basically just [object] [message] [period]. Very simple, very elegant. By Java treating most everything as an object they are creating a very small consistant environment. C has forty million types (although maybe I'm exaggerating a bit), Java (minus those annoying primivates) just has one. A reference to an object (although as stated earlier these reference to the object are to a specific type of object basically voiding this great feature).

    As to your comment of Java being a cross between C and Pascal I would disagree. I would best describe it as the syntax of C crossed with the design of Smalltalk. The only major annoyance that I see is that they didn't take enough of the Smalltalk design and use some of the C design causeing inconsistancies in the language.

    As to the java compilers written in java I see no problem with this. GCC is very cross platform, but it pays a price for that by have a bunch of code to deal with platform issues. A java compiler will work under any platform without the extra code. There is the speed issue, but this could be removed by compiling the compliler to native code (GCC and I think the symantic compiler will do this).

    So, yes Java has some faults, but IMHO I think it is still a pretty nice language (although you can probably tell that I am partial to Smalltalk when it comes to OO languages). The complaints you bring against it are pretty much unfounded and if I were you I would consider doing two things:

    1. Get your money back on that course you took, becuase there are some important concepts that they did not teach you.
    2. Learn some other languages. You seem a bit set on C. You know what they say. When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. That way when you have a project to do you will be familiar with many language and can then pick the best langauge for the job.

    Also please note that I am not trying to offend you in any way. Just trying to correct some things you asserted. Feel free to do the same to me as I'm sure their will be many false assertions :)

  • JBuilder works on my Win98 box just fine. Except for the redraw issues with ATI drivers (only a problem with non-default mouse cursors & ATI cards, I think - even without changing video cards it's easy to work around by using default cursors).


  • Gripes with C++ (Score:5)

    by Y ( 13582 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @10:29PM (#1473635)
    I know you've said in a later post that this was tongue-in-cheek, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents here, anyway, since a lot of people vehemently feel that Java (among other languages, e.g., Scheme) is the worst thing to (dis)grace the programming scene.

    The really nice thing about Java and its object-oriented system is that you can mathematically prove that your answer will be of a certain type (a.k.a object), assuming you've written proper code. There is no such guarantee in languages like C++ or C. By giving you the right to directly access memory (via pointers), you lose any chance of definitively predicting the output of your program.

    In C, you're told upfront about this - Kernighan and Ritchie explicitly state in the C reference that "types" merely encode the amount of memory you need to allocate for a specific piece of data.

    In C++, you are promised real types, but C++ is a superset of C, and you still get all of the direct memory access and other low-level functions that ruin a real typing system. In C++, everything is bits when you get right down to it - even memory addresses.

    Let's say you write some code that makes a list of some sort where each node refers to the next node on the list as a node. You finish the code and hand it off. Now some other programmer is called to extend your code. This programmer finds that (s)he can speed up an insertNode(...) function by bypassing your setNext(), etc. functions and directly rewriting the "next" field with some numerical memory address that the new code calculates. By doing this monkeying around, you sacrifice

    (a) readability - the next coder to extend the program is going to have a tough time trying to figure out what "blah.next = 0xfff + calcAddr()" means.

    (b) predictability - by not working with the list as a whole, i.e., as a list, you can no longer make assumptions about its "listness" and how that affects the outcome of the program.

    (c) maintainability - this really is pretty much the same as (a), but it extends a little further. Once you start down the dark path, the code you write to fix the hacks become a hack itself, until you have extremely bloated software.

    To reiterate:
    1) No pointers - This is good. People abuse pointers.
    2) #includes - this has been covered, but just copying the code into one big lump file is not all that great of an idea.
    3) Strings are a class - I think deep down they aren't, but this relates to
    4) Everything is treated like an object - great! now you can prove things about your program.

    For reference, read Luca Cardelli's paper on type systems. It is extremely well-written and I think it is suitable for the layperson.

    You can download a PS or PDF file from
    http://www.luca.demon.co.uk/Bibliogra phy.html [demon.co.uk].

    The paper is aptly titled "Type Systems" and more concretely nails down the points I am trying to make here.

    Btw, if you mean vasectomy, that is the process of removing a man's ability to produce sperm... I'm not sure how that fits into a description of a programming language, or I could be reading the word wrong.

    -Y
  • 1. No pointers. It can't possibly be a programming language.

    No, no pointers. Instead you use references to objects. What's the difference you ask? Really, none. You can't do math on them, I guess, but that's not important.

    I've you've actually done any OO C++ programming and then some Java programming, I think you'll find that the two languages are fairly similar to write in, in many important aspects, although Java tries harder to disallow you doing Dumb things.

    Strings being a class is great. there is also a string class in C++. It's great there too. I HATED having do mess around with allocating and freeing memory just to do simple string operations in C.. (I have a filename, but want to append an extension to it? Well, that's like 4 or 5 lines of C code! AUGH! With a string class it's easy!)

    Java does not treat integers, floats, or chars as objects - these are special cases. I would say this is a flaw more than a feature - why SHOULD'T everything be an object? If no complicated logic is needed to manipulate that object, it won't contain complicated logic.

    You're complaint seems to be Java is not C and I can't do things the way I do them in C, so it's bad! Sheesh.
  • Their download page [borland.com] cites RedHat with KDE as a requirement. Does this mean that JBuilder Foundation is integrated with KDE?

    And would it be possible to run JBF with any other distros than RedHat?

  • It kicks (Score:4)

    by doog ( 5889 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @10:40PM (#1473640) Homepage
    I have found this new release coupled with the new Sun/Inprise JDK is very usable. Java on linux is an option now, the blackdown JDK was so slow it was unusable. Now I can actually switch my development from NT. This is GREAT. I'm developing a small vertical app using java servlets. Under NT, I was looking at paying $2000 or more for the servlet runner, the JDBC driver, and SQL server. Now with Linux, Apache, Sun JDK, Jbuilder, JServ and MySql, I have everything I need, and its free. Way to go inprise.

  • Re:Gripes with java (Score:5)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Thursday December 09, 1999 @12:12AM (#1473651)
    Honest truth, I think you didn't get as much out of your Java class as you should've. Whether this is due to your performance or your prof's teaching skill is something I'm not qualified to comment on. With that said, here we go:

    1. No pointers. It can't possibly be a programming language.

    PROLOG and LISP were developed as languages to emulate human intelligence with, and they steadfastly avoid pointers. Both of them are really cool languages, too; when was the last time you saw natural-language written in C?

    Computer science is, at heart, about information. A computer science education should teach about ways to store and represent information, different paradigms of information, and the ways in which information oftentimes cannot be accurately represented using only one scheme. Pointers are one scheme, but they are not the only scheme.

    Now, strictly speaking you're right in that Java doesn't have pointers; it has references. Everything you want to do with a pointer you can do with a reference, though, with the exception of pointer arithmetic. While I admit that it took me a while to get over the mental block of not being able to juggle pointers the way I do in C, I can't honestly say that it's a major hindrance.

    2. People say it has no #includes, yet there continues to be this funny, mystical command called `import'...

    import != #include. Import is analogous to a `using' statement in C++ -- `using namespace std' is the C++ version of `import java.lang.*'. An #include is a preprocessor directive which prepends the contents of the listed header files to your program code. An import statement just makes it possible to refer to Java objects and methods without using their fully-qualified names.

    3. Strings are a class!!! Whose dumb idea was it to take a string, call it a class, and make stringVariableName.equals(someOtherString); be a strcmp(a,b);?

    Short answer: must've been Bjarne Stroustrup's -- you know, that C++ guy? -- because they're objects in C++, too. It's one of C++'s strengths. C is a beautiful language for a lot of things, but text processing is not one of them. Text processing in C is a remarkably painful experience -- and if you think otherwise, I can only remark that you must not have encountered the joyous and elegant way in which LISP handles it.

    Remember, information exists independent of paradigm. C's paradigm for handling string information is pretty poor. Better paradigms exist, and while Java's implementation of a String class isn't perfect, it's a definite improvement.

    4. Java treats everything like an object. Everything, Integers used in a for loop do not need to be objects! (ok so i'm exagerating a little)

    Well, barring the fact that the primitive data types in Java are not objects, you're right. This is viewed as a strength of Java by a lot of people, myself included. Lots of truly elegant languages, such as Smalltalk, treat everything as objects. I've used Smalltalk only a little, but there's a reason why it's still around today.

    To hammer a point home: information exists independent of paradigm. Procedural paradigms, object paradigms, list paradigms -- they all have the same ultimate goal, and that is to permit us to productively manipulate information. The wise hacker, instead of dwelling purely on one paradigm, will adapt to whatever paradigm best suits his/her needs at the moment. There are instances in which procedural languages (C, Pascal, Ada83) are best. There are instances in which procedural-object hybrid languages are best (Ada95, C++). There are instances in which list-based languages are best (LISP). There are instances in which set-based languages are best (PROLOG). There are instances where object-based languages are best (Java, Smalltalk).

    The wise hacker uses whichever is best suited to the situation. Holy wars over "my language is better than your language" belong to the lamers and lusers. We're hackers; we know better.

    IM(ns)HO java is C with a vesectome (in the words of a friend), or best described as a cross between Pascal and C, with the useful components of both removed, but portability up the wazoo...and down the other side.

    Which "useful components" of both have been removed? Pascal, remember, was never intended to be a real language. Niklaus Wirth is on record as saying that "if I had known people would take Pascal so seriously, I would have been more careful with its design". Wirth intended for Pascal to be a teaching language, first, foremost and only. Java is a very good teaching language; the syntax is simple, the language is fairly self-consistent, and its crossplatform nature means that when students write their programs at the college on UNIX boxes, they can take their programs home and show it off to Mom and Dad on their Macintosh. You'll probably look down your nose at those people -- but those people are beginning the long road to hackerdom, and anything which will spark their interest and make them think "this is cool" is a Good Thing(tm).

    Insofar as throwing away the useful components of C, the only thing that it threw out was pointer arithmetic. Which, as I already showed, isn't a big deal at all.

    Java's portability is not a major issue for a lot of programmers. Even if Java wasn't as rabidly crossplatform as it is, it would have a lot to recommend it.

    And now...they have java compilers written in...well...java. Wonderful, next thing you know linux kernel will be ported to QBasic!

    Did you know that GCC is written in C, and they use one version of GCC to compile the next version of GCC? Really. This isn't at all uncommon; in fact, it's usually a sign of a well-designed language if you can write a compiler for the language in the language.

    If anyone wants to discuss these things further, either reply to the message or use my EMail address listed at the top. It's there for a reason, folks. :)
  • Wouldn't it be:
    char a[10];
    int i;
    a[i] = 'x' is equivalent to (a+i) = 'x';
    ...is equivalent to (i+a) = 'x';

    The last one makes no sense. If it were allowed by the compiler it would be accessing some random bit of piece of memory. (*i+a)

    Your other two examples are wrong because a is already a pointer, so a+i would already be accessing the memory address.
  • Yes, it's probably not "free software" in the sense that it's not GPL'd. But this is definitley a step in the right direction, I would say. From the web site: "We are committed to making our freely available environment the natural starting point for creative new ways to improve the Java development experience." It seems that they just want to get people to use it and add to it. They want people to start using Java more, and they're giving them a motivation. Personally, I'll be more motivated if all their source is open. =) Who knows.

    I use JBuilder3 at work; it's great for debugging, and I agree that the interface is a little bizairre, but it's pretty useful at times. Especially when you have large source files with lots of variables and methods -- the listing on ths side shows a concise list of everything. And although also annoying at times, it's nice to just type a function name and then a (, and then have it tell you the syntax of the function. And it's nice to be able to type "[name of class]." and have it, after a couple of seconds, list all the public methods and variables in that class. Especially when you're working with large SDKs, these features save a lot of time. Not to mention, if you've got the name of a class or method somewhere in your source, you can hold down control and click on the class, and JBuilder will find the source code to that class. All kinds of nifty features. The down side is it's pretty bloated and akward at times, but I can live with that; I'd rather browse through huge SDKs with JBuilder than grep through thousands of lines of code in lots of different directories.

    I still use vi/javac to hack out small portions of code, but when I'm working on a big project, JBuilder is quite useful. When I'm doing an "offical" build, I always use javac, because JBuilder can tend to do some weird things. Maybe with the Inprise/Sun alliance this situation will get better; I don't know.

  • JBuilder Foundation evaluated (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 09, 1999 @12:27AM (#1473658)
    I've just downloaded the new JBuilder Foundation (I choose the Windows version) and did a quick evaluation. I use "native" JBuilder Enterprise all day for a living, so I might probably know what I'm talking about:

    First step - the download:
    it was ok so far, but you have to be a community.borland member in order to get your license code. I already was, but newcomers should better be told that it's for free and doesn't come with any drawbacks.

    Second step - installation:
    no problem here

    Third step - starting it up
    The first time you start it up you have to type in your license code.
    Start-up itself is fast, I didn't believe it, but it's well faster than my "native" JBuilder3!

    Lastly - checking it out
    People used to "native" JB3 will feel home from the beginning. It's pretty similar, but a lot of details are unique. And it's very responsive! I didn't have time enough yet to check everything out properly but I'm _very_ impressed so far! And hey, the online-help loads up by a blink of an eye - try that with "native" JB3 ;-)

    BTW - IMO it's pretty clear that JB3 Foundation blows away NetBeans by order of magnitudes, but then again I'm long INPR, so you may discount my opinion as somewhat biased.

    Do your own research!
  • I read somewhere (a previous Slashdot Inprise/Java story?) that that is simply a description of the system they tested it with.

    It seems insane for them to be saying that it 'requires' KDE. Why write something in Java for portability and then start 'requiring' a desktop environment?

    They really really should rephrase their Linux 'minimum specs' as a 'recommended spec' or 'tested spec'.

  • Windows is Free of Fully-Functional Software :) (Score:3)

    by SEAL ( 88488 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @11:23PM (#1473665)
    Hehe that about sums it up.

    SEAL

  • To sum things up... (Score:5)

    by Rilke ( 12096 ) on Wednesday December 08, 1999 @11:25PM (#1473666)
    Tons of java over the last couple of days...

    Inprise takes the Blackdown jdk port, adds the things they need to implement JBuilder and give it away, and gives the jdk back to Sun. Cool.

    Sun totally disses blackdown by ignoring them in the press release, not giving them any info about what Inprise was doing, and so far at least not offering to share the code.

    After years of promising an open java standard, Sun once again withdraws java from the standards process.

    When RMS calls for an open source alternative, Sun proudly states that it can't be done because the current public spec doesn't describe enough of the system
    ( http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB19991208S0022 [techweb.com])

    I'd say Sun as pretty much shown their true colors this week.

  • ... they just don't tell you about it. :) No, really. While it's not possible for a Java programmer to overload operators, the JDK absolutely does overload operators from time to time. As a case in point, consider the addition (+) operator. It's been overloaded to allow the concatenation of strings.

    Java is plagued with tiny inconsistencies like that.

    In the end, Java is just a tool in a programmer's toolbox. Use the right tool for the job. If Java makes your life simpler for task X, use it. If Java complicates your life for task Y, use something else.

    But above all else, code. :)
  • JBuilder Foundation is a free,

    as in "free beer"

    fully functional Java IDE. It's available for download now at the Inprise Web site. This version is 100% Java

    Except for the installation kit, which bombed on my machine

    and runs on Linux,

    Only if you're an x86-user running RedHat (eck, yech, blechhh) and have KDE installed. If you run an Alpha, MIPS, or S/Linux box, you're S.O.L.

    Solaris

    but only on UltraSPARC hardware

    and Windows.

    Well, Windows NT, anyway.

    So... let's see. If I'm running an Intel chip, I can choose between Windows NT (slow) and RedHat Linux (why? When there's so much better to be had?) with KDE installed. If I've got a SPARC-based computer, I can only use it on Solaris.

    Yay! Let's hear it for "write once, run anywhere!". Distributing a binary installation kit, I can understand (for newbies), but what would be wrong with a huge-ass JAR file and a tarball of HTML documentation? I mean, if you strip away all the installation kits and things, it should run on my platform, right? I mean, it is 100% Java, right?

    I think I'll stick with Blackdown on my S/Linux box for now.

  • If I understand the announcement, this is an IDE written entirely in Java. This has been done before, by Sun among others, with little success.

    Java is good for quite a few things, but it is unfortunately less than ideal for performance-intensive, client-side applications such as an IDE. At least so far. All popular Java IDEs at the moment are written in C/C++. IIRC, Visual J++ is the only example of a successful IDE with large chunks written in Java, and that's because those chunks just called standard Windows OS UI controls directly (via J/Direct), rather than being "Pure Java".

    I look forward to hearing how this Java-based JBuilder stacks up against the C/C++-based JBuilder 3.
  • Then what's FreeBS?

    A pirated copy of Windows, perhaps?


    - -Josh Turiel
  • Oh, I don't know, su root -c 'rm -rf /' with appropriate password seems fully functional to me ):>

  • This is part Blackdown work. (Score:3)

    by Forge ( 2456 ) <kevinforge@@@gmail...com> on Thursday December 09, 1999 @01:56AM (#1473682) Homepage Journal
    Roblimo, and the rest of the Slashdot crew, be careful to list them by name on any story that mentions Sun or Borland Java software on Linux.
  • Not true. I've been developing Java applications extensively using JBuilder under Windows 95 & 98 ever since JBuilder 1 first came out and have had no problems with it.
  • This type of PCs has been available for at least two years. You can expect a good developer to be willing to invest in good tools.

    Most commercial IDEs, java and non java have a memory requirement of 64 MB but in practice you need 128 MB to run them comfortably.

    So no big deal, pretty modest system requirements. A two year old PC with plenty of memory (dirt cheap at the moment) is all you need.

    "I'll stick with my text editor and command line - works equally well from my old 486 to my PIII."

    That's your choice but an editor is not the same thing as an IDE.
  • I would also suggest the term "source viewable", as opposed to "open source" for software where you can get the source, but there are restrictions e.g. modified versions return to the owner ala APSL, SCSL, Mozilla etc.
  • 1. Important:
    Save the project you are working on first!

    2. Select help->About

    As you type, you see your letters floating around.

    3. Type 'primetime' and you get a message from the developers.

    You'll get a message from the development.

    Now, does anyone know how to make the close button appear? The dialog is modal, and there isn't a close box anywhere.

  • Try Freebuilder (Score:4)

    by Megaweapon ( 25185 ) on Thursday December 09, 1999 @03:02AM (#1473697) Homepage

    In case some people don't know it exists, there is a free (as in speech) Java IDE over at www.freebuilder.org [freebuilder.org].

  • the entire Inprise site is responding with a forbidden message. I guess companies should appoint Slashdot monitors regularly to verify postings about them in /. Very few companies are ready for the sea of /. surfers, who engulf their site regarding any postings.
    Or maybe /. should mail an advance warning to companies they post info about. That way they will have all their support personnel on call :)
  • From the license:
    "You may write and compile (including byte-code compile) your own application programs using the Software, including any libraries and source code included for such
    purpose with the Software. You may reproduce and distribute, in executable form only, programs which you create using the Software without additional license or fees,
    subject to all of the conditions in this License Agreement."


    Thus, you are not alowed to distribute the source code to your project if it was developed in JBuilder.

  • So... let's see. If I'm running an Intel chip, I can choose between Windows NT (slow) and RedHat Linux (why? When there's so much better to be had?) with KDE installed. If I've got a SPARC-based computer, I can only use it on Solaris.

    Yay! Let's hear it for "write once, run anywhere!".

    As you seem to have noticed, "anywhere" in Sun-speak doesn't mean "anywhere" in regular English. It means, abstractly, "anywhere we (Sun) let you run it". Concretely, it means on a very, very short list of platforms. Java advocates I know basically say it's for Sun or Microsoft only.

    So much for the much-vaunted portability story. It's just that--a story. But they've hyped it enough to trick the public into believing it. Please don't just blindly take my word for this. Believing without seeing is what got us into this. Stop listening to stories and try it yourself. Take a program written in Java, and try to get it to run on a dozen diverse platforms.

    So much for Java being "portable", eh?

  • Of course you got your final statements wrong as well, the compiler is a native program. An IDE is not a compiler. The pretty widgets you click in VB are not part of the compiler.

    Ummm, no. The compiler is written in Java. Have you ever looked at it? The JVM is native, but the compiler and debugger are not. Take a look at the wrapper script for javac from the Blackdown port.
    --
    Mike Mangino Consultant, Analysts International

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