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Why Java?


Jza
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Ok Java is not open source, even the free java is more like a playing catch up alternative similar to mono and very different from open languages like Python and Perl.

 

So there are many theories of java.

- Java is slow

- Java is fragmented

- Java has issues with linux

- Java has poor interfaces (UI) aka AWT Sucks!!!

- Java is Not free Software

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i am afraid i do not exactly get the reason for your post. i will try to answer some of the points you posted to the best of my knowledge but dont take them as the absolute truth. im just a user.

 

java is slow... depends on your application. the startup might be slow but that is inherent to all interpreted languages, even python.

java is fragmented... i am not versed on this argument.

java has issues with linux... such as? i use eclipse and jdk 1.4.2 on my system for developing my apps for my masteral requirements and i dont have any issues.

awt sucks... maybe. AWT was designed for maximum portability. if you want to compromise some bits of portability, try SWT instead. it is the one used in Eclipse.

java is not free software... aside from the licensing, i think you are referring to the way enhancements are being incorporated into the standards. afaik, the standards are accessible somewhere and you can implement your own if you need/want to.

 

why java? because it fits some needs required by some companies. java is heavily being thrown on mobile applications. nokia recently introduced a python toolkit but that is pretty much untested nowadays. why java? because...

 

ciao!

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Eeep! Noooooo not Java!

 

It's slow, it's horrid to code, despite what people claim it is not very portable imo, the interfaces look yucky, the error msgs are unhelpful, and I've always found a better tool to do the job than Java.

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It's what's on the majority of European mobile phones, too. That's a big draw for people like me, who write software for mobile phones for a living.

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The only things from the above that applυ are the 1. it's fragmented, and 2. not free.

The rest are the common illiterate mumbojumbo that goes around...

A badly coded application, no matter what the laguage, can be slow, amongst other things- but java is NOT slow. Else it is both fast AND good looking.

Edited by scarecrow
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It's on most Motorola phones too. It's on my phone right now and it is what I'm using to play games. It's also what powers most games on the portable phone video players like the Ngage from Nokia I believe.

 

Java is no slow, you should maybe check your system specs. I have a laptop and nvm does java perform slow. Only on some games but I've never been able to find a fix for it. But it's no problem.

 

It's easy to download on Linux. In fact browsers such as firefox for Linux install that plugin for you, along with Flash and others.

 

:jester:

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- Java is slow

It'd be more correct to say "Java is an interpreted language". I've taken a few java classes in my years of college, and it's really not slow when compared to my C++ programs.

- Java is fragmented

I don't find it anymore fragmented than C++

- Java has issues with linux

It does? Everything's always worked fine for me. Heck, I wrote my java programs in Linux with Eclipse and my teacher ran them in Windows, no problems.

- Java has poor interfaces (UI) aka AWT Sucks!!!

The programmer determines wether or not the UI is bad - from a usability standpoint. IIRC, you can have java apps use the current theme, whether it's on a Windows machine or through GTK2. By default, it is kind of ugly, yes, but it doesn't effect usability.

- Java is Not free Software

Java isn't software. Java is a programming language. You write software with it. I can open source my Java program if I want. Besides, what does it matter if it isn't Free Software? Does all software have to be Free Software? Why?

 

Positives:

It's cross-platform, it's object-oriented, it's named after coffee.

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Eeep!  Noooooo not Java!

 

It's slow, it's horrid to code, despite what people claim it is not very portable imo, the interfaces look yucky, the error msgs are unhelpful, and I've always found a better tool to do the job than Java.

:o

 

Java runs FAST on the server, and is only slightly slower on the desktop (and also more memory-hungry). All in all, it is an adequate language in this respect.

 

The interface... I have to agree. I was never happy with Java's look'n'feel. Yes I know it can be themed, and I know SWT can be used to have the native look'n'feel, but most applications still ship with Swing Metal...

 

However, Java is very good at two things IMO:

- the language is a VERY clean and VERY portable (I used it on Sun, SiliconGraphics, Linux, Windows) OO language,

- and the error messages are really helpfull!

 

The only "problems" I see with Java are:

- No multiple inheritence; I see this as a weekness in theory only, though, as this has never hindered me in any project I worked on.

- Java is often "splitting hair", resulting in many classes; however, this is often done for the sake of the language cleanness.

- It does have issues in Linux, with internationalisation (French/ISO-88591 at least).

 

Yves.

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Eeep!  Noooooo not Java!

 

It's slow, it's horrid to code, despite what people claim it is not very portable imo, the interfaces look yucky, the error msgs are unhelpful, and I've always found a better tool to do the job than Java.

 

Yes that is what I see people say but I want to get a copelled educated reasoning, hopefully with examples why is this not good.

 

I will assume that java es evil.... but in that evilish I want to know exactly why.

 

For example flash is evil to the web... why? well because the content is invisible to webcrawlers so the use should be null or limited.

 

For Java, yes it is slow, but what I mean is why is it slow. Because there is not compiled? Such is Python no tcompiled well there is bytecode and PYC but head to head are they comparable even.

 

Now about fragmented I mean u got the jsdk by SUN and you have the gccj by GNU and the IBM Java. Also apache is triying to put harmony together and bring a definet FREE java.

 

So my question, is it even worth it to think about Java as an option.

 

Sun just pull out Java 1.5, and well I most say that I only waiting to see how many incompatibilities it brings to the other FREE Java entitites (free as GNU).

 

Sorry about the linux issues with java was that Linux as oposed to Solaris for example had issues handling the threats of the programs. I am not very knowlegable about this issues but I did remember reading articles about the issues of Linux with Java.

Edited by Jza
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I am just finishing up a six year project programming an industrial

user interface in Java. I have found Java to be a joy to use and a

wonderful tool for my purposes. Yes, it is interpreted, but I have seen no

performance problems that I could not get around, even though we run

the interface on a 1 MHz POS fnWindows 2000 box. The interface

was written using Java 1.2.2.

 

A few months ago I took my interface home and tried it on my Linux

computer (Mandy 9.1 with Java 1.4.2 installed). After about an hour

of work resolving file names (because Linux is OCD about case

sensitivity and fnWindows is not) I had it running. The application now

has about 1800 files in it, so it is not a small app. It is just as snappy

on my 2 MHz Celeron as it is on the 1 MHz Pentium at work.

 

On the other hand, I also recently downloaded Jftp on my Linux

computer to try it out. It is so slow that it is unusable. It takes 5

to 10 seconds for it to display a menu. I find this confusing since

my larger app works fine. The Jftp window also does not refresh

itself properly after posting the menus.

 

I don't know what the problem is. However, I must say that my

experience using Java has been a positive one. It beats the crap

out of trying to use MFC or any of that other M$ junk.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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Now about fragmented  I mean u got the jsdk by SUN and you have the gccj by GNU and the IBM Java. Also apache is triying to put harmony together and bring a definet FREE java.

 

i dont think this holds. the java languange specification is there, anybody can implement their own virtual machine and compilers and as long as they follow the specification then they should be able to provide bytecodes that will run on all implementations supporting that specification version.

 

So my question, is it even worth it to think about Java as an option.

 

Sun just pull out Java 1.5, and well I most say that I only waiting to see how many incompatibilities it brings to the other FREE Java entitites (free as GNU).

 

again, i cant dont think there is an issue. the specification is evolving depending on initiatives put forward by engineers and the community. each new specification/version just deprecates previous implementations but most often than not they are still there. new implementations rolled out by Sun does not make non-Sun implementations incompatible. Those vendors just need to support the new enhancements.

 

is java an option? yes since a lot of machines now have java. you can also root for python if it can do the job and help its userbase grow if your app is that good.

 

ciao!

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Sorry about the linux issues with java was that Linux as oposed to Solaris for example had issues handling the threats of the programs.
I suppose you meant "threads" and not "threats" :lol:

 

I'm not sure that what I'll say here is related to what you heard, but as far as I'm concerned, the only time I've heard of a thread issue, this had to do with threads waiting for something to happen, eg:

while (increase) {
 speed++;
}

In some OSes, this would increase speed as long as the other thread did not set increase to false. But in some OSes, this would only increase speed because this thread's execution would keep the other thread from getting some CPU time. This is not due to a bug in Java; it is due to the way threads are handled in each OS.

And this should never happen because this is bad programming! The correct way would be to do something like this:

while (increase) {
 speed++;
 try {
   wait(100);
 } catch (InterruptedException ie) {}
}

 

Yves.

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