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If I have a Cobol shop, a Perl shop, a Smalltalk shop, I can either port my existing code to the .NET implementations of these languages somewhat painlessly OR I can scrap all my existing code

I don't believe it would be that painless to reimplement on the .NET language themes. In just the same way these languages can be used on The Java Platform, i.e. for COBOL, Perl, Smalltalk and lots of other languages.

I might try VS.NET if I can run it on an open platform, but I usually just use Emacs, and I believe that for server-side applications, hardware and software vendor independence are the most important long term considerations.

- Brian.

Don't forget about 3D Engines List which has a lot of source available for various home-brew 3D engines.

Cheers

... can be found here

Rogers Sessions took the time to investigate every single one of the projects on the JVM languages page. He posted his results to the ObjectWatch site. After long research, he found only 8 that were actual implementations of a non-Java programming language for the JVM. Of those 8, in his opinion not one was available or suitable for professional development.

In his conclusion he states "I believe that Simon Phipps and other Sun luminaries have greatly exaggerated the degree of language neutrality supported by the Java platform".

MS has always claim MS.net was language agnostic where Java was Java centric.

This is nothing but a lie, several languages have been developped to compile to the Java platform (Java bytecode+JAva API) and one of the best was Eiffel ! It was done long time ago, ever years before MS decide to get rid of their Java VM (jview), Java Windows APIS (WFC) and JAva IDE (Visual J++) to start the famous project code named "cool" (now ".net").

Of course Java language is the primary language of the Java platform just as C# is the primary language of MS.net. Take a look at VB.net and you soon notice that it is not only a cosmetic change over VB6 : 100+ new keywords, complete API changes, new full object (CLR related) philosophy,... VB.net is nothing but a new language shaped for the CLS and linked to the CLI ! In clear world, if you are not used to full object oriented design you could find trapped yourself soon or later !

About alternative Java platform languages, see
You can the whole list here !

Most of them are like all the C# flavors to .net, ie languages with same design scope, ways of thingking etc ... but some are nothing to do with the way you thing in Java.

One of the best is kiev, that add prolog rules which make an enormous change to the design rules (who said backtracking sx?). An other named OpenJava, has build a newt dynamicity level to compile language using the MOP (meta object protocol) that is the most impressive stuff ever brought.

Ok, now you now that multiple languages are existing on both sides. But guess what ? I do thing that multiple languages are no a graal.

Let me explain, if the languages are bijective (ie same scope, same stuffs), then there is no special reason you should consider using a language over an other. Let's take MS.net, all the languages are bijective (with exclusion on certain fonctionality usable only in C#), that means only one is usefull. Why should people have to learn 5 languages to read a project sources ? Why should enterprise invest in 5 languages training ? There are no reason at all ! This is the reason why MS know that C# will be the only surviving middle term language (why would you choose a language where less stuff can be done). The same thing apply to bijective Java languages !

In clear words: C# is the only valid language for MS.net platform and Java language is the only valid language for Java platform !

But point is that there are languages aimed at the JAva platform that are not bijective (OpenJava, Kiev). Because they add major features and new design concerns.

Whatever MS claimed superioritty of .net over Java, i can just tell you this is wrong. The designer of .net just did a clone. And even if it has som small differences, who said a clone was a duplication ;)

MS is worry and they do FUD, just because they've realized they trap themselves by doing a Java clone instead of continuing their leadership on the Java platform (remeber the 98' when both MS VMs and IDES where JAva leaders ?).

If Java get to the client side then we could have a drastic shift of platform and this could endanger the client side domination of Win32 within the next 5 years !

You could laugh at those statement, but the past year has prove that MS is now alone on pushing .net whereas other big buys push Java ... If they had to install the Java platform on Win32, then everywhere you will have Java, and whatever they wanted to, the fight will be over .... and MS.net dead-born ...

Poor little MS :(

If the language can be compiled to Java bytecodes, then any JVM-supporting language should be able to use your compiled, not-from-java code. I say should, and not will, because it's now an issue of the compiler than the JVM. If you can compile against only the bytecodes (like javac can), then there's no issues.

On the other hand, you can always determine the Java-esque structure of your not-from-Java bytecodes using Introspection, for which there are tools (like Netbeans) that provide graphical views of this. It should be possible to generate any "headers" or their like, if the language and the compiler require it.

For the less-then-initiated, more JVM-supporting languages can be found here.

Tcl
Lisp
Scheme
Basic
Prolog
Smalltalk
cobol
ada
c

For Starters

see here

On top of which you have gjc which allows native compilation on linux (they have eclipse running on it now).

Personally i think mono is a needless duplication of effort whose only real benificiary is microsoft. If the mono effort was aimed at the existing open source jvm's it would be a real kick in the teeth for microsoft.

Anyone know of any projects to compile JVM bytecode from other languages?

One or two...

Anyone know of any projects to compile JVM bytecode from other languages?

He asks if anyone knows of any other languages that compile down to Java byte code (i.e. run on the JVM). Here's a list of 160 implementations of various languages for starters. Google rules.

can be found here.

It doesn't mention SmartEiffel, though, which does generate byte codes. There are probably many others as well.

"Anyone know of any projects to compile JVM bytecode from other languages?"

The first Google search I tried yielded this page as the first result. It includes a link to Jython -- a reimplementation of the Python programming language which is completely integrated with Java.

• Alastair Reynolds
• Iain Banks
• Greg Egan

Google has more information about it.

..because I was living in an apartment, and neither of the two cable providers in this city (Melbourne, Australia) would do business with me. Optus basically said "no, we only do houses, not apartments, it's more profitable", and Telstra spun me some bullshit about getting permission from the body corporate etc. etc.

ADSL, on the other hand, was no hassle at all. I've moved since then, but stuck with ADSL since I now own the modem. Also, the fact that I don't own a TV means that the old cable TV + cable internet deal isn't so attractive to me. :-)

I did have various network problems until I threw away the crappy PPPoE software Telstra supplied me with and installed RASPPPoE, which works perfectly.

I have two clients uing SBC/Yahoo DSL and Windows 95. It works just dandy with RAS PPPOE software. I also have a Linux gateway/firewall/proxy set up with Roaring Penguin. In both cases, I've had no issues once it's set up.

The hard part!?! Getting the login/pw.

I called and told them that the install disk had crashed, wouldn't run again, but the icons were on the desktop, and "Can you just give me a login and password?".

They eventually did, I punched it in, and everything's been fine ever since.

Did you bother to even look before going ahead with the "upgrade"?

I'm not sure what your point is: Modern mobile phone systems are also digital and doing compression. It actually to find code for GSM compression on the net! Anyway, compression and digital transport is not a reason for VoIP.

Lars

"Becuase it can be integrated with most other programming languages"

So can Java:

"The following is a list of programming languages for the Java virtual machine aside of Java itself. Currently (spring 2002), it comprises about 160 different systems. It is a mix of experimental, research oriented implementations and of commercial ones. I excluded extensions to Java by the provision of class libraries implementing the functionality of other languages constructs. The source code of a program executed in the Java VM has to have a syntax different to Java to be included in this list."

Here is the list.

LEXX

Anyone who has DSL that uses PPPoE should really use the PPPoE protocol - works much like a dialup connection rather than that abortion of a program that most DSL companies hook you up with:
download here
for windoze only. not sure about *nix b/c I'm a newbie there myself.

OTOH, if you have a look at other surveys (WIDI -
final report), you'll see that Debian is among developers the preferred distribution. WIDI was announced in Slashdot (main page), Heise.de and several other news sites that aren't related to the Debian project.

It has pretty much been proven that brute force calculation can win the game of chess.

Already Python can be compiled into java bytecode, and if the capability doesn't already exist for Ruby, it will soon. Similar compilers could be created for any number of other languages (scheme, smalltalk, whatever).

Python in/under Java is known as JPython, and apparently there is also an implementation of JRuby underway. There are already several implementations of Scheme and of Smalltalk too. Caveat emptor: I've not tried playing with any of these myself - with the exception of JPython.

You can find a comprehensive list of alternative langauges for the JVM at http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de/~tolk/vmlanguages.html

> Now, if you could get me totally lossless compression of sound, then I'll consider switching...

LPAC and FLAC may be worth a look, as may this comparison.

C++ - write it and hook it in via JNI
VB - You wanna code in VB?!?!?!?!
Python - run Jython (python 2.0 language on the Java VM)
Also, check out Languages that run on the Java VM for a surprising number of languages (including basic) that already run on top of the Java VM, on any platform that supports java, hell - even the GUI works properly :-).

No it's not, the language sucks, as can be read from this FAQ for example.

Microsoft has a large deployment base. Lots of people will learn and use C#, because that can mean a job.

A quick search on Monster.com does not support this claim.

Microsoft is going to do the work to port to BSD.

Yeah or so they say... big fucking deal, Java already runs on dozens of different platforms.

Microsoft Labs members have and continue to make efforts supporting the use of other non-traditional languages on .NET

JVM supports more languages than .NET ever will.

Microsoft isn't afraid to design a platform for performance, unlike Sun

There is no speed difference, both platforms run on a virtual machine.

C# and .NET will be used on WinCE handhelds.

Will be? oh oh ... well how about Nokia ships millions of cell phones already with Java embedded? WinCE is dead.

Common Java runtimes still run like ass, and the language is a piece of crap.

You're just a pathetic little shit who hasn't got a fucking clue what you're talking about.

Java limited people to one language, a language that many coders didn't like.

Which language would that be, then? Would it be BASIC, or COBOL or ADA or Python or FORTH or PASCAL or C or PERL or FORTRAN or LISP or Scheme or Smalltalk or one of these?

In fact, surprise, surprise, there are over 200 different programming languages you can use to write Java VM programs in.

".NET's virtual machine and class libraries can do WAY more than what Java can."

Like? From what I can tell, .NET (or rather CLR) adds some small syntactic features (simpler inlining of native code, automatic boxing), and some "web services integration". If you look at the .NET class library, it is almost literally a 1-to-1 mapping to the Java class libraries. And automatic boxing and parameterized types are coming to Java in 1.5. As far as web services and middleware, Java is FAR ahead of the pack with J2EE which is absolutely dominating enterprise middleware and what is now being hyped as "web services". Servlet engines and JSP were in production for quite a while before .NET thank-you-very-much. Unfortunately MS did everything it could to kill the prospects of Java on the client, so we never really saw that come to fruition, while of course .NET will be getting automatic first class treatment on the client side which it will undoubtedly be able to leverage to accelerate acceptence in areas which J2EE is currently dominating.

".NET is just a VM/platform, whereas 'Java' was both the JVM *and* a language."

Well, .NET is a VM/platform geared towards a particular type of language (e.g., C#). From what I've read everything else is pretty much C# with different keyword/token names. That's not to say it is a *bad* thing, since MS's goal is mostly migrating its *current* base of developers. But it's far from magically-better-than-Java.

"You couldn't load up your old C software, and get it working in Java."

Woah! Could that have been a feature! ;)

"with VB.NET, VC.NET etc.. this is a possibility."

Yes, because the goal of .NET is to migrate current MS developers to a new architecture with many of the benefits of the Java platform.

"People have already created FORTH and COBOL compilers for .NET!"

Will wonders never cease! Perhaps you want to take a look at a list of the many languages that run on the Java VM (the page says "160 systems"...I'm not sure what that means, but there are a whole bunch). All this, long before .NET was anything but vapor.

"but it has several very important things going for it, and Java had none of them."

Come on, be fair, you are really pulling this out of your ass.

Actually I'd have to say I like, and am impressed by the .NET architecture, and regularly step in to defend the architecture (if not MS) in front of FUDders and bashers. It is a great step up from the mess of native languages Microsoft was supporting. It has many of the nice features of the Java platform, and some new ones. But it would be really naive and unfair to not recognize the tremendous success Java has had and is having today in the same realms .NET is just now attempting to address. Maybe being one of those who are just now boarding the ship makes things look so much more rosier, than to myself, who has been on the ship already for 3 years ;)

Good to see people are still trying to re-invent the wheel again

there are over 600 3d engines out there in various stages of completion, yet none of them are " really good(TM) "

3d engines have been done to death
so why can't developers focus and colaborate on making 1 really good engine and make it "perfect" instead of fragmenting into their own little GPL projects that are nothing more IMO than a waste of time ?.

I guess time is what programmers waste best

GoAT.

According to this page, American football developed from what the US now considers soccer.

client pppOe support on windows really sucks. except. except I've found RASPPPoE has worked well for me.

Erm, no. The JVM works on byte code. You can compile any language to Java's byte code if you have the right compiler - and there are quite a few. Currently there are solutions for about 160 programming languages (number is from that page, I haven't counted them) --- including Prolog.

Erm, no. The JVM works on byte code. You can compile any language to Java's byte code if you have the right compiler - and there are quite a few. Currently there are solutions for about 160 programming languages (number is from that page, I haven't counted them) --- including Prolog.

It would have sucked to live back then: millions of dollars for a computer you couldn't even play Wolfenstein on, for Chrissake!! :-)

But yeah, the ENIAC was the first completely digital computer. I really don't think it was the first computer. There were many computers before that, but they incorporated things such as mechanical relays.

The Collosus, for ex., was built early in WW2 to crack codes. I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that it was a combination of relays and vacuum tubes.

It's really hard to draw the line on what we would consider as a computer. Personally, I consider the definition of a computer to be any device that accepts programs. If a computer had to be digital, which would make the ENIAC the first one, then things like optical computers and quantum computers wouldn't fit the definition of computers.

Anyway, if you consider a computer to be any calculating device that is fully programmable, the German Z3 Computer fits the bill.

I have always thought computers such as the ENIAC were worthless because their vacuum tubes burned out all the time and they had no video display. Only printed output. That is kind of a hinderence for speedy work.

At least I don't think the ENIAC had a digital display. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Another disadvantage of these early computers is that vacuum tubes are slow. Computers really didn't start to become practical until the late 50's and early 60's, when transistor computers came into use. Transistors made computers cheaper, faster, smaller, and more reliable.

There're quite a few other languages ported to the JVM, JPython springs to mind for example.
check out this page for more...

But it's not "any language". It's a collection of languages that are nearly isomorphic with C#. In fact, there are currently many more languages, and more diverse languages, targetted to the JVM than there are to the .NET VM. See, for example, this list, which contains about 160.

• Python
• Tcl
• Ruby
• Perl
• Lisp
• Scheme
• Eiffel
• Smalltalk
• C++
• Ada
• Basic
• Logo
• Prolog
• Standard ML
• Objective Caml
• Sather
• Cobol
• XSLT
• Pascal
• Oberon
• Modula-2

See e.g. Languages for the Java VM.

> Miguel wrote:
> The CIL has one feature not found in Java though: it is
> byte code representation that is powerful enough to be used as a
> target for many languages: from C++, C, Fortran and Eiffel to Lisp
> and Haskell including things like Java, C#, JavaScript and Visual
> Basic in the mix.

Bullshit. See here for JVM languages.
Furthermore care to explain the existance of "managed" C, Perl, ..., iff the (.NET) CIL is sooooo powerful.

If you are stuck using Windows use RasPPPoeit installs as a device driver and is rock solid.

RASPPPoE

Use Roaring Penguin for Linux.

There is a port of linux to the Apple Airport Base Station as well. However, it requires the use of a dhcp & tftp server, as well as the Java-based Airport admin tools.

The ideology behind .NET is more like "Use the .net framework and have the freedom to use whatever language you like (p.s. only runs on Windows)"

Incidentally, the Java language isn't the only high-level language for the Java platform. It's just the only one Sun and it's big partners are interested in. He's a list of other languages. Of course, there are notable gaps -- apparently it's just too hard to make C++ or most legacy languages use the JVM.

Microsoft claims the CLI is more flexible, and that .NET will support everything from FORTRAN and COBOL on. We'll see.

Most of the Java 1.2 standard libraries are available for GCJ (but not AWT/Swing unfortunately)

P.S. Also, the converse is true: You don't have to code in Java to run programs in a JVM (see languages for the Java VM for a list of languages that can be compiled into Java bytecode)

For the link happy:

RASPPPoE Homepage
Direct Download

I recommend it too.. beats the hell out of the WinPOET crap I got from Verizon..

For the link happy:

RASPPPoE Homepage
Direct Download

I recommend it too.. beats the hell out of the WinPOET crap I got from Verizon..

I personally use OSBS http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~wolf/os-bs.html this app works amazingly well, and offers features that have saved my ass a few times. You can hide *nix partitions from winbl0wz, (if you are lame enough to use windows--I used to be guilty of this.) by changing the partiton type from the osbs app. this will keep ms from killing your existing lilo, grub or whatever bootloader. also, make note that this application (the free version. The new release is not open source, or free, can be found on www.bootmanager.com) was released in October of 1993! I personally hate it when people upgrade to the newest release, just for the hell of it. Time can be wasted in more productive ways.

Well, 7 of 9 is now on Boston Public.
Patrick Stewart is HUGE in the Shakesphere (sp?) community and has to many projects to list.
Michael Dorn is on Days of Our Lives quite a bit.
Brent Spiner has been in a few movies and is pretty big on stage.
DeForest Kelley was pretty old by the time that Star Trek ended (movies i mean), but has done many many things back in the day: go here. So really his career wasn't dead.

The list (I'm sure) goes on. You have to remember that just because you don't see an actor on a screen somewhere doesn't mean they are out of work. Lots and lots and lots of actors do stage work (that goes for well known and not).

Try LPAC instead. When you invest in many thousands of dollars of audio equipment like I did, you don't want lossy compression. I own a Minidisc recorder for recording things off the radio, but otherwise, good mid-fi equipment or better (right about where I'm sitting is what I'd call mid-fi) demands you chuck all them (WMA, MP3, OGG, etc.) out the window for serious listening.

Well, first off, cut out the full duplex operation. Send voice only out to the field, and use the extra bandwidth for more frames. The reporter on the other end rarely needs to see what's happening in the home office, while the whole world would appreciate a clearer picture.

They're using H.263 compression algorithms... some dismal figures (it was made to be used at 10 fps, for instance!) Here's a nice page detailing the standard and some comparisons to MPEGs...

Here's a great page comparing H.263 to MPEG-4... Hmmm... Jurassic Park encoded in High Quality MPEG-4 beat the 64 Kbit/s rate of H.263 by nearly %20... the video phones are, according to the article, 112Kbit/s... Anyone have any clue about using MPEG-4 to do this? Sounds to me like it'd be a much better compression algorithm...

There is this long list of languages for the JVM. It seems like it's not too hard to adjust to the JVM - wouldn't that be preferable to creating a completely new thing, especially given that modern JVMs are pretty mature? Or are the JVMs too much adjusted to the Java programming language and don't work well (= fast) for other languages?

the browser-applet. as far as I know it did not make it, and I don't see many of them in cyberspace.

followed by...

I wondered why there never was a browser-plugin for languages like Python or Perl.

Well, if applets aren't that useful in Java, it should be obvious that they aren't that useful in Python or Perl either. Try to imagine somebody at some company going to a VC with a business plan of "we're going to do something that will require the user to download a plugin and it will do the same thing Java does."

I would like to hear about reasons why there is no effort to expand the capabilities of websites with language-plugins.

There are now many languages for the JVM. There is a good chance that you can finagle your favorite language onto a JVM somehow. This is more work for the individual programmer, but it requires no effort on the part of users. Remember, when you put something on the web it has to be viewable by most users, otherwise it will just alientate them. When you get one of those boxes that asks you to download something just so you can view a website, how often do you click Yes?

So, if [other language] had trumpted a platform neutral VM first we would probably be asking the same questions about [other language]. Java got there first and has established a huge installed base and name recognition, so until something comes along that just blows it away in terms of capability, programmer-friendliness, or installed base we are stuck with it. So far, MS CLR looks like the only thing that has a chance at doing that, and it is more friendly towards implementing a wide variety of languages than the JVM.

The CLR/C# developers seem to have a thing for functional programming languages, so stuff like OCaml and Haskel (sp.?) could get a shot in the arm from C#.

And, of course, there are a whole lot of languages that can run on the JVM, via compilation to bytecode, or other exotic ways, like, for instance, parsers written in Java.