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Red Hat Distributing IBM Java Runtime and Tools
gac writes "The press release today notes: 'Under the agreement, Red Hat will license and distribute IBM's Java Runtime engine, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the IBM Developer Kit for Linux, Java Technology Edition. IBM's JavaTechnology will be distributed with the Red Hat Linux Operating Systems (OS) Enterprise Edition. Red Hat will provide worldwide support contact for users of the IBM Java Technology as they create and deploy Java-based Internet solutions on Red Hat Linux.'"
Neither of these products supports Java 1.2. WebSphere *only* supports IBM's JDK 1.1.7p, and no GA version of VisualAge for Java 1.2 exists.
An IBM Linux distro will be the ultimate ironic result. The wheel will have turned full circle. IBM will have its revenge on Billy Boy and and the rest of the Redmond Retards.
> Is there anyone producing an open source java variant for linux ??
Yes. There are a few. There's Kaffe, for one. There's also the Java work done by Cygnus, which Red Hat now owns. Try poking around Freshmeat.
> Why would Red Hat include a non-open source product in their main distribution ?
The "Enterprise Edition" is hardly their "main distribution." This says nothing about including the JDK in the package that you buy for $39 at CompUSSR or download from their web site. That is the "main distribution", not the "Enterprise Edition."
> Or was that all smoke being blown by Young until it was convenient to release closed source products that he feels add value to RH's products ?
Please leave Bob Young out of your paranoid conspiracy theories. He is a good, decent and righteous man. Besides, he's no longer in charge.
> Open Java for linux !
Open your eyes. Rather than your mouth.
There are some new core API's, and a really powerful new security model. If you need 'em then you need 'em, plain and simple. If you don't, then Java 1.1 is really quite good.
Most people today are doing their work in Java 1.1 -- it's stable and they don't need the extras in Java 2.
Yeah, that other AC is right. It's a reasonable question. At least moderate up the reasonable response.
This account of Java versions is inaccurate. "Java 2" is more of a marketing/branding name than a version number for Java. It isused as the basis for maketing its Micro, Standard and Enterprise editions: J2ME, J2SE and J2EE. However, the version of the SDK has always retailed the original version number (1.2). To emphaise this point: You may be interested to know that the next version of Java in beta is also going to (currently) being called "Java 2" (see http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/earlyAcces s/j2sdk13/) to download it if you like... I do think however, that Sun's versioning and branding of Java are confusing and it could be cleaned up a bit. Still, people have no problem thinking OS/2 isn't at version 2, and an AS/400 isn't version 400 now do they?
It's also worth noting that IBM improved after the DOJ gave up trying to prosecute them for anti-trust violations. Not while they were being prosecuted, nor did the prosecution result in forced change in the way the company operated.
I think it was just one moron, probably a troll. I noticed a few really stupid moderations on this page alone. Afterall, it is inconceivable that there are more than one idiots on slashdot, right? What are you laughing at? Shut up!
I'd like to have a Beowulf cluster of um...Lucases. You wouldn't mind being cloned so that we can connect your brain to 500 others of you, would you? Remember, it's open source.
Sometimes that's gonna happen. People have different opinions, both as posters and moderators.
What enforces homogeneity is Meta Moderation. This punishes moderators who go against the crowd and rewards those who rubber-stamp the popular opinions.
Ok, here is a little wrench to throw in the machine. Does anyone actually know how to report JDK bugs to IBM? I tried an older JDK release for Linux from IBM and it was horribly broken. JNI did not work and the JIT compiler caused errors in pure Java programs that work just fine when the JIT is switched off. I hunted around on the website but found no real contact information for developers. At least the Blackdown project had developers that would talk to you and fix the bugs you found.
I have been using IBM's open source Java compiler Jikes for the last several months for a project. While there are a few small things that bug me about it, it is far and away the most impressive compiler I have ever used. It's fast, innovative, lite, and free (beer & speech). If you mis-spell an identifier, Jikes will generate a list of identifiers with similar names, ect. Warnings and errors are spelled out very plainly in english, etc. I think that a product with a feature set like Jikes, an open source initiative, and good buisness deals show that Big Blue is on the ball.
i like to pour hot java down my pants and follow it up with a big bowl of hot grits to give my cock-n-balls a nice healthy breakfast. thank you.
The irony is that free Solaris 8 is going to kill FreeBSD. Anyone who wants to run real Sun Java can grab a free copy of Solaris 8 and do the real thing. FreeBSD doesn't have the apps to compete on the desktop, and it looks like its little server niche is about to be gobbled up by Sun. And when it comes to scaling and SMP, FreeBSD is left in the dust by Solaris.
WOW! IBM supports Java on TWO Linux's
Way cool!
Why was Hemos so hungry that he ate all the Penguin caffine mints?
What about a Beowulf cluster of Star Wars DVDs? Just think, 1000 DVD players each playing Star Wars simultaneously. The "trick" is that each DVD player is offset by a phase difference. The effect would be that you could watch the whole Star Wars movie in only a couple of seconds. If you increased N to a very large number (20000) you would have become one with the force, experiencing the totality of StarWars with every moment of your existence.
That article does not describe a way of patching the Linux kernel to speed up performance of a VM. It describes a means to maintain better cache line usage in the scheduler, as well as makes a case for changing the scheduler to handle long run queues better and for implementing a one-to-many or many-to-many user/kernel threading model in Linux.
None of these changes are specific to Java or Java VMs except insofar as the inadequacies of the Java aio model encourage excessive thread usage.
The simple cache enhancement has already been accepted in principle by Linus for the next development kernel release, but the cases for changing the scheduler to accommodate long run queues or for Linux supporting more than a one-to-one threading model are much less clearly winners. In fact, the scheduler changes are likely losers for all but exceptional cases or artificial benchmarks, so they will never likely go into Linus' kernel. Maybe a new threading model is a good idea (and Java threads support would certainly benefit), but there's no way that's going to happen until at least 2.5.
Nice try, but you don't know what you are talking about. Linux kernel threads are already very light weight, and are not the cause of any Java performance problem. Java itself, on the other hand, has a very weak aio model. This weakness and the general ignorance of Java programmers on when and how to use threads tends to lead to massive over use of threading.
Because Linux uses a one-to-one user/kernel threading model, each one of these Java threads will map to a kernel thread (assuming that you're not using Green Threads.) Over-threaded Java code can thus lead to excessive numbers of kernel threads and poor performance.
There are at least three ways to address this problem to some degree: 1) Change the Linux scheduler to accommodate the long run queues resulting from this overthreading (and thereby likely penalize all well written code and common case usage that do not overload the scheduler); 2) add robust one-to-many threading or many-to-many threading models to Linux so that the excessive number of Java threads can be effectively serviced by a much smaller number of kernel threads; 3) don't write bad code that abuses threading in the first place (which, in the case of Java, requires Sun to support a reasonable aio model, instead of the current and brain-damaged thread-per-connection model.)
For those of you playing along at home, the order of preference of the answers is 3, 2, 1.
that's fucking funny
A Great Day for LINUX!!
The AWT has been Java's worst API and people who do server-side programmer are always glad to be rid of it. However, it's important for desktop apps (config tools, MoneyDance, etc.) and for browser apps (via a browser plug-in). A lot of people have migrated away from Java GUI apps citing stability and speed, but they'll be back when those issues are better addressed. With IBM's JDK, RedHat's in a better position to serve that demand when it does increase.
Eight years using Linux and you still haven't figured out that the standard process vs. thread distinction simply doesn't apply well to the Linux kernel, and that claiming that Linux threads are one-to-one mapped to processes and process-bound is at best very misleading?
Yes, I know about writing enterprise applications in Java, and I work with a team that has written a customized JVM to better support the needs of a particular class of enterprises. I also know that you are correct that how to use threading isn't always in the control of the application writer -- if you're not willing to rewrite things yourself, then you can only use what Sun (and others) have given you; in many cases that is not adequate.
Given that, the real questions are: 1) How much should the Linux kernel implementation be contorted to support bad user-level code (like Java's brain-damaged aio)? and 2) How high of a priority should major changes like a many-to-many threading model have? As far as I can see, the answers for most of the kerenel developers are: 1) Not at all, thank you; and 2) We've got more interesting, general case problems to address before considering those special needs.
I can't fault answer 1) much, and 2) does indeed make life hard on Java application developers -- but it is not because of the weight of an individual kernel thread, per se, but because of the one-to-one mapping.
Yawn. Who cares about your problems. Who the hell do you think you are--Linus Torvalds or something? Chillout, asswipe. I'm sure your hack is just so cool that IBM is supposed to drop everything they are doing so that some crybaby hobbyist can play in the sandbox.
Boy wouldn't that be something. Especially if we unleashed the cluster on NetNews.
America Online 1994 flashback!
It seems like Sun is getting ready to GA Java2 for Linux and IBM hasn't even put out a beta of a Java2 JDK. I don't understand why they are going out of their way to trumpet the availability of an older release.
Last I heard, the only good JIT implementation
for linux was on the Power PC version... what is
the deal?
Thanks
Doesn't open source mean that you can actually see the source? I went to the alphaworkz site and could not find any IBM JDK 1.1.8 source, just some jikes and other odds and ends
I expected better from RedHat. IBM has not exactly be complettely friendly with the Linux community. Their redistribition of ADSM v3r1 level 0.1 for Linux was in a form that violated the LGPL. Since that time, I have produced a modified copy of the LGPL work used in the ADSM v3r1 level 0.1 binary. Since I desire to have the ADSM v3r1 level 0.1 binary reflect those changes, I have had a pending request with IBM for over 6 weeks for the object files to accomplish relinking. The only thing they have done to indicate they are taking the request seriously is to keep telling me to expect something "soon." But how soon is "soon??" If they had been honoring the LGPL all along then they would have been offering the object files for the entire year they where distributing the binaries. So, what is RedHat actions telling us? Is IBM so important that IBM can get away with whatever violations of open source licenses they choose and still win the business of key members of the Linux community? At what point will "soon" not be "soon" enough and we will actually demand IBM honors all open source licenses instead of the pick & choose game that IBM presently plays?
Malda's problem is that he's in a dysfunctional relationship with Perl. Perl is the wrong tool for the job. Now he's in over his head, entangled in an unmaintainable bloated rat's nests of spaghetti Perl. Maybe someday he'll wake up and smell the coffee. But he won't. He'll keep banging his head on the wall for years, self-deluded in the belief that he's some kind of "hot shot" programmer.
In contrast the Smart Guy would chose the correct tool for the job. He'd use all the knowledge we have learned from the experts in software engineering. The Smart Guy with the help of the right tools, would get the job done, get it running. Then he'd head for the beach to relax.
witless student type
after dealing with "kudzo", and the way it rips apart my machine, i have renamed it to the more appropriate "cujo".
at work, the 6.1 distro no longer allows us to write cd's. cdrecord just locks up or destroys the cd.
6.1/xfree86 no longer recognizes several of our video cards.
this is progress?
I actually like COBOL. But Im not a programmer and I dont have to write it or debug it day in and day out. Thank god. Its far too rigid, though I believe the next (current?) COBOL standard throws all the antiquated punch-card syntax stuff out the window. Its been a while since I studied and used it in college. But I remember what a nightmare it was compiling it and getting tons of errors just because I didnt have a character far enough to the right.
He's right. IBM is one of those companies who learned that lesson the hard way. They came out with the PC, and lost the market to competitors. Microsoft bought out DOS, sold it to IBM, and they became the kings of the computing world. Sun may have invented Java, but they are not fully taking advantage of it. IBM realizes this, and that is why they are getting involved with Linux and now Java.
Stupid moderators abound.
Judging from these stupid Natalie Portman/hot grits posts, I'd say the children aren't just reading, they're posting, too.
OT: I think the motivation is to sell all their enterprise technology like webshpere, domino, db2, etc. If your already using their VM, compiler, beans, and dev. tools, why not go ahead and use their application server and database too? It's a good strategy. Based on my experience with their software, I will definitely evaluate their products first.
course you get 3 votes. please consider casting one of them to implement regular expressions into the core.
Tired of having Netscape plus Java crash my computer in linux. Is there any way to force Netscape to use the IBM JVM instead of its own????
Thanx...
What else is new? See here (German) and here (English). Duh.
No that does not leave SuSE out in the cold. SuSE announced that (albeit not explicitly the Java stuff) back in October. G'morning folks.
has one of the moderators been hitten the ganja a wee bit too much?
How did they get a press release out today in all this SNOW. The RTP is completely shut down.
Go E-TEAM!
--
Blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I like this guy's link. It's hilarious. Saves me the trouble of being accosted by Jesus-pimpers on a Saturday night.
there are children reading this site you know
is Jesus your personal savior? click here
I work as an Intern (and wish to stay AC) in IBM and I am confident to say there are incorrect remarks in your post. IBM is not struggling to redefine ourselves as a servicing company -- it is a servicing company. Over half of IBM's revenue is from servicing. Hardware and software accounts for only a small portion of IBM's income. On the contrary, IBM wants to redefine itself as a hardware/software company. IBM JVM for Linux, JDK, etc have been available for free in www.ibm.com/java or www.alphaworks.ibm.com for quite some time now. This move merely helps IBM software to be more exposed.
No more! Now you'll be able to pop open a CLI and type java and have it work. Now you'll be able to release your cool Java widgets and tools knowing that other geeks -- even non-Java geeks -- will be able to download and run those tools without first installing the JDK.
Happy happy. Joy joy.
Solaris simply doesn't have the momentum behind it on x86 that FreeBSD does. I'm not a fanatic, but I certainly don't think that just because Solaris 8 is available for free with source pseudo-available everyone working on FreeBSD will suddenly just stop and go "Shucks, guys, this is what I was after all along". Hell, no. There may well be some cross-breeding of ideas between the two, but it's more likely to be that FreeBSD includes stuff from Solaris than the other way around.
/if/ you submit patches. And how often do you think they'll release updates? Your chances of getting something even remotely close to CVSup are minimal.
And also, think how likely it is that Sun will actually implement the changes in Solaris that *you* want. Even
Just because it's free doesn't mean it's good.
I have been using the 1.1.8 JDK from IBM for the past 3 months. It has been faster then Blackdown's and they have been fairly responsive in fixing big bugs. Overall, it's a thumbs up on Linux.
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
Fuck off you anti-Catholic bigot. (Yes, this gets a 2, and it deserves it -- unless you'd like anti-Semitic propaganda to be posted on slashdot too? How about goebbelsjII, declaring how deeply he relates to "Open Source"?)
In addition to the comments above - I have to add an additional one. Who's deploying many Java 2(1.2) dependent apps? The only big additions were the Collections API and Swing. Neither of those are hitting my inter/intranet development very hard. (And both of which can be bundled in with a 1.1 app). Besides, I always liked the JGL better anyway.
Every place I've been in in the past 18 mos. that's putting out server-side Java is running them on 1.1.x VMs anyway.
COBOL for B2B and e-Commerce? I don't think so. As a back-end for ERP/EDI I can see COBOL as an invaluable asset but it's not my first (or second) choice.
This is not true. IBM and DOJ settled. This cramped IBM for years and was one (not all) of the reasons they are no longer king of the Heap.
Help fight continental drift.
What's truly great is that this actually provoked a serious response.
I mean, running a COBOL-based "business-to-business e-commerce framwork using advanced object-oriented methodogies and optimized for intranets running on the powerful Windows2000 platform" on CP/M 2.1?
All you forgot was to say that your intended hardware platform was a cluster of 12 750 megahertz Z80s linked with fiber-optic cabling, 2 GB MFM hard drives, and 512 MB of iron-core memory.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Does this mean we BSD folk will be able to do some serious Java work (using Linux binary compatibility)?
Anyone know more?
I have used both for developing Swing applications and I recommend keeping both environments around.
The IBM JVM uses JIT compiler technology. I have not found any advantages to using the IBM JIT for development of Swing based apps. In fact, because of the JIT technology, the java apps take longer to start up and stack traces do not contain line numbers. (Apparently line number info is lost in the compilation process.)
Note that the IBM JVM has a superior threads implementation making it a better JVM for an applications server.
I have also found the IBM compiler picks up some ambiguities associated with inner classes that are missed by the Blackdown JVM.
It seems that that question must be asked with everypiece of software that gets ported to Linux, just as everytime a new processor, computer or what-not is announced, there's always a Beowolf post.
This story ran elswhere either yesterday or the day before. Redhat's not the lone Linux distributor that can use IBM's java. 4 or the 5 big ones can - I just forgot who's left out - I think SuSe, and the hope was that they'ed sign on by the end of the week.
should have previewed
It's ironic that users of the the operating system with the most open license (BSD) are practically begging for SCSL software, when IBM is handing the world real Open Source.
go figure
If you are doing any Java2D or Java3D or Drag and Drop, you need Java2.
If you want to do any sort of fat client development in Java, Java2 is very useful. Of course, very few people are doing this, and those that are are doing so for in-house apps.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Please, Java is the washed-up, has-been, never-will-be-again, even-if-it-tries-really-really-hard of programming languages.
You want performance? Enterprise support? Proven track record? I dare all the Slashdotters to point me to a better choice than COBOL, which I am currently using to develop an open source, business-to-business e-commerce framwork using advanced object-oriented methodogies and optimized for intranets running on the powerful Windows2000 platform. Huh? i thought so.
What I *really* want to know is which COBOL system Red Hat is going to support. GNU? maybe Tiny COBOL? I want answers. The choice operating systems is now down to CP/M 2.1 and Linux, and I'm going to go with the one with the best COBOL support.
C'mon Slashdot, address the real needs of real programmers, not these 'hackers' and 'd00ds'. So let's see more COBOL coverage in the future!
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Why is "Java2" better than the "old" version? Is it because Sun gave it a bigger number, or is there really a difference? do you think that IBM might just have a good reason for not focusing their efforts on Java "2"?
'course it is:
http://www.ibm.com/java/jdk/118/linux/
No JDK 1.2 yet though..
Another interesting IBM/Java link: IBM's commitment to Java and the Sun J2EE brand name.
--
Philip
Wired.com story here.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Let me see... reminds me of... TurboLinux... yeah, that's it. ;)
I guess it would probably have to be downloadable from the web, or I know of about a million RedHat-users who'd be pretty annoyed with having to buy RedHat all over again just to get this tool. This also mean that it would be downloadable to everybody (well duh...:), but if RedHat's the only one distributing it would only be distributed in rpm (again... duh...) and I can think of quite a few distros that don't like that too much.
(This would be a perfect time to start a distribution war. Luckily, it would be an even more perfect time not to.
If you haven't looked at IBM in the last year (and you sound like you haven't) you are out of date friend... Not only do they have an entire JDK available, they have profilers and a ton of other FREE tools out there... (XML stuff, pure Java installers, etc etc)
http://www.ibm.com/developer/java/
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/
http://www.ibm.com/java/jdk/index.html
"IBM provides developer kit code for AIX, OS/2, OS/390 (UNIX Services), OS/400, VM/ESA, Linux and Windows(R). You can download the code (without payment) either from this site, or from some other part of IBM's web linked to from this site. These are the Java developer kits available now. "
Does this mean RedHat will be taking over the role of the AlphaWorks site for distributing Linux Java stuff? Or is this a licensing agreement for including IBM's JVM with RedHat's distro?
I know you can get a lot of IBM's source code at their Alphaworks site but does their licensing OSI certifiable?
How does this affect RH-based distros like Mandrake (or the lowly LinuxOne)? Can they bundle
IBM's JVM? Can KDE? Does this leave Caldera, Corel and Suse out in the cold?
I'm confused.
As previously mentioned, TurboLinux also announced similar partnerships with IBM regarding the Java technology. LinuxToday picked up all the various press releases on the topic.
:) actually presented some other similar announcements prior to RH's own press release. Go figure.
Our specific information can be found at http://linuxtoday.com/stories/15563.html
On the surface, it appears that the Red Hat claim to being the "first to license" is incorrect. My preferred News Authority (LinuxToday
The important thing to note about these announcements is that it brings more choice to those of us who program in Java under Linux. I think we're all in agreement that it's not in any of our best interests to have one corporation with exclusive access to such a critical technology, especially considering a demonstrated tendancy towards extreme territorial behavior. This helps level the playing field, and demonstrates IBM's continued support of the Linux platform.
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
But you can't get both Java2 and Linux together.
(At least, that I can see; but I find the VisualAge site a pain to navigate around so maybe I missed something.)
The "Early Adopters" Java2 stuff seems to just be for Windows at this point.
If you have a URL for a Linux Java2 download from IBM, please post it! Profuse thanks.
--Seen
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
RedHat Linux and Java both lose in various benchmarks comparisons. Both are backed by enough money to incent developers to scratch their itches on the outstanding bugs. Remember that $1 Billion dollars in market cap can translate into 1,000,000 $1000 checks to community contributers.
What I suggest is this: RedHat offer shares from its huge marketcap to get bugs fixed in the RedHat installation and other not-quite open source software. Sun and IBM would then offer shares for Java bugs in their not-quite open source software. If only one thousand annoying problems were fixed (0.006% of RedHat market cap) and incorporated into later releases, the popularity of both Java and RedHat would rise enormously.
Disclaimers: I had grevious problems getting Redhat to install and have not been impressed with its ease of use. I have been employed by Sun as the strategic systems engineer liason for Java between Sun and IBM. I own stock and want it to go up.
Cheers,
Charles Merriam
merriam @ world.std.com
Profit motivates invention.
"Their stuff" being an importaint point - this is IBM's software, not Red Hat's.
My impression of IBM is that they aren't always the first movers but that they are very good at taking their time and doing things right. If you haven't seen their evaluation of Java on Linux check it out Here. This ran on Slashdot a few days ago and it was well done.
IBM's support is going to be great for Linux, great for Apache, and great for open source. It's nice to have you onboard.
As for Red Hat being evil because the work with commercial shops, I disagree. There are too many good developers who work for money in the commercial world. To ignore their work would be a mistake. (According to me)
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
It's freely downloadable.
illegitimii non ingravare
Caldera and TurboLinux will be including this in their distros as well, apparently.
illegitimii non ingravare
For example, adding an unnescessary brace to one class, can cause completely nonsensical error messages in other classes/files.
Because of this, numerous times I've been forced to revert to javac in order to understand what the hell is wrong. Extremely frustrating!
I apologize; I thought he was referrring to the JDK. Yes, I have looked at IBM in the last year ;-) and I'm looking forward even more to what they'll be doing *this* year. Eventually they will be the people to go to, not Sun, for the basic Java tools. Especially with their interest in Linux.
Whoever thought that IBM, of all companies, would be not only supporting, but developing for, open source? I'll bet Gates is just *fuming*.
"It's an exciting time to be alive!" - Tank, The Matrix
--
I like to watch.
JDKs (Java Development Kits) are from Sun, not IBM. You are probably referring to the "Jikes" compiler. Jikes is included with a few Freenices; it's part of FreeBSD's ports collection, I know.
JitterBug is where you want to go to report bugs.
However, if you use Linux, I would instead recommend getting the Sun/Blackdo wn Java 2 SDK.
If you use *BSD, read my other post about Java 2 SDK and go vote!
If you use Solaris... WTF are you doing using Jikes, mate?
If you use Win32, well, bollocks. ;-)
--
I like to watch.
"Jave?" Maybe you should have previewed, too. ;-)
--
I like to watch.
I can see by this post that you do indeed know what you are talking about. I only with that you had said all of this in your original post. I would have even moderated you up, becase even though I disagree, you put some good reasoning behind your arguments.
And about your responses to my insults... I'm not insulting the intelligence of |deity|, the person who wrote that very intelligent post just now. I *will* however insult the intelligence of the AC who screams in CAPS that Java "sucks" and "blows". You say "I'm sorry if I offended you with my opinion". I was not at all offended by your opinion, I was merely offended by your method of delivering it.
Perhaps I was a bit to quick to flame. But please, in the future, avoid that AC style that you can see the moderators were quick to shove down to (Score: -1, Troll). If you had posted in your later manner in the first place, you probably would have gotten a (Score: 3, Insightful), at least.
Since you have, as requested, backed up your arguments, I hereby recant my previous flames and apologize for my quickness to respond that way. But I will stand by my criticism of the manner in which you first posted. That is what I look down upon.
Now that we have that out of the way , I will respons to your arguments.
I agree that Java is slow as hell compared to native languages and even many interpretive languages, I do not think that Java will ever have a place in standalone application programming. And for text processing, Perl is still the way to go. But Java has what I think to be the perfect mix of power, speed, and functionality for its current use in small WWW applets. Servlets still need a while to ripen.
I myself code in C, and I too first thought that Java was *extremely* verbose when I first saw the code. I've gotten used to it, but I get the feeling that its designers weren't planning on it being used as much as it is for applets. Too much code is required to do simple things for most WWW applets, IMHO.
I must disagree that Java is "dead". You say yourself later in the post that it is in widespread use. Java support is getting better all the time. Look at how much better the Java stuff for Linux has gotten. Java is anything but dead.
Servlets may very well change the way that WWW server-side code is thought of, if they haven't already. However this will require broad Java support for the underlying OS. Solaris, to no surprise, handles this best right now. Linux is getting there. *BSD is a long way off. NT... well, NT is crap anyway.
Java is still a very new technology. I'd give it a few more years before you write it off completely. Especially when you see how it can work so nicely with the next Technology of the Week, XML.
You mention that you're reading some books about Java currently. I'd recommend O'Reilly's servlet book, and most of the Wrox stuff.
You say that you saw my info and noticed that I'm a BSD person. That is very true. However I am even more of a Java person, and so I will probably be dumping BSD in the next month if I don't hear any good news about that Java 2 SDK. There was been far too little Java FreeBSD development for me to be optimistic. I'm going to go back to Linux (yes, I confess. I used Linux and loved it until FreeBSD rocked my world), at least until I see Solaris 8. The time has come to return to the Penguin. Linux is being supported by IBM now, IBM loves Java on Linux; and there's even an official Sun JDK for it. Linux supports my SMP workstation better, and has better support for more filesystems. I was a hardcore BSDer, but even I am being turned around. Linux is the way of the future. I look at the feature list for the next kernel, and I'm amazed. Sure, BSD has 25-year old code, but Linux's code is being developed NOW. Also, I can attest to the fact that many BSD people are those snooty University types. The Linux scene is more my style anyway. I've been on both sides of the fence. As much as I love the kernel, I can feel in my bones that Linux is growing and changing and becoming better everyday, while BSD is getting stale, and no-one supports it, and being a developer I can't stay there for much longer. I'm coming back, Tux, I'm coming back...
Java cannot replace C or C++. But as it finds its niche as a *web* technology, it will become better optimized, faster, and more stable. Sun has hopefully realized that no-one really does a lot of stand-alone app dev in Java. They need to get Java running on servers, and improve how applets, databases, and servlets talk to each other.
It was indeed a pleasure talking with you, |deity|. I really do hope that you post this way in the future. Please do, because it's a pity to be written off as a troll because of that fanatical AC posting style where you yell like a 12 year-old. It was a pleasure to be proven wrong, and I will give all troll ACs a second thought now. ;-)
Cheers,
The_Messenger
--
I like to watch.
Personally, I find the increasingly pervasive notion that "Linux" is synonymous with "x86" even more infuriating than the notion that "Linux" is equivalent to "RedHat".
I just spent 10 minutes hunting through IBM's Java sites for their Linux JDK installation requirements. I knew it was going to say "x86 processor", but I shouldn't have had to look so hard to find that out.
I don't mean to flame, or to suggest that a company has any sort of obligation to support non-x86 Linux platforms. It just seems to me that if a company is providing software for x86 Linux systems, then that should be prominently stated in press releases, web pages, etc. They shouldn't say just "Linux" unless they mean all Linux systems (PowerPC, Alpha, StrongARM, 68k, etc.), which they never do unless they're releasing source.
CVS is teh suck. Use Vesta instead.
Now that is interesting! Except for the Crusoe item, I was told almost the exact same thing from a completely differenct source. I thought it was just hot air - obviously not.
All in all, I think this is great news ! We have had a few problems with the Blackdown VM (now repackaged as Sun jdk1.2 for Linux) under high load (more than 1024 connections etc...) Our experience is that the IBM JDK is more stable (generally speaking) and will shortly be switching to it. OTOH its worth noting that there is some inexplicable memory leak (IBM's words) when running the IBM JDK on Compaq servers. Though I guess RedHat or Compaq will find a way to solve that one soon enough ;-)
My experience has been that IBM's tools are faster, but less reliable than blackdown's.
Jikes (the compiler) is awesomely fast, but will not always catch errors and can generate funky bytecode that causes VM's to crash.
the high performance VM is fast, but has some funny UI quirks. (even more so than java does in general) However, I use it for running AnyJ (the java IDE written in java -- free for linux users!) and it seems stable enough. Though even as fast as it is for java, java is just S*L*O*W.
I'm sure this will all get worked out some day, so I think overall it's a great thing to have the ibm tools automatically install with red hat.
Like everyone, I wish IBM would get their java 2 act together, but even more so I'd like to see java 2 in browsers; and I wish netscape would upgrade their dreadfully slow, buggy vm. (off topic, but other people were mentioning java 2)
(P.s. I can't find the link for anyJ right off, since I can't get the blackdown.org site to connect, but you can get the link from there, I think on the "status" page. Definitely worth checking out if you're developing java on linux.)
Props to IBM.
The price of any new technology should (imho) always be a secondary concern. I love free software, but it's not worth much to anyone unless it is properly built and supported.
Back in my IBM days (95-98) we had a little joke about IBM's marketing vs Microsoft's:
Microsoft could sell vacations to hell even if preliminary reports came back that the first vacationers never came back.
IBM, on the other hand, could try to give free passes to heaven and would somehow wind up offering 1 for 1 conversions to Microsoft's Hell Getaway.
The BeerBaron
Does anyone else see the irony that IBM is making the bucks (minus licensing fees?) from Sun's Java technology on Linux, which Sun thinks is a waste of time 8^)
If you look at the history of personal computers and software, the money has mostly been made by the exploiter - not the people or company who initially developed it.
It irks me that Red Hat seem so keen to licence this into their product. What happened to the commitment to keep their stuff GPL'd? I suppose they'll weasel around this by putting it on a supplemental CD or somesuch.
Sun announced plans to ship Java 2 Platform...
It doesn't say what version of Java *IBM* will be shipping to the Linux distro companies. The only version they have available now is based on Java 1.1...Its fast as hell (compared to other Java VMs, especially on Linux), but 1.1 nonetheless.
Is it free? Can you download it from the web? I don't know about this...I don't like the commercialization Red Hat is doing. Esp. having different "Editions" of Linux. Now what does that remind you of?
Interesting. I'm actually a bit too young to really understand the animosity towards IBM, everything I know about it, I heard from other sources. It seems pretty obvious in retrospect, however, the main example being the "throwing the hammer" mac commercial. I suppose in many respects microsoft has taken on the IBM role, though one thing to remember about IBM is it's assets are mostly physical. I mean, they have more than just software.
They are a truly huge company with many physical assets. An interesting point that is often missed about some of the new "eipo.coms" that have started up, and microsoft itself. Microsoft is "worth" 200 billion, but it only HAS 20 billion, unlike "real" companies such as GM and IBM.
I just find the complete and utter turnaround from total Evil Empire to total Underdog Hero amazing, that's all. You don't often get to see that.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
I would also much prefer if Microsoft would clean up their own act instead of forcing us (taxpayers) to do it for them. They could certainly learn a thing or two from IBM. Also they should avoid the example set by AT&T (i.e. government is forced to take action)
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Why wait? I'v had it for a few months now. Just download it from IBM's site.
this is odd
is Jesus your personal savior? click here
"but even more so I'd like to see java 2 in browsers"
I agree. I don't think that Microsoft will lead the way. But if enough of their competitors updated their VMs we might see web sites supporting newer versions of Java. I find it a bit of a pain not being able to use Swing 1.1 (well, I could, but the JAR files are just too big to place on the web server).
Excuse me? Although I have little desire to get into an argument with a coward on here, but I'm speaking from cold hard experience, and several months of fairly heavy benchmarking and evaluation of a half dozen platforms for servlet and EJB-based applications on a number of servlet engines and application servers on the various platforms.
Blaming Java for Linux's inability to handle large numbers of threads stinks of Linux evangelism at it worst. How long have you, Mr or Mrs Anonymous Coward being using Linux? Eight years like I have? How many commercial rollouts of services using it have you done? Dozens like I have?
The fact is, regardless of your opinion on the Java threading model and the way most Java applications are written, that Linux is not a good match currently for running enterprise class Java applications. And it most certainly is because native threads (being one-to-one mapped to processes) are too heavy-weight. Tweaking the scheduler helps, but most certainly doesn't fix the problem.
If you've ever written enterprise applications in Java, you'd know that the choice as how to use threading isn't always in the control of the application writer. Its tied to the application server and the web server, or servlet environment.
The one point you were correct about was the need in Linux for a more robust kernel threading model that isn't process-bound as it currently is. Until that time, no matter how good IBM's JVM is (and it IS that good), the vast majority of enterprise applications are going to run notably faster under NT. Shipping IBM's JVM with RedHat under the guise of making it an "enterprise" platform, however, is asking for more pseudo-Mindcraft tests to run and show how much faster Java applications are on NT than Linux.
RedHat would be better spending some of its millions hiring kernel hackers to find a solution to the threading issues, THEN Linux could really compete in the enterprise application marketplace.
This is a good thing. The IBM JVM is far and away the fastest on Linux. But it still (unfortunately) sucks compared to the IBM JVM on NT. That's not IBM's fault, but rather the threading issues dealing with the Linux kernel.
Bundling it is good, but its definately not "enterprise" ready. On identical hardware (ie dual boot) its at least 40% slower than NT at moderate load using the JRun servlet environment and Apache 1.3.9. I hate it when I end up having to host an application on NT instead of Linux -- its rare -- but the area of Java is definately a weak point.
The work IBM's been doing to optimize the scheduler looks promising though, but it can't replace the benefit of having ligher-weight threading in the kernel.
IBM has committed to supporting Java 1.2 on all of their strategic platforms. They consider Linux as one of those platforms. A number of other moves they've made (I wish I had the URL's handy) corroborate this statement. They haven't really released a 1.2 JVM for any platform, let alone Windows and their own OS's. This is because, as I said above, they do more than add bells and whistles. There are research teams in Texas, Japan, and Israel, I believe working on various aspects of the JVM technology.
Most of what they initially need to do is move their original improvements from the 1.1 series into the 1.2 reference they get from Sun. They've made some huge improvements to the JDK. For example their GC work alone is pretty impressive. Give them time... 1.2 will be out.
Sujal
PS. Most of this is coming straight from IBM dev rel folks at a Java Briefing Day. There were more than a few folks interested in Linux, and they mentioned all of the issues in that article that made a previous story and then some as items they'd like to work out in the future for linux.
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
The term you wanted was ADD ONE TO COBOL GIVING COBOL. Of course, it was also locally known as Oh! Oh! COBOL! and I Object to COBOL.
Disclaimer: I'm not a COBOL programmer. Life's too short.
Basically, you're saying you trust Sun's roadmap, over IBM's.
That's fine.
However, given Sun's recent track record with Sun (removing it from standards consideration for example), I don't trust them.
IBM has shown itself perfectly willing to make money USING Open Source software, rather than by denouncing it. I trust them.
Sun sits there and wonders why everybody else is wasting their time with Linux. Everybody else sits there and wonders why Sun isn't doing anything while they reel in the mula. As much as I might dislike Java some days, I think this is good for both RedHat and IBM. IBM gets to have support done by someone who knows Linux, which makes them look good. RedHat gets more support contracts, which makes them have more money to fund developing more Linux stuff.
Does anyone else see the irony that IBM is making the bucks (minus licensing fees?) from Sun's Java technology on Linux, which Sun thinks is a waste of time 8^)
-Matt
-Cheetah
The following is taken directly from IBM's web pages:
VisualAge for Java Version 3.0 includes an Early Adopters Environment providing support for Java 2, formerly known as JDK 1.2. Developers can start now to build and deploy selected applications that target the Java 2 platform, taking advantage of Java 2 features such as improved security, portability, and advanced user interface controls.
It appears you are partially correct, as it looks like the JDK 1.2 support is beta at this point. The place I work is a fairly large IBM customer, so we get a lot of stuff fairly early.
You are correct up to a point. IBM never got broken up, but it was forced to make some concessions to the government to avoid that. Interestingly in the end IBM chose to break large parts of itself off (the spinoff of Lexmark, the sale of Rolm to Siemens, etc). Not being able to replay history with different scenarios, it is hard to say that IBM ever would have changed had they not had to live under the DOJ's scrutiny. Also the industry has yet to prove that it can force Microsoft to change their ways like it did with IBM, so I am not yet ready to think that DOJ action against Microsoft isn't necessary. Without the DOJ keeping IBM fighting on another front in court, would the industry have been able to break from IBM's grasp?
Count me as someone who would be happy if Microsoft could/would choose to clean up their act on their own, or that the industry could force them to do so without requiring government action. But until that happens, I hope the DOJ continues to fight them.
Does this package from IBM include their fast VM?
I don't know about the fast VM, but this article describes a way of patching the Linux kernel to speed up performance of a VM. I guess it would be up to Red Hat to include that patch in their package.
As far as someone claiming that IBM is dumping all their support on Red Hat for their Java tools, it looks to me that Red Hat would only be providing support for the IBM software that is sold by Red Hat not all IBM Java support under Linux totally.
Do this don't do that Can't you redesign.
IBM is struggling to redefine themselves as the "service company". Now they let Red Hat do the support for them. I suspect IBM's just trying to benefit from the current media hype surrounding Red Hat and anything around it. Once the hype is over, IBM will grab the support back, I bet.
Go to this page, it's exactly what you're looking for.
To sum it up, 1.2 for Windows, Linux is supposed to come in Q1 / Q2 2000, 1.3 following soon. It is already available for AIX and OS/400.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2426 221,00.html
It says that RedHat will be the first to licence and distribute the tech, but does that mean that they're the ONLY one who will? Call me paranoid, but I'm getting images of even greater differences between distributions and possibly what is known as 'unfair advantages' here.
I guess the part about 'open standards and community source technologies' hints towards open source, but as we all know, big companies *cough*SUN*cough* doesn't nessecarily (sp?) mean the same when they say open source as the rest of us do.
-
Is there anyone producing an open source java variant for linux ??
If not, why not ?
Why would Red Hat include a non-open source product in their main distribution ?
Or was that all smoke being blown by Young until it was convenient to release closed source products that he feels add value to RH's products ?
Open Java for linux !
Anyone care to venture an opinion regarding the quality, speed of these tools vs. the JDK from Sun (the one they ripped from Blackdown)?
Does this package from IBM include their fast VM?
illegitimii non ingravare
Please, all members of JDC, go here and cast your votes to have Sun release this software. We are up to 2703 votes so far. It took 4551 votes before Sun released the Linux version, so we're almost there, right? ;-)
(However, I am well aware that the release of the Linux port was due in large part to the excellent folks from Blackdown.)
You must be registered in the JDC (Java Developer Connection) to vote. Registration is free and quick, so if you're a Java developer or just have a general interest on FreeBSD or Java, please go sign up and vote!
Anyone interested in doing an unofficial port please mail me at javadrew@spammerslovehotmail.com (obviously remove the "spammerslove" :-).
Viva Java 2 en FreeBSD!
--
I like to watch.
It is not just PR, IBM is becoming quite different compared with what they've used to be 10-15 years ago. They are still in a process of defining themselves though.
VisualAge does not support Java2. Websphere does not support Java2.
This is obsolete information. WebSphere 3.0 and Visual Age for Java 3.0 have support for Java2. We just got our CD's for the 3.0 versions the other day and will be upgrading from the 2.0 versions in the near future.
From the VisualAge web site:
Java 2 and Linux Support
VisualAge for Java Version 3.0 includes an Early Adopters Environment providing support for Java 2, formerly known as JDK 1.2. Developers can start now to build and deploy selected applications that target the Java 2 platform, taking advantage of Java 2 features such as improved security, portability, and advanced user interface controls.
In response to popular demand from developers, IBM is providing VisualAge for Java for the Linux platform, underscoring IBM's commitment to supporting customers on the platforms they choose. With VisualAge for Java support for Linux, developers will be able to quickly build, test and deploy 100% Pure Java applets, applications, JavaBeans components and servlets on Linux. VisualAge for Java on Linux is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/vadd.
Drinking will help us plan!
As the joke goes...
[
See, Sun decided to be really clever and drop the standard practices used for software versioning It goes like this:
Get it? By dropping the number before the decimal point, they can fool you into thinking it's a whole new version! After all, there's no way we can convince our employers to pay for a software upgrade from 1.1 to 1.2, but 1.1 to 2 must be something big. (But JDK is free, so...? Nevermind.)
Eventually Solaris and Java will have to start using Apple's roman numeral software versioning, because you can't have Java 10. Because Java 10 would be JDK 1.10, which is technology from the Dark Ages (1997!!). My hunch is that they'll start using the "Street Fighter" versioning system, so by 2002 we'll have Java 2 Turbo Alpha Hyper. Capcom managed to survive for five years like that.
--
I like to watch.
I'd like to point out that IBM has recently done an excellent job of grabbing good PR where it used to be terrible. There was a time when IBM was as hated as Microsoft is today, and now even the "underground Microsoft resistance" doesn't have too much bad to say about IBM. I imagine it stems from their underdog status gained during the development of OS/2. Or, it could be their lack of unfair business practices.
Does this IBM VM come with source code? I'd love to get a look at that.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
IBM makes lots of noise about supporting Java but what they never mention is that they're supporting an OLDER version of the language. None of IBM's JVM's support Java2 (JDK1.2+). VisualAge does not support Java2. Websphere does not support Java2.
Java2 has been out for quite a while and the fact that IBM still doesn't support it doesn't give me any confidence that they will stay current in the future. How long will it take for them to support 1.3 or the version after that?
Some parts of IBM are doing some really cool things with Java, an example being the Jikes compiler. If you look closely, however, you'll notice that the only parts of IBM doing CURRENT java stuff are research projects. All the products that IBM plans to make money from are using an OLD version of Java. Admittedly, they're still working on the product and are making it faster and more robust but they're supporting the wrong version of the language.
Hearing that IBM will distribute their VM's with all the major linux distros doesn't make me overly happy. Why do I want another Java 1 VM?
If all the distros are going to be providing a version of Java then it should be a CURRENT version. The Blackdown Java2 VM would be a much better choice IMO.
IBM seems to be set to render Sun irrelevant to the future of Java...They are making the right Linux moves as well as good moves in the Java & XML front. I can't wait to get a IBM's JDK on my linux box. :)
Oh happy day...