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Java 2 for Linux Released & Blackdown Gets Creds
burner writes, "After quite a wait, JDK1.2.2 is released for Linux. You can grab the final release from Sun's site. Sun has also put up bios for the Blackdown guys. Sun's been acting pretty flippy lately, but this is great news. I've been using Blackdown's latest release candidates lately, and they're excellent, but now there's a final release. Nice work guys! "
Lest you people forget, there was a horrific accident some months ago when developers tried to code Q uake in Java. Please do not make the same mistakes.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Yeah it looks as though Sun finally pulled their heads out of their asses on this one. Now if they would only do the same with StarOffice and the SCPL I might actually be convinced to no longer speak disparingly about them.
It's so disappointing to still see Java so fragmented across platforms. The 'Linux' release is only officially supported on one processor and increasing the officially supported OS's by 50% has been like pulling teeth. It's not the end-all-be-all of languages, but two years ago I had hopes that by now it would be faster and more pervasive than it has become--especially outside the browser cage. Such a shame... mh
There was a JavaLive chat yesterday about the Java on Linux stuff. They haven't put up the transcripts yet though.
For Java 1.3 from Sun, the Windows version will come out first, then Solaris then Linux. However, they do want to syncronise all releases together and should do this at or before Java 1.4 - might happen first for a maintenance release.
I admire the Blackdown crew, and the work they've done to get the JVM working under Linux. Unfortunately however, its not something I can use to write a professional application if I expect it to work properly.
I've done a lot of Java development under Linux this year, and I've noticed several things that prevent me from doing serious work with Java (under Linux). For example, rmiregistry crashes without fail for any type of heavily loaded RMI project. Another example is that Thread objects break just as easily, or refuse to start altogether when you spawn multiple Threads (even if there is plenty of memory available). Luckily I have access to a cluster of Ultra5's to test my applications on, which execute almost flawlessly (I've noticed a few quirks with Threads under Solaris as well, but not nearly as bad as under Linux).
I see the state of the JVM under Linux as being close to a toy. I know all the Blackdown people will probably find this insulting, but unfortunately, I can't do hard-core Java the way I can under Solaris. I do not blame Blackdown in any way for this however. I feel that this is solely Sun's fault.
Thats my $0.02 on the issue. I love Blackdown, I love Java. Bugs suck.
I've been using 1.2rc3 for some time on an intranet site using a bunch of servlets/JSPs. Works like a charm. 1.2 JVMs are SOO much easier to use and configure than 1.1.x JVMs. They're much more intelligent about using .jar's, etc. The performance is also quite good, especially with Resin (www.caucho.com). No, I don't work for them, but I'm incredibly impressed by their servlet engine. It also has a cool feature that compiles JavaScript (in JSPs) to real Java bytecode. Plus a lot of great utility classes (like automatic database connection pooling, and XML support). I highly recommend checking it out. We're running an app on a $400 Linux machine and the response is basically instantaneous, even with multiple database queries. --JRZ
An important distinction between the two is that the "official Sun JDK" does NOT support native threads and in fact recommends NOT running it on SMP machines, while the Blackdown release does native threads and SMP just fine.
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
I was once very excited about java. Did a fair amount of development under Java 1.0, Java 1.1, and Java 1.2, before we as a company decided to dump the product because of Sun's mismanagement of the standard and their lackluster support of the Blackdown group and Linux in general. This may have changed for the moment, but for us (and I suspect many others) it came far too late to be of much use (c.f. "sun sucks").
Performance may now be acceptable, but at the time we dumped the product even a small, simple data entry application was too demanding of the JVM at the time (even on Sparc 10's running Solaris, much less Linux). The choice Sun gave us was stark: run the Java VM under Windows or Solaris on a high end sparc, or suffer. We chose Linux, adopted a more open development environment, and now having dumped the product we will not, in the future, ever consider going back (c.f "sun sucks" and "slow"). Using GNU configure and its associated utilities, we are able to get all the cross-platform support we require, even if it involves a quick rebuild of the sources (typing "./configure" and "make install" isn't terribly difficult) with the performance our users demand and languages we can hire developers for (c.f. "use Perl" and "Java sucks").
I enjoyed using Java (despite the, even now, still horrificly screwed up date and time classes) as a language, but the drawbacks were too severe and too critical for too long of a time, and Sun's current and future motives with respect to the openness of the standard and support for Linux, FreeBSD, and whatever other platform we may, in the future, chose to deploy, has eroded our confidence in the product too much for us to seriously consider any future use of Java. Put simply, the stumbling blocks Sun until recently put in the way of development on anything other than their "blessed" platforms far outweighed any advantage the language itself offered (and those were not inconsiderable for those of us coming from C++, with Java's simpler memory management and garbage collection and other features).
Alas, the promise of "write once, run everywhere" quickly became (and IMHO remains) "write once, run where Sun would like you to." At present Sun has chosen to become mildly friendly towards Linux. This is great! However, I would not expect this to remain a long term strategy on their part, unless there are some serious changes in the mentaility of Sun's upper management. (c.f. "blah blah blah").
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Does this mean that us poor linux users can finally use the java plugin for mozilla ? (oh please please please ...)
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
With the coming mozilla version (beta in 60 days according to mozillazine), yes.
Jilles
Actually, its not his multi-threading which is the problem. Graphics in java are multithreaded within the language, which is supposed to aid applets which may need to grab images off of a server.
It is possible to force your main thread to block until images load, but he obviously doesn't know (For the previous poster, look into the MediaTracker interface).
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!