Java For BeOS

Daniel Mark writes: BeUnited (beunited.com) today made it public that Java 1.4 will be released for the BeOS." It's an interesting interview for more than the Java angle, though.OpenOffice, ssh2 ... BeOS fans will have toys for a while yet.

Comments

At this point, it's vapor.

[rjh]

Remember--a year ago, maybe eighteen months, Be promised its users that the J2SDK for Be was done. They basically committed themselves to a pact signed in the blood of their unborn children that J2SDK would be in people's hands by that year's end.

Never happened. And up until the day Be folded, they kept on claiming J2SDK was on track and wasn't delayed.

If BeUnited wants me to believe J2SDK is going to be released for BeOS, the way to do it is simple. Release it.

Until then... no offense to the BeUnited guys. But like the song goes, "won't be fooled again."

Re:At this point, it's vapor.

[tpv]

It's not just vapour, it's BeUnited vapour.

BeUnited has attempted a great number of things, many times, but I'm yet to see anything actually be produced in all those years.

A lot of well meaning people have put a lot of time into the organisation, each one trying to take it where they wanted it to go, but from where I sit, it doesn't appear to have ever actually gotten there. All they've managed to do is change direction a number of times, and issue some announcements.

I wish them well, but the track record at BU is pretty horrible.

Disclaimer: I was (very briefly) on the BU committee a number of years ago, and was a member of a couple of BU projects that never went anywhere.
I have my own ideas about how BU should run, and they're just as likely to fail as anyone else's.
I'm only slightly involved in the Be community these days, so my opinion is probably biased quite heavily by the past actions of BU rather than the current ones.

Re:As long as they also port over the JIT compiler

[Glytch]

Basically this leads to anything java being god aweful slow.

Aw, hell, it's too easy. I can't say it.

Re:Beos.... (I'll bite)

[jpt.d]

BSD based operating systems are as popular or more popular than other unices. Eat my apples :p

Re:As long as they also port over the JIT compiler

[zaqattack911]

don't gimme the old "java is slow" anyways BS.

I have done extensive testing, and it's not true all the time.

I have written things in java that are about as fast as a C++ counterpart.

It's java Swing that I have a problem with.

Now they all work for Apple?

[melquiades]

Remember--a year ago, maybe eighteen months, Be promised its users that the J2SDK for Be was done. They basically committed themselves to a pact signed in the blood of their unborn children that J2SDK would be in people's hands by that year's end.

Apparently, when Be folded, those same people went off to work at Apple -- whose Java 1.4 for OS X will be available at the end of September.

Oops. Maybe they meant September of 2007.

Actually, there's been no "blood of unborn children" pact -- Apple has been judiciously, maddeningly vague about the release of 1.4, and the September thing was only a guess from one of their project leads on a mailing list. Still, I can't help but feel that Apple did learn some lessons from the work done at Be after all....

Re:Beos.... (I'll bite)

[j3110]

A lot of windows code was taken from BSD... look in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc :)
(substitute winnt for windows on 2k or ntxp)

One could argue that at least 10% of windows is based on BSD. If so, it's more popular than Linux :)

I'm not even going into how much of Linux is BSD.

BSD is the code cow of the industry: everyone takes something from them.

Where to look

[eexlebots]

Here is where you look for it's status:

http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/status.php

They have quite a bit done, considering the task ahead of them. You can even use some of the replacement parts now (if you're brave ;) )