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Sun To Upgrade Java Desktop System
An anonymous reader writes "The second version of Sun's Java Desktop System should be unveiled this week, according to this article. And as part of Sun's effort to entice programmers to its new software, the new JDS software will include the Java Studio and NetBeans developer tools." The JDS is their Linux desktop system.
I opened a terminal:
*sigh* Can Sun do anything right?
Since Sun includes a Ton of GPL'd software on their CD, where are the sources? I can't find any download either on their site (tried "Java Desktop System" download site:sun.com and all I got was a lenghty FAQ) I'd like to try it, where do I get it from?
The JDS is their Linux desktop system.
Not for long.
Sun has hinted more than once that they'd like JDS to be based on Solaris x86. I would expect at some point that they'll either start pushing a Solaris-based JDS, or even worse, "seamlessly upgrade" Linux-based JDS to Solaris-based JDS and load up a Linux binary compatibility layer to run those "legacy" apps.
Linux is a nuisance to Sun. It's really a shame, because Sun has done (or acquired and re-released) some great things: NFS, Java, OpenOffice... but they're so stuck on Solaris that they just can't handle the fact that it's all about Linux now. IBM "gets it" -- they do AIX when customers ask for it, Linux when customers ask for that, but they're pushing for unified Linux everywhere. But anyone who's experienced IBM's distribution of the GNU toolset on AIX knows that Sun absolutely kicks IBM's butt in terms of integration of the tools into a legacy Unix OS.
Anyway, I'd wager that Sun is going to continue to be schizophrenic about Linux until the board wises up and cans McNealy.
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I, like many people, made fun of Sun at first for calling it the Java Desktop when the majority of the code (and pretty much all of the core code) is written in C or C++. I've realized now though, that the case is the same with Java itself, so really the name fits perfectly.
I'll second that sentiment. Eclipse is the best all-around IDE + Platform. Ever since I started using 2.0, I haven't touched JBuiler or any other java IDE. Every now and then I'll use VI if I'm logged into a server, but overall Eclipse is my favorite.
will thay give credit to GNOME and GPL s/w on which it is based. lot of details on GrokLaw
maybe you should have tried:
:)
$ jikes
IBM seems to be getting a lot of things right with java lately
-Pat
If it's actually a Linux based SMC (Solaris Management Console) it would be a very good thing. Clients for SMC exist for Solaris and Windows, but nothing for Linux. Whatever else may be said about Sun's bizarre marketing strategies and corporate (mis)-directions, they do have some good tools for systems management. Though I'm now a die-hard Linux user, there are still many areas where Solaris (maybe just by virtue of being developed longer) outshines Linux. This is of course changing minute by minute...
Sun is trying to be even loonier than Darl. They're succeeding, but they're not nearly as amusing. Let's see, they 'have no Linux strategy', Red Hat is ''proprietary', and this warmed-over elderly "Java Desktop" would more accurately be named "Old Moldy SuSE." The innovation is breathtaking.
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SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
Yes, Eclipse is much faster than NetBeans, but IDEA is faster.
I tired eclipse, but honestly the auto-complete simply didn't work the way I'm used to. Eclipse has great features, but the wonky autocomplete made it a pain to type out code :P.
Never looked at netbeans, though.
Also, sun despises eclipse because it's based (IIRC) on WX windows, rather then Swing. So GUI code produced isn't '100% pure java'. Is that correct, or can you design swing aps with eclipse?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What is holding JDS back isn't necessarily Linux but the fact that SUN has done nothing about dire shortage of third party software vendors for the desktop.
There are a HUGE number of companies out there who would jump ship in a minute for a JDS solution IF they could get their "mission critical" applications on JDS. I'm sorry, but if SUN want the customers, the customers require the software, no software, no customers, its just that simple.
Want to solve the problem? go to the vendors and ask, "how much to port this application natively to JDS", find out the price, and the cut the software vendor a cheque! Once you get a handful of vendors producing, more vendors will come on board volunteerily because they don't want to feel like they've missed out on the "next big thing".
Its about creating momentum, but unfortunately SUN just doesn't get it, and never has, and never will.
I'm puzzled by the huge uptake of eclipse. As a basic IDE its truly awesome, but it has no features to handle user interfaces, be they client-side or web. Netbeans may lack a lot of eclipse features (for now), but it has a very powerful Swing GUI designer and lots of vital J2EE features such as servlet and JSP debugging pre-installed. As far as I know you can only get those features for eclipse with commercial or shareware plug-ins.
Eclipse is a great free GUI for software that doesn't either have a user interface or run on a server.
"At any rate, it's hard to cavil when so much value comes at so low a price. NetBeans 3.6 is available as a free download or for $9.95 plus shipping for a packaged CD.
But we'll cavil anyway. Refactoring features, beloved by users of open-source competitor Eclipse, won't be matched until later this year in NetBeans 4.0"
Couldn't agree more. I can't speak for the performance of the new netbeans, but unless it is 5x faster than previous eclipse wins hands down. And also they admit that eclipse has them when it comes to refactoring. If you have never used eclipse before, try it once and you'll love it. Renaming a method or a class across a project is so easy.
At work it turned out that everything we were calling "a" in a project was supposed to be called "b" and everything we were calling "b" was supposed to be called "c". I couldn't imagine performing all those changes without a tool like eclipse. Because those names which we got messed up appeared in public variables, local variables, method names, class names and package names. Eclipse does an awesome job determining the scope of what you're trying to change. I went and used their preview tool to preview the changes before they were made and they did not make a single error.
> Vendors are more trustworthy than some guy / gal :)
> in the I.T. department
I dunno... been getting a fist full of headaches from the local EMC support recently. I'm currently trying to script the creacion of multiple snapshots, and the command line experience of the local guys is zilch, so every request goes to second level support in the US. We are talking 10 day turnaround here.
Ever tried writing a script with a ten day turnaround for every enquiry?
Blah
(Yeah.. I'm just bitter)
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
i dont know why so many people talk down on sun.
1. Because they are neither open source or Microsoft.
2. Because they haven't totally given up all proprietary UNIX, abandoned decades of experience in OS and kernel design, and immediately adopted Linux for everything.
3. Because they haven't sacked McNeally and appointed ESR as lifetime president.
4. Because they aren't allowing everyone to fiddle with Java (it's not like Java has been a raving success, after all: How can it possibly be called 'successful' until its a Debian package?)
5. Because you can't overclock their processors and post pictures of neat cooling systems to Slashdot.
(Note: I think there was a project to essentially create a sort of Java-enabled OS rather than a virtual one, which could natively run compiled Java code without a VM. I haven't heard anything about it since)
One of the ideas behind Java was that a object-orientated CPU (manipulating objects rather than ordinary registers) would actually be faster than the equivalent CISC or RISC instructions. This was going to be the PicoJava I core. But a Google search picks up nothing in the last four years.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I actually tried switching back to Eclipse after using IDEA for a job. I just couldn't do it, I went out and forked over the money for IDEA, it was well worth every penny I spent on it.
Seriouslly, I think the only thing I've found that Eclipse is better at than IDEA is in its AspectJ integration.
Eclipse seemed faster in some cases but only in some minor things such as dialog boxes or new windows opening up. After using it for a while, there didn't seem to be that much of a difference between it and netbeans. Especially in terms of memory usage.
Eclipse seems to be a lot more stripped down than netbeans. Netbeans comes with a whole bunch of modules right out of the box to do gui development and web development. Whereas in eclipse you have to download third party modules. As you add more modules the size of the application starts to increase. Also, to get the quality of modules that come with netbeans you have to pay for them in eclipse. For building web apps I really like netbeans. Eclipse with things like myeclipse works pretty well. MyEclipse is pretty cheap but not cheaper than free.
Look at IBM's WebSphere Studio. Once it finishes loading it's taking up about 150 Megs of memory (not virtual).
Both are kind of lacking in certain features but that's part of the point in both of them. They want to be a platform to build tools on as well as an ide for third parties to build plugins and charge for them.
Netbeans has been around a lot longer and has some more built in functionality than Eclipse does. I like the way Eclipse is more ant-like but NetBeans has good ant integration and with 4.0 will have an ant based project system. I've played with the new project system and it's really nice.
I don't know what some people's hangups are with Swing. I've used a full blown IDE for developing web applications about 6 years ago, on typical hardware from 6 years ago and performance was fine. Right now, I'm runing with Tiger and swing performance is a lot better.
The thing I don't like about SWT is that you have to rely on the native widgets and some platforms may not have the same set of widgets and they usually don't look the same across platforms if they do. SWT seems like a good short term solution but with the performance enhancements coming out for Swing/AWT, SWT may be obsolete soon.
The bottom line for me was that I didn't have to spend time and money comparing different plugins I needed that would work the way netbeans does.
It's odd, while eclipse may be faster I am much more productive in netbeans. The keyboard shortcuts, code completion and interface just work better for me.
Refactoring can be a pain if you have to do it often. If it's a concern there is a module for netbeans called RefactorIT which blows the doors off of what eclipse provides for refactoring. It's pretty cheap too.
I wonder if people's opinions on netbeans is based on some tools built using netbeans and not netbeans itself. Sun' Studio 5 update 1 had some weird behavior. Every once in a while something seemed to go into an infinite loop and just pin the cpu utilization at 100% while seeming to do nothing. Wind up having to kill the process and restart the ide. Can be a big pain if you haven't saved your work. I hope they've fixed that because the few times that happened it really ticked me off. I've used NetBeans more and haven't seen that happen.
When doing GUI development though I have gotten a few NPE's in NetBeans when adding new components. I just make sure to save frequently and if that happens, closing the form editor and reopening it fixes the problem without restarting the IDE. I don't do much GUI development so I don't know if this is new to 3.6 and JDK 1.5 or not. I'm hoping that it's because 1.5 is still beta.
The task list in Eclipse is really cool and NetBeans has something similar now but I haven't really used it much. I also like the way Eclipse handles imports. You start typing in the cannonical class name and if it's not in your import list it will add
Open Source Java DAO Generator
But does the desktop act like that 3d one Sun demonstrated? THAT would be cool, and so cool if packaged well and demonstrated to game development companies, it could buy Sun a potential foot in the domestic use door.