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How Much Java in the Linux World?
jg21 writes "Java is 'incredibly heavily used' in the Linux community, according to Sun's James Gosling, one of Java's co-creators. Gosling was debating Stanford's Lawrence Lessig, Apache co-founder Brian Behlendorf, IBM's Rod Smith, and others at JavaOne this week about the possible merits of open-sourcing Java vs the market's demand for continuing compatibility. But Behlendorf seemed not to agree. So who was right, how many Slashdotters are also Java users? Is "incredibly heavily used" an overstatement by Gosling, who after all helped create the language and therefore might be biased?"
..then you're not in the fucking industry.
simple as that, really. it IS heavily used(along with others).
There is no such thing like C/C++! C and C++ are different languages with different standards.
Java is not the best for command line programs mainly because VM initialization is expensive (in terms of time). This could be possibly alleviated by having a system-level VM that was initialized at boot time or something, and programs would just attach themselves to an already-initialized VM; this would have the major disadvantage of bringing down all running Java programs if the VM crashes or one program does some naughty things. Java does have some nice facilities for seperating modules at runtime in the same VM by using ClassLoaders and such.
But, perhaps more relevantly, I think the most successful and widespread use of Java these days is on the server, which generally has no GUI unless you count web-page generation.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
"But you could use C, C++, ADA, Perl, PHP, Python, Lisp, OCaml,
And for 3D you could use OpenGL.
There might be a million reasons to use Java (and probably as many for not using it) - but writing portable code is definitely no reason. "
Why not put aside the additional effort of writing portable C, C++ etc etc, and just get on with fulfilling the specs by using... Java?
BTW, Java isn't so much about writing portable code as building portable apps.
For instance, I'm writing (part of) a biggish defense system (> GBP 300 million for HW + SW). It is an absolutely stunning timesaver to be able to develop, build & test on commodity NT boxes. The same jars are then FTP'd onto the target platform, which is not NT (and I'm not saying what it is, either). Guess what: Exact same behaviour on the target machine as on my desktop, but, each target machine costs around GBP100k, so we're happy that about all we need 'em for is soak testing - it's all inventory, you know!
Next, we can FTP the same jars to the training machines, which are commodity boxes running Linux, and guess what: No recompilation, porting or testing necessary - we get exactly the same behaviour here too. Again less inventory, and no added programming effort. Sweet!
The guys working on older products - ones that are in the maintenance phase, and will soon be phased out - are starting to be trained in Java. These guys are used to programming down to the metal, and at best having a C cross-compiler with printf's for debugging. They are, to a man, amazed at the ease with which they can slot applications together, and at the productivity they can attain with Java. One guy made a comment that stuck in my mind: "Things just work first time... this doesn't feel like programming!"
T&K.
Political language
We do a lot of Open Source work, but by far the bulk of it (especially for enterprise level applications) is done with Perl.
Of course if we were "bigger" or writing "bigger" applications, Java starts to see some advantages, but the biggest hurdle is to actually get a reliably installable version.
Sure, we can download it from IBM, or from Sun, or from Blackdown, but they all have differences of opinion, differences of quality and differences of ideals.
We use Debian for all of our systems, and every other damn software package we run is built and works for Debian, and plays nicely with everything else. But not Java. There's no standard place that it gets installed - to the extent that some packages will successfully identify that you have it, and others won't. It isn't in synch with the libc or libgcc that's current at any point in time. Since I upgraded my laptop to Mozilla 1.7, Java no longer works: not that it was ever particularly reliable.
So while there might be some wonderful advantages to building applications with Java, the general flakiness of my experiences with applications written to use it, means that I can't develop for it, because I can't inflict that flakiness onto my clients.
Partly, of course, this flaw is because Debian's approach to licensing means that something with the shackles around it that all JVM's will have, will never be part of core Debian. In fact though, that's mostly the case for any distribution, even the commercial ones, because they are all depending on open-source licenses for all the rest of the environment, and to be in synch with those, you have to be part of everyone's standard install.
Commercial distros must have to put lots of effort into making their setup work with their chosen JVM, rather than sticking the horse in front of the cart and making their chosen JVM work within their environment.
I sure would like to see an DFSG free implementation of Java, and I don't understand why this entails Sun "losing control" of the standard, and why they are in such a panic about allowing that to happen.
This statistic says nothing about the real use of any of these languages. It just tells us how many people started projects in one of the languages but it does not tell us about the success. They might be abandoned right after they started a few lines of code or the might be very active and have a few thousand lines of code.
Linux is not Windows
I think the question was about new crafted programs and wether you as a code use java. The question was not wether most installed programs are Java or not, which would be ridiculous.
/. storry? You only need to search on sourceforge or freshmeat to realize that the majority of new projects start in Java.
... Commercial projects are either for the Windows platform, and then likely in Visual C++ or Visual Basic, or they are platform neutral and then they are done 90% of the time in Java.
Why is that worth a
All people I know program mainly in Java and script in Python
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hm ....
.equals() is :D
.equals() is user defined and you define "equal" as you need it for a certain type.
... you whine about 1.3x versus 1.3y .... we are at 1.5 beta now, that one fixes all your complains about int versus Integer and Container classes.
... in C++ times it was often very difficult or impossible to help your self under such circumstances.
-If I want to compare two Classes I have to use the equals-Method instead of a simple operator-overloading which would enable me to use ==
If that is a problem to you, yoou should probably try to understand what the difference between "==" and
BTW: in C or C++ you have the same distinction. Its called comparision by value and comparision by address, == checks for same address, that means same object.
Together is also available as zip file, probably you should just have tried to unzip that one instead of running an InstallShield.
Regarding the incompatible versison
To be fair: all you complaines are somewhat valid, but: don't you think other people had the same trouble with C++ compilers? At any given point in time there where allways about 100 more different versions of C++ compilers plus environments around than we have now Java implementations. Problems like you pointed them out are rather rare!! And you could help yourself
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Portable, standardized language and interfaces are what gives Java it's power.
:)
Yeah, because gods know that no other language has ever been portable or standardized.
Unless protected by a strong consortium [...] Java would rapidly fragment into several code forks
Just as has happened with those other highly portable, standardized, cross-platform languages like Tcl/Tk, Perl, Python, etc. (Oh wait, I forgot, there are no other portable, standardized, cross-platform languages, my mistake.) Yeah, clearly, every language that isn't under the rigid control of corporate-owned constortia is instantly subject to massive forking by the dangerous denizens of the dark side. Open-sourcing computer languages makes the baby jebus cry!
Java's embedded documentation [...]
Oh, yeah, too bad the perl coders couldn't come up with something like that years before java even existed! Come to think of it, I think the perl guys borrowed it from lisp! Oh well, it's clearly an advantage of Java and of no other language!
And the best part about using java? It's low-level C/C++-like syntax and data structures means that you get to write many times more lines of code than you would need to to code the equivalent in tcl or perl or python. Why is that good? More money for programmers to write and (especially) to maintain all that extra code!
Java, with the support costs of a low level language, the run-time overheads of a high-level one, and the benefits of neither, is clearly the best choice. Just try it, and you'll be sayin', "Wow! I gotta get me some o' dat!"
Whoops, sorry, was I waxing sarcastic again?
Oh yeah, and all three of those other languages I mentioned have all settled on a single cross-platform GUI toolkit to share (Tk). How many GUI toolkits are fighting for dominance in the java world these days? I stopped counting after three. Boy, that there's some good standardization!
Aaaanyway, I don't want to bash java too hard. I actually think it's a pretty decent language overall. I just get so tired of people who think it's God's Gift; people who usually don't have a clue what else is out there. Java's ok, but it ain't All That!
I totally disagree that Java has absolutely no aspects of a beautiful/easy-to-use language. I think you're neglecting the fact that when Java burst on the scene in '95, it provided a simple means to write cross platform applications in a way C/C++ did not out of the box.
I worked on a satellite system for NASA written in C++ that was originally spec'd to work on five UNIX platforms. Keep in mind this is in the days before Linux became widely adopted... and this system was a major headache because:
This is not to slam C++ in its current incarnation, but to point out that when Java first arrived on the scene, the restrictions and smaller set of APIs made it easy to ramp up developers who could then build cross-platform applications much quicker.
As for your specificpoints, let me explain where I disagree:
-primitive types and associated classes: When I want to store a variable of one the primitve types like int (the ones you use in every class) you have to wrap them into a class (Integer) which has no way to change the Value later. So everytime I want to e.g. increment a counter stored this way, I have to convert it back to int, increment it und create a new Integer-Object to store the incremented value back into my container-class.
Primitive types are (IMHO) a bit of a hack in Java, but they behave much like primitive types in C++. Granted, lacking generics (pre-Java 1.5), Java cannot support arbitrary collections of primitives, but consider this: if you want to store and manage collections of primitive types, couldn't you write your own class to either "wrap" the primitive type? I'd also recommend wrapping the Collection you're using to simplify the mutators.
-If I want to compare two Classes I have to use the equals-Method instead of a simple operator-overloading which would enable me to use ==
I can't count how many times I ran into incompatibly defined flavors of operator overloading in "mediocre" C++ code where bugs in operator overloading introduced logic errors that were hard to find.
Inn the case of equals(Object) versus the == operator, consider this: in Java they have two completely different purposes. If you want to compare two object references to see if they refer to the same object, use ==. If you want to compare the contents of the objects they refer to, use equals(Object). Consider the ambiguity and potential for flaws when the operator's behavior could be changed to deviate from comparing references to Objects!
This is a case where I believe that removing a feature from a language makes it easier for developers to avoid dealing with obscure bugs while trying to get an application done.
-When I retrieve an Object from a Container it is a java.lang.Object instead of the type I stored which totally negates the advantages of static typing Solved in Java 1.5 with Gener
Well.. this sort of question will lead to the following answers:
1. I don't use Java because my machine is too slow, I don't like applets, or perhaps they use one Java app and say its ok. (These answers are from people who didn't read and understand the question.)
2. I like Java == Coffee! (These answers are from people who did read it, but were being funny.. thats good..)
3. I don't see Java used in the enterprise at all. We run a pure win32 shop and block Java at the firewall. In fact, we only drink tea to ensure we are not contaminated. (These answers are from a software company in Washington state mainly.. with a few other unfortunate exceptions as well.)
4. We use Java in the enterprise. (These answers are from people who actually work in an enterprise.)
A definition.. the enterprise does not mean your home network.. your school lab.. sourceforge.. freshmeat.. the internet cafe that you swap sysadmin services for free scones.. it means large corporate systems and infrastructures.
I haven't seen any enterprise-class system *not* oriented towards Java in a long time. Even ones not build in a J2EE model have evolved over time to support many of those components to streamline integration and development. Java has a good solid foundation in these areas, and with newer versions of the J2SE/J2EE specifications, it gets to be a richer server and client platform.
As far as Java on Linux.. I think the question should be more focused on the adoption of Linux as opposed to Java. Many places I work run many Java applications, but have requirements that Unix-hosted systems and applications must live on Sun Solaris, IBM, or other platforms. These requirements simplify management, accountability, and vendor management. That is worth a lot. Getting that Linux box online is cheaper when compared to that Sparc box, but the lifetime of supporting and maintaining the box could be higher if you are already supporting a large Sun infrastructure. This is all irrespective of Java.
Probably one of the biggest deals for Linux in the enterprise is Oracle's push and support of Linux for their entire suite of applications, and for publishing effective case stories on horizontal scaling on Linux systems. This benefits Java, as that is the primary language in Oracle-land now, but its a bigger benefit to Linux. IBM's push for Linux and Java is also very effective... (I rate Oracle higher, since they don't have a hardware issue to bring to the table, and are just pushing software.. IBM does push the software in the Websphere suite, but tends to bring hardware as well..)
So.. Linux is gaining in enterprise acceptance.. therefore Java on Linux is gaining.. but I think Java is set and has proven itself. Its Linux that is doing the proving now.
So the whole Sun fear of "embrace and extend" is completely moronic. You can ALREADY extend Java in completely incompatible ways. After open sourcing, Sun's Java standard will still remain the "real" Java, and we know this will be the case because if it were not, then Java would have already lost control. So, if you're a developer, and you care if you're code works outside of Linux, then you'd better use Sun's (or possibly IBM's) Java implementation. And that's how it will be until the day no one cares about Sun Microsystems--a day that will come much sooner if Java continues to stay restricted and everyone's forced to move to Mono.
On the other hand, Java's pace would probably faster (and we wouldn't have had to wait forever for generics.) if it were open. Standards are just as important if not more to Mozilla as to Sun, but being open seems to work well for them.
It would certainly allow Java to be targetted to more obscure platforms. God help you if you want to write once, run anywhere other than Windows, Sun, Mac, or Linux/x86.
It would also mean that I wouldn't have to go to Sun's painful web site and hunt down the SDK and documentation past all the click-thru licenses. At the very LEAST it would be nice if sun let other people distribute their still closed java implementations. Of course, that would just be nice, it wouldn't be enough to head off platform irrelevance.
OSS means no sanity checks on feature creep, portability verification, documentation verification, regression testing, and all the other enterprise-project aspects of development that make it a useful technology. I've lost track of the number of times I've encountered platform-specific hacks in OSS code that weren't properly #ifdef-bracketed, or which just completely incompatible with other O/S implementations.
Yeah, that never happens in closed source software EVER. I actually agree with you that the language choices of OSS aren't all that grand (though lots of languages have embedded documentation, and the ones that don't can have it added with seperate tools)--but if you want everyone to start using Java instead, opening the source is the only way. No one wants to dedicate their time and energy for free to something a corporation has complete legal control over--unlike Mozilla/Apache/Linux, in which the corporations have merely de facto control. To be honest, Sun has made so much noise about their Open Source debate that I can't see how anyone could have any respect for them at this point if they don't announce a plan to open it reasonably soon.
I suspect that the Linux-Java link is largely that Java lets you run on any platform, and Linux is the best platform when you have no requirements for the platform. If you are planning to run purely Java software, you can choose your platform based on cost, performance, stability, etc., rather than worrying about features and migration cost.
I think that it is not particularly the case that Java is popular in the Linux world, but that Linux is popular (as least as a deployment platform) in the Java world, and that is a substantial portion of the Linux world as seen in business.