Slashdot Mirror
Java's New G1 Collector Not For-Pay After All
An anonymous reader writes "As a follow-up to our previous discussion, Sun appears to have quietly edited the Java 6u14 release notes language to say now: 'G1 is available as early access in this release, please try it and give us feedback. Usage in production settings without a Java SE for Business support contract is not recommended.' So does this mean it was all one huge typo? Or was Oracle/Sun tentatively testing the waters to see the community's reaction? In either case it's nice to see Java's back on the right path."
Sun didn't "quietly edit" the release notes; they announced it publicly and appologized for having been unclear (which seems like a bit dishonest, but not quiet).
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
This is not a change, it was clear in the previous thread that the article was completely misinterpreted. The Slashdot summary made no sense at all once it was pointed out that G1 was GPL+Classpath.
Deterministic behaviour => use reference counting. E.g. Python has it.
But the situation with C++ is not as rosy as you paint it.
E.g. there are no guarantee that destructors on static object will be called.
Nor are destructors called on longjmp.
Nor are destructors called on longjmp.
That's one reason why setjmp was deprecated in favor of try/catch and longjmp in favor of throw.
1) Java is slow
2) Java is not yet open source (or only parts of it are or isn't "really" open source)
3) Java is not available in any Linux distro's package manager
4) Java does not meet the needs of the enterprise
5) Nobody uses Java anymore
6) "Java is a heavyweight ball and chain"
7) Sun is charging people to use the new G1 garbage collector.
Java has some weaknesses and disadvantages, but the above are not among them.
This space left intentionally blank.
The reason why you are confused is because you're used to a compiled environment, where every call is an immediate action. A C/C++ program must be coded to (i.e. explicitly) deletes memory references. If you explicitly delete, you can also tie in other explicit behavior; therefore, it's common "duh this is how you do it" practice to tie "finalize" behavior to the object's deletion. But remember, it is your program's logic that has decided when to get rid of it. In a GC environment, deletion is no longer an explicit event--it is autonomous, automatic; therefore, it is illogical to tie anything to the deletion of the memory reference to anything other than deletion of the memory reference. There is no connection between when the object was dereferenced and when the GC chooses to clean up the reference. Generally, the only events that are tied to the finalize method are sanity checks to make sure non-Java code knows the reference is going away. Put differently: in Java, memory deallocation is not a part of the running logic of your program and so the program must create an explicit method of releasing resources in your program's logic. In other words, do what you were doing before, just don't call it finalize. That's a gripe of mine about Java: It confuses C++ users who are used to using the function finalize because Java gives finalize a specific purpose that cannot act the same way.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
What you just said makes no sense. The whole point of Java is that you don't have to mess with memory management. You've just admitted that you want to invest more time and complexity in building "mini-projects" by switching to C++. Good for learning, but otherwise practically silly if you're a noob, and you've implied that you are.
As far as Java goes, ignore the command line for now. You don't need it to quickly build decent-performing applications.
there are no guarantee that destructors on static object will be called.
Actually, Section 3.6.3p1 of the C++ standard guarantees it. (Wonder why people who can't validate technical language claims feel qualified to mod posts that make them).
Or was Oracle/Sun tentatively testing the waters to see the community's reaction?
It's a little early to talk about Sun as a part of Oracle. It's probable that the acquisition will clear regulatory approval, but until it does, Oracle can't play anything resembling a decision-making role in something like this.
I work at Sun, and right now our contacts with Oracle are actually more circumscribed than they'd normally be.