Rootbeer GPU Compiler Lets Almost Any Java Code Run On the GPU

An anonymous reader writes "Today the source code to the Rootbeer GPU Compiler was released as open source on github. This work allows for a developer to use almost any Java code on the GPU. It is free, open source and highly tested. Rootbeer is the most full featured translator to convert Java Bytecode to CUDA. It allows arbitrary graphs of objects to be serialized to the GPU and the GPU kernel to be written in Java." Rootbeer is the work of Syracuse University instructor Phil Pratt-Szeliga.

Comments

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Not posted using Java because it's too slow to get First Post

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, 'scuse me, you got a license for the use of the word Java in that first post?

-- Oracle lawweasel

Re:First Post

[MichaelSmith]

He means it would be too slow to fly to java before posting from an internet cafe.

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm already stuck on Java, you insensitive clod.

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

So am I.

-Android user

Any code?

[XxtraLarGe]

This work allows for a developer to use almost any Java code on the GPU.

Except for the code my students write. :rolleyes:

Re:Any code?

[XxtraLarGe]

By the way, this comment is not an indictment of my teaching...

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no bad students, only bad teachers.

Re:Any code?

[XxtraLarGe]

There are no bad students, only bad teachers.

Trust me, there's plenty of bad students. They're only in class to collect their "No Worker Left Behind" check. Thankfully that program has run its course.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Every teacher understand exactly what you mean.

Re:Any code?

[morcego]

There are no bad students, only bad teachers.

Trust me, there's plenty of bad students. They're only in class to collect their "No Worker Left Behind" check. Thankfully that program has run its course.

Lemme fix that saying: No one becomes a bad student without, at some point, having a bad teacher.

(Note: both my parents are teachers)

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if they were born as psychotic murderers?

Re:Any code?

[XxtraLarGe]

The problem with No Worker Left behind is it tried to wedge non-techinically inclined stampers and tool & dye operators into technical classes because "there's jobs in computers." The day after my one of my Winter courses finished, one of my less than stellar students started a job as a welder. He told me he was just waiting for a job to come along, he had no intention in going into programming. I have another one just like that this semester.

"Thinking is hard work, which is why so few people do it." - Henry Ford

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as someone who has had the experience of being both a good and a bad student, I will tell you it has very little to do with the teacher. It's all about student attitude. I failed several undergrad classes quite convincingly and it was pretty much my own fault, even though I would have liked to have blamed it on some of the horrible teachers I had. I excelled in grad school because I approached it with a completely different attitude and no teacher, no matter how bad, was going to get in my way and prevent me from doing well.

I control my attitude. While I admit that no one is impervious to external influences, how a student reacts to a bad teacher is largely up to them. If you allow a bad teacher to turn you into a bad student, that's entirely your own fault. It's not like they've tied you down, cracked open your skull and deliberately rewired things to turn you into that asshole who never shows up or does the work.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think that too, until I started teaching at a state college. The only effective way to teach them is triage. There're the ones who will get it no matter what, the ones who will never learn a thing no matter how well you teach, but there's not much to be done there, short of encouraging the former to explore and helping the latter make it to the pass line. The bulk of the resources need to go to the middle group, where your efforts can make the difference between getting it and not.

Re:Any code?

[oakgrove]

There are no bad students, only bad teachers.

Incorrect! Here, let me FTFY:

There are no bad students, just children who have not been provided the proper frequency and dosage of amphetamines yet.

Dope: it's what's for breakfast!

Re:Any code?

[JosephTX]

if so many of your students are apparently such bad programmers, I'm guessing it's due to a mutual problem they share (you), even though you clearly seem enthusiastic about your job.

Re:Any code?

[danbuter]

He'll make far more money welding than most IT guys will. And he'll get a great pension, as long as he joins a welders union (which he probably will, unless you are way out in the boonies).

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but what you said is false. As proof, I farted out of my own asshole upon reading your comment.

To make me go to such lengths... the audacity!

Re:Any code?

[ThePeices]

No, you are quite wrong indeed.

There are bad students out there, we do not live in a perfect happy smiley little world where every human has limitless potential and can do *anything* if only they tried and had good teachers. That nonsense view comes out of what political correctness has done to modern western society.

There are students who truly are unwilling to learn, dont want to be there, and are only in class because they have to.

There are actually students out there who will never be able to pass certain exams, no matter how good the teachers are and no matter how much they try. Some things are just beyond some people.

The *real world* is not perfect, humans are not perfect.

If you think that is a cynical view, well then that is utterly irrelevant to my point. Facts are facts, no matter how much we dont or do like that fact.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you stopped sleeping with the female students they might stand a better chance ;-) Here let me show you a repeat until loop...

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the USA is *way* more real than the rest! ... Oh, wait!

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

...tool & dye....

"Thinking is hard work, which is why so few people do it." - Henry Ford

Tool and die. I can understand not knowing how to spell it, bit quoting Henry Ford and not realizing that die work and tooling are technical jobs is abhorrent.

Tech support is to computer science as die setters are to mechanical engineers.

Tool and die makers are the software developers of the hardware world.

Captcha is pompous. How relevant.

Re:Any code?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

if so many of your students are apparently such bad programmers, I'm guessing it's due to a mutual problem they share (you), even though you clearly seem enthusiastic about your job.

You'd really have to know more about the selection criteria for his class to make any useful statements about what properties they share...

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

One might say that a good teacher is one who motivates he/her students to want to learn. Certainly I have found such teachers in my learning career.

Re:Any code?

[fredgiblet]

+1

I got a 2.8 GPA in High school because I didn't care and I never did homework. In college I got a 3.9 because college actaully matters so I started caring.

Amusingly enough my teachers in high school loved me (one of them hugged me and cried when I left), despite the fact that I almost never turned in homework.

Re:Any code?

[fredgiblet]

Some people can't be motivated, some teachers may be able to motivate tons of students, but not be able to motivate that particular one.

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

Oh? Where did you meet this mythical student who can't be motivated? Who is he?

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

But have you ever been a student who didn't want to learn?

I mean, I've certainly been inspired by teachers. And I've had teachers bring subjects alive when I was sure I would be bored. But I've always wanted to learn. What about those who don't? And I don't mean the cultural issues, like in Stand and Deliver where a teacher walks in and turns a school or class around. I mean an average learning environment where one or a few kids just don't GAF.

And there are people who simply can't learn some things. I have a dear friend, who is quite intelligent and a gifted writer and poet, and she works terribly, terribly hard at math and does okay grade wise*, but some concepts she simply cannot understand.

*We are both quite a bit older than the average college student, but are persueing degrees.

Re:Any code?

[sydneyfong]

I'm here. Hi.

Re:Any code?

[FishOuttaWater]

I don't mean to be flip here, but this does have the ring of the Voice of Experience. How many students have you tried to teach? ...because there are a *lot* of different kinds of students out there.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean they murdered their twin while still in the womb?

Re:Any code?

[FishOuttaWater]

doesn't *doesn't*

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the post you're replying to, yours implies (though shies to state) that there are no poor students, just unmotivated ones.

Motivation isn't enough. The first home computer I used was a PET. High-school buddy bought it by working all summer in a chip truck at 15. He wanted to work at NASA. He wanted to be a smart guy more than he wanted a car or to go on dates. It didn't matter. He wasn't smart. He couldn't manage easy fourth year courses, and couldn't get the marks for the ones needed for uni. I tried helping him, and he just couldn't manage to follow seemingly obvious dead-simple breakdowns of problems. Nice guy, didn't seem stupid or ADHD or dyslexic. Just couldn't do the math, or really anything else.

Re:Any code?

[EuclideanSilence]

If you have to be motivated to learn, then you are a bad student.

Re:Any code?

[MightyMartian]

Born on probation at least.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a high-school student, I had what might be considered ADD, I felt panic being in classes, on buses, etc.

One thing I did know was that I loved the computers that my father had introduced me to by books such as 'The Adolescence of P1' and mutual outings to 'The Byte Shop'.

Computers were ONLY what you put into them.

They were non-judgmental, and exactly what I was looking for with my social anxiety.

I went to a school that luckily had a computer department (Commodore Pet 1 32K).

I ghosted that place lunch and dinner until closing, even taking an ESL TA teaching class to be around them for an extra period.

I learned Commodore BASIC, and even how to use the computers to pass my other classes (Geometry was easy for me, B's without a sheet of homework, Algebra I had to think too hard and the computer was much better at it).

I even got a programmable calculator that I paid $100 for out of my own money (Sharp EL-1000 I think).

My problem was that I spent great wads of time learning that one system (the calculator was another).

When I found out that Apple was the same processor but totally different software, I totally deflated at having to learn additional BASIC implementations.

Even though I could make sense of my friends TRS-80 Basic, My underpinnings were shattered.

I quit programming.

Strangely, even that limited at-the-time experience led to an apprenticeship in accounting straight out of high-school.

So I delved into the hardware and packaged software, learned about modems, etc.

I'll never say I'm a quick learner, I barely graduated High School, But I also didn't try very hard, I think I wrote a paper once, and I might have done homework 10 times over 3 years.

But the beauty of it is that my father laid the seeds.

He knew that with his gentle prodding, I had the aptitude and desire to take off on my own.

So when we would talk together, there was always that computer-ese in the background.

Eventually he got me excited about it again.

I went on to learn QuickBasic, Paradox Application Language and a little of VBA.

Granted all pretty much dead languages now, but at least I knew that going in.

The real culprit of bad programming are the OS vendors that don't provide a built in training OS.

If Apple, Google, MS and whoever is in charge of *nix variants would agree on something like BASIC, it would mean a whole new world of programmers.

Problem is, they don't make money when things inter-operate.

Apple killed Hypercard, one of the most loved basic programming tools possibly of all time.

Also, Walled Gardens (Apple, MS, Google. etc. are all guilty of this greed under guise of security).

Back on point, I could have been much better than I am if my 17 year old self had some sort of guidance other than just knowing that I loved programming computers.

Back then there wasn't any.

Not everyone loves it and will do it happily 20 hours a day if need be, like I did.

So encourage the ones that tape the door-locks to come back in AFTER school hours and leave it cleaner than when they arrived!

P.S. Janitors USED to be very punctual!

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that some people cannot be motivated is only definitely valid if every possible method of trying to motivate somebody has been tried on them, without an error in applying those methods and only during times when such a method actually would have a chance of being effective.

Nobody knows how many methods there are to motivate people, there might be some we haven't even discovered yet. Therefore the claim "Some people can't be motivated" is merely a conclusion, a hypothesis, and most likely is to be read as "I failed to motivate these people, even though I tried everything in my repertoire."

Maybe it is indeed impossible to motivate these people. Maybe the teacher just lacked the right method, or applied it wrongly, or during a time in which it couldn't have worked. Maybe there is a method that would motivate at least some of these people, but it isn't known to mankind yet.

Who knows. If you are sure they cannot be motivated, then because you need this belief in order to feel comfortable with having stopped trying to motivate them. After all, there is no shame in not trying to motivate them if it is impossible to motivate them.

Re:Any code?

[M8e]

Psychotic murderers are the best students.

(and if they are not they have great potential to become the best.)

Re:Any code?

[voidphoenix]

No, you are quite wrong indeed.

There are bad students out there, we do not live in a perfect happy smiley little world where every human has limitless potential and can do *anything* if only they tried and had good teachers. That nonsense view comes out of what political correctness has done to modern western society.

There are students who truly are unwilling to learn, dont want to be there, and are only in class because they have to.

Perhaps you need to look earlier. Who are your first teachers? Your parents and your early environment. A child can have poor teachers and poor teaching there, and that leaves it mark on them, scars that they'll have to struggle with the rest of their lives. But that struggle began with poor teaching.

There are actually students out there who will never be able to pass certain exams, no matter how good the teachers are and no matter how much they try. Some things are just beyond some people.

If the task or test requires significant physical ability that the student is incapable of performing, maybe. But if the task is primarily mental and the student has a functional brain, I'd disagree. I've taught (tutored, actually) math to kids to were bad, bad, bad at math. High school kids who couldn't do fractions and didn't fully understand numeric place values. Basically, they could do simple arithmetic and that was it. They, their parents and their teachers were convinced they just "couldn't do math". Every single one of those half-dozen kids I've taught passed their math classes and were able to get into college. So maybe I didn't get one of those completely incapable students, but I doubt it. I work on 2 things when I teach: foundational concepts self-belief. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work, but if you can convince your student that it's possible for them to learn the material, you've done the hard part. After that, the foundational concepts are just tools and building blocks and once you get to a certain point, a critical mass of ideas which will vary from student to student, they won't even need you to teach them.

The *real world* is not perfect, humans are not perfect.

If you think that is a cynical view, well then that is utterly irrelevant to my point. Facts are facts, no matter how much we dont or do like that fact.

No, humans aren't perfect and there are a few who have specific physical issues which hinder them. But the vast majority of humans have 1.5kg of functional, self-modifying biological supercomputer in their heads. Sure, some will need more modifying, more programming, more instruction. But all of them are capable of learning. And no, I'm not a shiny-happy-people kind of guy. I'm probably as jaded and cynical as many here on Slashdot, but I do recognize one very simple fact. Stupidity is a choice, the result of laziness. Yes, over 90% of the planet is stupid and getting worse, but it is still a choice.

Re:Any code?

[Frnknstn]

EVERYBODY has a bad teacher at some point.

Besides, teachers are not the only ones who can turn mediocre students into bad ones. Bad parents, bad peers, bad genes, bad environment, bad societies...

You give the teachers too much credit.

Re:Any code?

[Kjella]

Of course, some people are the type who could teach themselves and only show up for the exams but it kind of defeats the point of school or college or university. I remember one in particular that was a Russian with very weak English - and English isn't my native tongue. I still managed to get an A because I knew the textbooks, I gave up on trying to listen to lectures as I'd spend 90% of my energy trying to decipher what the hell he was saying.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

But I judge a teacher by how well his/her bad students do ;). Because good students don't need teachers to do much except give some pointers/tips and then get out of their way.

That said, if you can make the good students fail, then you're a really bad teacher ;).

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it ironic that a 'teacher' can't even spell 'tool and die' properly, let alone fail to understand that tool and die work is technical. It's just not what you're narrow minded view of 'technical' is.

Then again, your own lack of intelligence and your obviously bad attitude are probably why you are a 'teacher' and not out in the real world. Those who can do...etc.

Re:Any code?

[thegarbz]

Motivation depends on desire to learn. Believe me you will not be able to motivate me even in the slightest in a theology class, english history class, or anything equally arty. The simple reason is I don't care. I won't care. I have better things to do with my life than care.

And I nearly failed these classes where they were mandatory because of it.

Funny how I can fail a highschool class, but then pass engineering with first class honours. This has nothing to do with teaching / learning ability.

Re:Any code?

[Charliemopps]

Being a former certified welder, and now a programmer I can tell you that:
a. I was a GREAT welder. Certified in everything save underwater stuff... I got about $13/hr
b. I'm not a very good programmer. I just started, don't know many languages and am always bugging my coworkers with noob questions. Now I'm salaried at $60k/yr

So, I'm not sure how much you think welders get paid. But it's not much. I'm sure there are a few (like the under water guys and the skyscraper guys) but the vast majority of us sitting in machine shops with no aircon, welding liftgates on the back of semis are not making a fortune. Welding was much more rewarding though. I got REAL things done back then. Now I constantly make changes to the same pieces of software and various managers requests. Half the time undoing whatever it was I did last week.

Re:Any code?

[Jesus_666]

It cuts both ways. In the equivalent of high school I had a math teacher I was entirely incompatible with. I dropped from a B to a D in math and stayed there as I failed to learn anything from that man and even lost all enthusiasm for mathematics. Having a teacher you can't work with can be disastrous - not just because of the missed material; you can always learn that on your own. It's because they can suck all the fun out of a field of knowledge until the point where you don't want to make up for what you missed. Yes, you can force yourself to learn it but it's not going to be very effective if you dislike the field (unless you posses a great amount of willpower, which I don't believe I do).

On the other hand, in university, in Practical CS 1 and 2 (aka "Java for beginners" and "Java for slightly more advanced beginners") we had a setup where students would form groups that do the written homework together and would enter an oral exam at the end where their individual proficiency would be evaluated. In both cases I came out with a good grade while the others of my groups failed. In both cases I was the only one of the group who actually cared about the subject. You can certainly be a bad student without external influences.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does actually depend on quite a few thing, the lecturer (in some cases their accents, if foreign can be really really distracting they may also be totally socially inept and have no place teaching) the subject material (courses nowr days throw too wide a spectrum of things into the one course which are all mandatory, many people may LOVE programming but have no interest in electrical engineering for example) the other class members ( if a student is surrounded by hard-workers who are there to lend a hand if they run into trouble they are much more lightly to succeed) and of course the students work ethic ( even if you dont have any of the aforementioned in your favor you can still cram and become proficient provided adequate course material)

I have discovered this the hard way struggling through the first 2 years of a four year degree (after that i got the hang of it) but really if you dont love it dont do it. You cant wing it like you can Arts (excluding languages)

Re:Any code?

[Gr8Apes]

Take a group of people who choose to give up and die early in a given mortal challenge where others survive, that would be the ultimate example of a group that cannot be motivated.

Re:Any code?

[Hognoxious]

Saying that some people cannot be motivated is only definitely valid if every possible method of trying to motivate somebody has been tried on them, without an error in applying those methods and only during times when such a method actually would have a chance of being effective.

Saying that base metals cannot be turned into gold is only definitely valid if every possible combination of esoteric ingredients, planetary arrangement and incantations have been tried on every substrate, without an error in casting and only during times when such a spell actually would have a chance of being effective.

Re:Any code?

[kenorland]

Ah, so my inability to play professional football or win a beauty contest isn't actually related to my genetics, it's all bad teachers! Good to know!

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's just not what you're narrow minded view of 'technical' is."

Surely you meant to write "your" there, rather than "you're."

Right?

 

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GP didn’t say tool & die maker or tool & die technician, he said tool & die operator. As in the person who, once the tool & die (precisely machined by the tool & die maker) have been put into the stamping/forming machine which has been calibrated by the stamping/forming technician, sits there and feeds the feedstock into the stamper and presses the button to make the stamper stamp. It is mindlessly repetitive work.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't come in here and state your opinion as 'fact' without substantial evidence to back it up. Perhaps this concept is beyond you?

If one were to put forth the opinion that is essentially the opposite of yours - that all students can pass any exam if they are interested, have good teachers, and try hard - how would you properly refute it? Oh wait, you can't.

Your view is just that: an opinion. Trying to state it as 'fact' doesn't give it more weight to anybody paying attention.

Re:Any code?

[drinkypoo]

I fell out of love with school in third grade when my class was unexpectedly saddled with an authoritarian asshole who reminded me of my absentee father. I wrote a lot of lines for things like looking at the other children when I was done with my work.

Re:Any code?

[FishOuttaWater]

I would have to agree that there is a wide range of student difficulty and teacher ability.

Re:Any code?

[anethema]

I'm in northern canada, and every welder I know makes over 100k a year. They work in mills, plants, or on the oil patch. I'm sure locale has a lot to do with it.

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

That's because you're not interested in it. Apparently no teacher showed you that it's interesting and worth learning.

I have better things to do with my life than care.

No, actually you don't. You will watch everyone you know and love die, unless you die first. Everything you've ever worked on will be destroyed. Your life is meaningless, nothing matters more than learning history. Or less.

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

I've taught a lot of students. The guy was saying that some students can't be motivated. I was genuinely interested, what kind of student that was, if he'd really met such a student. More likely, he was making things up.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

You did it very wrong. Primarily by staying in a job doing apprentice level crap for your whole career.

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

And yet you learned to read.

Re:Any code?

[XxtraLarGe]

Tool and die. I can understand not knowing how to spell it, bit quoting Henry Ford and not realizing that die work and tooling are technical jobs is abhorrent.

Yeah, I had a few Scotches in me last night. My fingers were working faster than my brain.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use pedagogically sound techniques on my good students. I use fear, sarcasm and ridicule on my bad students. It's very effective, but would not be tolerated by the cowards who are high school and college administrators.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: wall of text, wall of text, apple, google, and ms should agree on one programming language, wall of text, wall of text.

A: Java. or Python. Or really C if you wanna get down to it.

Re:Any code?

[RobbieThe1st]

While your opinion may be true, and I'm not refuting it, there are a couple of considerations: One, in the real world, you have problems with students who *aren't* interested, and or *don't* try hard.
Two, just because someone can pass an exam, doesn't mean they know the material or know it well enough to be creative with it.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any job in Northern Canada pays much more because nobody wants to go there. I was offered a job at 100K that effectively meant spending half the time on vacation (two weeks on site, two weeks back in the "south" with air travel provided by the company). The same job here pays 40K since it's a junior position and you're tied to a Blackberry. For my sanity and since I'm at an age where I need to start and build a family, I stayed here.

Re:Any code?

[thegarbz]

I should have qualified, I have better things to do than care about English history.

I have had several different English teachers over the years. None of them have motivated me because I wasn't interested quite right, but there's no magical teaching method that makes a person interested. 90% of the other people in the class had no problem so it's not down to a bad teacher. Likewise in the Maths class I topped there were a bunch of students who just could not wait to get out the door, or who couldn't wait to get into class so they could nap, pick your poison.

Just because something is worth learning doesn't make it interesting or motivating. In my opinion Maths is very worth learning, yet there's a whole group of people who can't stand staring at numbers for more than a minute.

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

Because anecdote is evidence, right? Maybe 90% of your class was naturally interested in English. Or maybe English literature is really great, and you're missing out on something without realizing it.

Also, if you fail a high school class, you basically sucked. It's not like they're hard to pass.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may soon miss welding with a passion, especially if you're not a good programmer.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree overall it's attitude. But a really bad lecturer (who may, at the same time, be a great researcher) can make it 10x as hard to learn the material. During my BS in theoretical physics I had a brilliant researcher teaching us classical mechanics. He lectured from memory using no notes and scrawled on the board. Lectures were peppered with fascinating anecdotes about Galois or Fermi or whoever and he drew interesting connections across disparate areas of physics. But I learned nothing, despite the fact I was an A+ student. I needed good source material - decent notes - and did not have time to wade through advanced textbooks looking for his. I failed. Some other students borrowed good notes from the previous year's class who had a different lecturer who was methodical and undistracted but they didn't tell me. They got As.

Re:Any code?

[tofarr]

And pigs could fly if we spent a sufficient amount on genetic engineering - Just because something may be theoretically possible does not mean it is practical.

Re:Any code?

[thegarbz]

Nice claim given you have no idea where I went to school. Give you a hint, my country does not have a "no student left behind" policy.

Yes anecdotes eventually become evidence if you have enough of them. But I'll bite, please point me to a peer reviewed study showing that a teacher is capable of motivating everyone. Also 90% of a class in an all boys school known throughout the state for being full of sporty jocks who can't count to 10 being good at English is a statistic I'd rely on even less than a single anecdote.

I get the sense I've hit a nerve and you like English. Don't take it like that. Maybe English literature is really great. Maybe so is boxing, playing chess, or ice fishing at night. People around the world really enjoy these activities. Doesn't change the fact I find the mare thought of these activities boring and would find it very difficult not to tone out while someone is talking about them.

Re:Any code?

[Anonymous Coward]

During undergrad, I continuously failed (and failed convincingly) any exams that had to do with calculus or linear algebra. Now I was studying Software Engineering from one of the best universities in Pakistan (no, I have never had the urge to go and detonate myself unless I am trying to get a website compatible with Internet Explorer 6-8 while keeping the same layout and design as FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari and Konqueror/ReKonq) and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the purpose of dumping linear algebra or calculus on us was (to be honest, I still havent figured that one out, any insights would be highly appreciated unless the insight happens to be "its engineering so you have to study certain courses", that sort of reasoning never worked for me back then and it does not work for me now). Anyways, any courses with programming (started with GWBasic back in the 90s when I was just a wee bit more than a toddler and over the years, have worked with QBasic, C/C++, Visual Basic, Java, C#, Assemly Language, PHP, etc) or to do with data-structures or databases or graphics, I almost always had excellent marks on those.

The person who taught us Multivariable Calculus was considered something of a legend and in all honesty he was an excellent teacher although, I couldn't ever bring myself to really put any effort into his courses, I wanted to be a software engineer and as far as I was concerned that meant being a programmer so I continuously tried to write/implement algorithms for linear equations and fourier transforms but I would almost never sit down and try to solve a question using a pen and paper. To me, it seemed like a waste of time so no matter who was teaching that course, I would have failed it and that's exactly what I did. This was me being a bad student.

On the other hand, we had this teacher for databases, he asked us for semester projects with a database and a front end. He stated that he wanted to be surprised with what his students could come up with so won't be having any meetings or discussions about the term projects before the presentations just before the semester ended. Me and my mate decided to make a clone of Orkut (it was just taking off back then and it was all the rage). We hadn't ever studied PHP or Asp/Asp.Net till this point and we had no experience with either. Since both of us were using Slackware Linux at home, Asp was out of the question and we decided to go with the LAMP stack. During the semester, we learned HTML, PHP and bits and bytes of Javascript and CSS and by the end of the semester we had a working clone of Orkut. The front-end lacked polish in all fairness but then again, it wasn't a small project to complete in a single semester and we were more interested in getting the backend features working. When we were going for the presentation,almost the entire class thought we'd get an A. When we actually got there and showed the instructor the front-end, the first thing out of his mouth was "Which database are you using?" and on finding out that we were using MySql he said "I haven't taught you that in the course and I will not grade your project unless you change it within the next 2 days". I am pretty certain that this sort of attitude would be classified as a bad teacher. The course was not titled Oracle Databases, it was titled Databases and as long as were using a database, it shouldn't have mattered which Database it was (unless ofcourse, if the instructor had never heard about anything except Oracle and maybe MSSql because he was too lazy to be bothered about what was happening outside his own world).

Re:Any code?

[phantomfive]

Nah, actually I think you're a troll. You probably already do like English at least to some degree, although it's not your favorite subject.

In any case, I doubt you had the teacher mentioned above you who could motivate tons of students but there was one who failed........

Re:Any code?

[thegarbz]

Ahh yes, the old close my eyes, stick my fingers in the ears, and go lalalala, trick.

Now I'm trolling you.

I think we're done here.

x264

[girlintraining]

Maybe now the x264 developers will add GPU support and we'll finally have a solution for video encoding that uses the processor and GPUs in parallel. Here's to hoping... :\

Re:x264

[phizi0n]

That would be quite difficult for a C/assembly project to use a Java compiler.

Re:x264

[Miletos]

But x264 is coded in C and Assembly, not Java.

Re:x264

[girlintraining]

That would be quite difficult for a C/assembly project to use a Java compiler.

*shrug* They've been dragging their heels for years, claiming that there's no practical way to do it, that the quality is inferior, etc., etc. And now there's a way to generate bytecode that can be executed on the GPU and return predictable results. I'm sure someone who knows assembler can figure out a simple FIFO or IPC / shared memory arrangement... At this point, they can't hide behind technical hurdles: It's clear GPUs can be used, they just don't want to because they're stuck up.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Programs don't magically become faster when they are run on GPUs. E.g. Linear Algebra algorithms work really well on CPUs, but if ported 1 to 1 ( as this would ) to a GPU their performance is just abysmal. Usually one needs to use a specially designed algorithm that can actually use the massive parallelism of a GPU and not get stuck e.g. trying to synchronize or doing other kinds of communication. GPUs really like doing the same operation on independent data, which is basically what happens when rendering an image, they are not really designed to have operations that need information of all other data, or neighbouring data in a grid.... . Just because something works on a GPU does not mean its efficient, thus the performance could be much worse using a GPU .
Also balancing CPU and GPU usage is even harder ( maybe impossible ? ) as you cannot predict what kind of System you will run your software on, thus usually these days the CPU feeds the GPU with data ( with the current Tesla cards only 1 core per GPU, this changes in the Kepler version to 32 ) and does some processing that can't be done on the GPU, but do not share any kind of workloads.

I don't know how the h.264 codec is structured or if it is possible to have performance gains on encoding. However I really doubt that x.264 can be just ported as they rely heavily on CPU specific features ( SSE etc ) which is quite different to the much higher level bytecode that Java would produce.

Re:x264

[nogginthenog]

It's easy to port C to Java (but not the other way).

Re:x264

[loufoque]

Also balancing CPU and GPU usage is even harder ( maybe impossible ? ) as you cannot predict

Computational code is quite regular, so it is usually possible to predict its performance, especially on GPUs which are quite simple architectures (no cache or reordering).

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been following x264 development at all, you'd know that all coders which attempted to add complete GPU acceleration to x264 either failed or have given up because it was too difficult. Their motto has always been 'patches welcome', but the result can't be slower than x264 on a CPU or degrade quality significantly. Thus far not really an issue, since off-hand I can't think of anybody who was actually able to provide a patch which was able to be compiled and produce valid output, let alone have acceptable speed or quality.

Recently the x264 team was working with an AMD commissioned engineer, yet the only useful thing AMD was able to produce was OpenCL motion compensation, which should land in x264 mainline in the near future. It's not a question of them not wanting GPU acceleration or being stuck up, they literally have been unable to find coders who are knowledgeable and dedicated enough with OpenCL/CUDA to actually produce useful patches. Many of x264 algorithms aren't well suited to the GPU, and as everyone who has attempted this so far has realized, it's no easy task to come close to x264's level of quality on a GPU, while still being faster than the CPU.

Re:x264

[Bert64]

And how fast does the bytecode run?
GPUs are specialist processors, running the kind of things they are designed to do they are very fast... Making them run things which they are not suited to can result in terrible performance.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuck up? Do you know *anything* about GPGPU? It's good for embarrassingly parallel problems; video encoding relies on previous frames. It's not at all the right type of problem for GPGPU.

There are no GPGPU H.264 encoders that can beat x264 in quality and speed. Do you think that this is just because nobody has bothered to try?

Re:x264

[J_Darnley]

Does this actually make the code run any faster? If it is slower, even with a latest generation GPU, what is the point?

Re:x264

[gl4ss]

it's still more processing units to use..

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all modern GPUs have cache - both data & instruction caches. The cache structures are often quite unusual (code is split by instruction type, data cache is segmented etc.).

As for reorder - you might not have reordering within a thread, but multiple threads compete for resources (cache access primarily, but also computational units). In addition, while the thread spawn order is deterministic, predicting the rate accurately is subject to limits such as a shared register space allocator for all threads running on a sub-section of the GPU (but no sharing between sub-sections).

Shared data segment performance is quite complex and somewhat topologically dependent (ie. performance will depend on where exactly you end up executing on the chip - you need to know the logical topology to get best performance).

Your comment was more or less true in 2004, however ever since DX10 the complexity of GPUs has advanced considerably.

-- ex-GPU designer

Re:x264

[Kjella]

Stuck up? Do you know *anything* about GPGPU? It's good for embarrassingly parallel problems; video encoding relies on previous frames. It's not at all the right type of problem for GPGPU.

*facepalm* And for each full HD frame there's something like 2 million pixels with 3x8 bit color information to be encoded. There's huge potential for doing all of them in parallel, making it work in code is hard but it's definitively not the wrong type of problem.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 3x16 bit from the top of my head (until we need even higher bit depth and need 32 bpc processing) and i really doubt pixels are independant from each other - DCT video codecs use blocks for a reason.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird.
I was about to complain about all the research people have been doing in x264, but when I actually did the search it turned out you are right.
All the existing parallelisations are for architectures other than GPU, like cell and other multicore platforms.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means jack shit if your algorithm is memory bound.

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello!?

CUDA GPU provides you with a full fledged H264 encoder and decoder written by nVidia with both a C interface and a DirectShow interface.

If you are goina rely on RootBeer and CUDA for Video, how about regular JNI to the provided and easier to use existing interface?

Re:x264

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 3x16 bit from the top of my head (until we need even higher bit depth and need 32 bpc processing) and i really doubt pixels are independant from each other - DCT video codecs use blocks for a reason.

And you can do the blocks in parallel...duh

How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

Last I checked java was the biggest pita in things not running unless they were using the specific version of java they were coded for. Now your telling me you can have arbitrary java code compiled to cuda seems far fetched when it can hardly handle going from x.y.z to x.y.z+1 without breaking

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[arth1]

Pretty much. Now, instead of having to bundle your blessed version of java and libraries with the app, you have to bundle those, AND a graphics card that speaks CUDA and has a specific driver version.

That whole "write once, run anywhere" was never true, and not only because it's stretching the word "run". Now it gets even less true.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[binarylarry]

The WORA aspects of Java work flawlessly these days.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[TPoise]

Except after you get pestered every hour to update your Java runtime, you actually do update it and it breaks compatibility with all existing apps. Other than that, yea WORA is great stuff.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[LodCrappo]

2004 called, they want their blind hate for Java back.

Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, Java can deliver great results and provide exactly the sort of cross platform capabilities it was designed for. Used by idiots and/or kids who just earned that undergrad CS degree, it tends to provide less.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[binarylarry]

You don't have to update and if you do, it doesn't break compatibility with existing apps.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

2004 called, they want their blind hate for Java back.

Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, Java can deliver great results and provide exactly the sort of cross platform capabilities it was designed for. Used by idiots and/or kids who just earned that undergrad CS degree, it tends to provide less.

Just like any other programming language?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

This is simply not true for code written by a professional and competent Java developer (note: part of my consulting gig means I code Java on a professional basis).

If you write only to the public APIs then Java truly is Write-Once-Run-Anywhere (although some bad Java developers use internal functionality that can change between Java versions - I'm guessing that perhaps these folks are used to coding to the Undocumented APIs of Win32 that you used to have to use to get things done). In Java you shouldn't do this. IIRC, Sun created around ten thousand unit tests to ensure Java worked correctly on each platform (wonderful, they did all the porting and port testing effort so Java developers don't have to).

Aside from my professional coding (where Java written on a Mac works flawlessly when deployed to Linux and Windows servers) in my spare time I'm working on modern jet air combat simulator in Java. The same Java+JoGL code works flawlessly on Mac, Linux and Windows. Any differences are in capabilities/performance of individual graphics cards (AMD/ATI vs NVidia).

This article about being able to write Java for the GPU is very interesting, since writing shaders via OpenGL is a little bit of a PITA (there is an impedance mismatch between the conventions of Java, OpenGL and GLSL - it would be fabulous to just write in Java [akin to how I can do this on the Web using Google Web Toolkit]).

So I don't think your statement is really true - except for buggy software written by developers who have bad simple-platform habits.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

Usually there is only a problem when your application server (I'm looking at you, stinky Websphere) relies on a particular vendor's implementation of Java (eg. IBM JDK). With recent Sun/Oracle Java Runtime Environments (that is: Java 6, which is around 5 years old; and Java 7) applications usually run flawlessly (at least, mine do - and I'm doing all the usual Java funky stuff: radar, roadsign and head tracking hardware device control, networking, web, 3D graphics, rich clients, etc).

As a current practitioner in the field I wonder whether your experience is from a long time ago (and polluted by the experience of using software that was based on Microsoft's awful [and deliberately incompatible - which they lost the famous lawsuit over] Java implementation from a long time ago).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

You must run some VERY different apps than I do. Every management app I've used seems to be tied to different versions of java everything for ui glitches though plain just not working.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Khyber]

"Used intelligently by a skilled programmer"

2010 called. What you ask for is in extremely short stock and will be as long as the educational systems go to shit.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

Primarily with those java management apps related to networking kit. You know those things that are embedded in firmware and sometimes the only way to do more than get an IP on the box to get to said java nightmare. I've had the issues as recent as a few weeks ago when a java update stopped some dialog boxes from working on a supermicro ipkvm java app. Same update killed all my ASDM java apps for working with CIsco ASA's (though it still works as a web app for whatever reasons)

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

Guess what I'm not coding for it just using apps from major corps. Those fun management apps that on some kit you must use as the cli will only setup basic ip settings, any real config requires some java monstrosity. Just a few weeks back a java update broke some buttons on the latest supermicro ipkvm java app and the cisco asdm launcher (though the web launched versions works). I would not call cisco some fly by night company.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

So last you checked was 2001?
This hasn't been the case for quite some time, it's pretty easy for any competent programmer to write code that runs on any runtime environment from Java 5 and up. Any mediocre programmer can support Java 6 and up run times without trying.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

From my experience those developers are the majority of business java dev's it would seem. Honestly the platform is broken by the fact the super secret only work here bits existed in the first place. Functionally the java apps should know what versions and extensions they require to run and have the launcher use them or go download the required version.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[binarylarry]

Yeah I guess I do. I tend to use good software.

Java doesn't have a monopoly on shitty software.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be nice to actually see this great quality java code in the wild.

We have a ton of server-side java *crap*. It is all crap. I have never seen a java server app that did proper logging-- seems all server-side java coders think uncaught exceptions leading to stack traces are "super cool".

On the client side, things like the java app to manage Brocade FC switches will sometimes show 90% of the zones missing! Oh, you kill all java instances and re-run it, and all is cool. Yeah, java is great.

In the early 90s I was a believer, but too many crappy experiences with java-- now, when I hear java, I just assume total piece of shit until proven otherwise (which is _super rare_; being generous-- I can't think of anything great written in java off the top of my head)

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like any other programming language?

Um, essentially yes. Java is just like every other language which was the point of the comment. Read the contrarian comment it was in reply to for refreshment on what the GP was arguing against. You and whoever modded you "underrated" need to keep up.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it lowers the bar so much that shitty programmers ended up using it.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what I'm not coding for it just using apps from major corps. Those fun management apps that on some kit you must use as the cli will only setup basic ip settings, any real config requires some java monstrosity. Just a few weeks back a java update broke some buttons on the latest supermicro ipkvm java app and the cisco asdm launcher (though the web launched versions works). I would not call cisco some fly by night company.

So can I suggest you just not update Java on your machines until you're sure your applications are compatible? That seems like a good idea to me. You can also just keep multiple versions on the machines and start the application with a fully qualified path name to the particular java you want.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

2012 called and would like to know where to get some ganj

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly the platform is broken by the fact the super secret only work here bits existed in the first place.

No, it used to be broken. You don't have to use those APIs anymore so now it's the developers and project managers at Cisco working on the application that are broken. Got it?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Miamicanes]

I rarely see problems involving new releases of Java... with one specific exception: 64-bit Java. I've seen more than a few apps that die horrible deaths with 64-bit Java... and almost exactly the same number that specifically *require* 64-bit Java when running under 64-bit Windows.

I'm still trying to figure out what, exactly, causes some random Java app to specifically require one or the other when running under Win7/64. I suspect it has something to do with changes Microsoft made to 64-bit Windows that forced (or at least induced) Sun, then Oracle, to change something major with 64-bit Java... but I've never seen any white paper or article that identifies and explores the specific reasons why this might be so. I'm sure the mass layoffs and exodus of Sun's employees right around the time 64-bit Java became relevant, and 64-bit Windows became mainstream, didn't help.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

2004, try 2000. Java is well known to be deficient in modern language features and has stagnated to the point where it doesn't look like it will ever catch up. Even good old C++ has been updated recently. Not all languages need to have all features but I never find anything in Java to make up for everything it misses.

A skill programmer is smart enough to avoid Java if possible. So while it might need a skilled programmer to get good results from it, we will never know since they are all using something that doesn't suck.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

It was either Java 6u10 or 6u14 that changed their wsimport tool, which made breaking changes.

Going between a major release I can accept breaking changes with enough notice, but breaking changes to a common compilation tool in a random update is ridiculous. It wasn't too terrible to fix the issue, but it is not an issue that most developers will know how to fix without breaking things elsewhere, without figuring out a tool that should have just worked.

Beyond that, I have seen very few issues with Java compilation/being cross platform, and I say that as someone that regularly writes web applications along with my full time job programming against a 3D application written completely in Java.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[sockman]

Because people are incapable of learning without the government, right?

There will always be good programmers, regardless of what the government institutions churn out.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[ADRA]

64 bit java works just fine for me. The only issue I could see is in JNI applications which were only compiled for 32 or 64.
The think that performs like death has been with random bugs in Java7 and OpenJDK (reliably dies on many commonly used programs...)

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[eWarz]

This is simply not true for code written by a professional and competent Java developer (note: part of my consulting gig means I code Java on a professional basis).

If you write only to the public APIs then Java truly is Write-Once-Run-Anywhere (although some bad Java developers use internal functionality that can change between Java versions - I'm guessing that perhaps these folks are used to coding to the Undocumented APIs of Win32 that you used to have to use to get things done). In Java you shouldn't do this. IIRC, Sun created around ten thousand unit tests to ensure Java worked correctly on each platform (wonderful, they did all the porting and port testing effort so Java developers don't have to).

Aside from my professional coding (where Java written on a Mac works flawlessly when deployed to Linux and Windows servers) in my spare time I'm working on modern jet air combat simulator in Java. The same Java+JoGL code works flawlessly on Mac, Linux and Windows. Any differences are in capabilities/performance of individual graphics cards (AMD/ATI vs NVidia).

This article about being able to write Java for the GPU is very interesting, since writing shaders via OpenGL is a little bit of a PITA (there is an impedance mismatch between the conventions of Java, OpenGL and GLSL - it would be fabulous to just write in Java [akin to how I can do this on the Web using Google Web Toolkit]).

So I don't think your statement is really true - except for buggy software written by developers who have bad simple-platform habits.

I would tend to disagree. Why? Because companies like cisco, ibm, etc. all only certify certain versions of java for use in their applications. The cisco apps are cross platform but do NOT play well with different versions of java. I'm not a java expert (I'm a C#/RoR guy) but if fortune 500 companies can't get it right, can you really say that java is cross version compatible?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

We have some (too expensive to justify replacing) facilities control modules at work whose 'web interface' consists of a java applet that won't run on anything more recent than J2SE 1.4(early 2002, for those keeping score).

Given the relative costs of replacing the module(the closest thing to a firmware update that the vendor offers) and just maintaining a VM snapshot of a decade-old java setup, we obviously went with the latter.

I have no particular reason to believe that java itself is to blame, rather than merely being the instrument of somebody's apathy and/or incompetence; but there are definitely some special applications floating around.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit Cisco wont support anything outside of IE 7. Talk about some innovative and modern tech company.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[antifoidulus]

With the caveat that you only do things the underlying OS can handle(though this is hardly unique to Java). If you use a garbage OS(read Windows) then what works perfectly on real OSs can often fail(shit like soft links and anything that opens more than a handful of TCP/IP sockets comes to mind). But then again if you are doing server side Windows you probably aren't a good coder to start with....

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

2020 called and said "they grow it EVERYWERE, man and it's awesome, man." Then it forgot to hang up the phone.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[dbIII]

Twelve years into a century that started with a pile of installed 64 bit CPUs and we're still getting this kind of shit happening? Pretty sad isn't it.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it lowers the bar so much that shitty programmers ended up using it.

People who call out Shitty programmers are usually Shittier programmers. Just sayin...shitty.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Good suggestion. Everyone, stop updating your Java!

- MalwareAuthor

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[LodCrappo]

This is a strange argument logically...

Are you saying all these major corps are idiots for choosing Java in the first place? That doesn't lend much credibility to your use of them as an example of producing well written software. Certainly these major corporations didn't just randomly choose to use Java.. so how does your logic work exactly?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[LodCrappo]

Good old C did manage to dethrone Java as the programming language with the most "skilled engineers world-wide" recently, but Java is still #2.

If the 2nd most popular language is indeed in "extremely short stock of skill", please let me take this opportunity to let everyone know that I can provide skilled Java work at reasonable rates (well... reasonable considering it's scarcity).

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

right... you do know that just saying things doesn't actually make them true, right?

you have fun with those other languages that fulfill whatever it is you think Java is lacking..

i'll be using whatever companies pay the most for.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Bronster]

I don't have any control over the developers and project managers at Cisco, or a SuperMicro, or wherever. Fact is - they wrote "java" and it breaks. Somebody dropped the ball along the way, and it's not just them.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of a few programming languages which are certainly "not cross" platform, or only have "cross platform capabilities" due to some half-assed hack that is likely to be undermined by the people that are responsible for the language at any moment, so no, you drooling muppet, not like "any" other programming language.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Bert64]

I've had very few problems, most applications continue to run just fine as you upgrade java...
Many of them don't officially "support" newer versions, and will often try to insist you must run an ancient (and full of security holes) version of java...

The few java apps i had problems with weren't incompatible with the modern jre per se, they just included explicit checks and would complain if they detected a version they didn't recognise, but if you manually hacked out the checks the apps usually ran anyway.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I have a strange sense of humor, but this would have been so much better without that 2012 post in between.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> With the caveat that you only do things the underlying OS can handle(though this is hardly unique to Java).
Huh? sorry, I'm missing the point here. Hard to do stuff your O/S doesn't as an application programmer. However, if you meant to say that Java only has a common subset of functionality across platforms, then that is a fair comment. I find that the functionality is good enough to make great programs.

> But then again if you are doing server side Windows you probably aren't a good coder to start with....
\ Most Java coders don't get to choose their customer's infrastructure. You are right in that a good Java coder knows how to develop for more than just one platform.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

This is no different to the ActiveX controls that are floating around (eg. some banking access programs), or all the Internet Explorer 6 sites around. It has always been possible to write stuff so it is not to tied to a particular setup, or at least to limit the platform specific bits. It is surprising that an applet can't be rewritten - they're usually not that complex (and getting unit test coverage during maintenance would go quite far).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> I'm not a java expert (I'm a C#/RoR guy) but if fortune 500 companies can't get it right, can you really say that java is cross version compatible?
Is that your argument? Just because corporate developers (including a lot of C# guys, but there are always exceptions) are often morons doesn't mean Java blows - these guys can and do butcher any technology when they build stuff (hell, even after giving one guy proper code for calculating any date he come back with his shitty VB.NET that was an abomination and had so many holes).

I've written a *lot* of different systems in Java. From embedded, web, graphical, network, rich client etc and the version gotchas (there are minor things you learn to avoid) are nothing in Java compared to the C, C++ and C# systems I used to work on. Hence, my statements.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

Bro, you simply have a bias against Java and this means you are not reasoning fully. Admit this to yourself. People can (with some effort) write cross-platform C and C++ apps, yet people often write apps that fall over with new service packs to their operating system. Yet you choose to blame a particular technology rather than accept that , "You can write bad FORTRAN in any language".

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[pubwvj]

"Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, Java can deliver great results"

Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, Fortran, Cobal and Z-80 can deliver great results.

Problem is missing ingredients. The first two.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say, is that Cisco must have spent a lot of money, and many man hours to find a way to abuse Java to the degree you describe. Real people who don't deliberately set out to undermine the system don't even have to think about it to create portable code. It Just Works.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[RabidReindeer]

Would be nice to actually see this great quality java code in the wild.

We have a ton of server-side java *crap*. It is all crap. I have never seen a java server app that did proper logging-- seems all server-side java coders think uncaught exceptions leading to stack traces are "super cool".

On the client side, things like the java app to manage Brocade FC switches will sometimes show 90% of the zones missing! Oh, you kill all java instances and re-run it, and all is cool. Yeah, java is great.

In the early 90s I was a believer, but too many crappy experiences with java-- now, when I hear java, I just assume total piece of shit until proven otherwise (which is _super rare_; being generous-- I can't think of anything great written in java off the top of my head)

There's no point in singling out Java for any of that. As long as the order of the day is cheaper software produced faster instead of spending time and money to get quality, software is going to be garbage.

I do know some really excellent java apps, and a very large quantity of excellent open-source java support libraries, but the finest tools in the hands of 15-rupee/hour junior programmers working to a fantasy schedule aren't going to produce them.

I provide a lot of advice to Java programmers, and one of the top items I warn them to do is use logging. My own stuff not only logs extensively, it even sends me email for the really dire stuff. As far as letting exceptions fall out on the floor goes, that's a mortal sin in my book.

Of course, because I DO have quality standards, I just get yelled at for not being "productive" enough.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[RabidReindeer]

> I'm not a java expert (I'm a C#/RoR guy) but if fortune 500 companies can't get it right, can you really say that java is cross version compatible?

Is that your argument? Just because corporate developers (including a lot of C# guys, but there are always exceptions) are often morons doesn't mean Java blows - these guys can and do butcher any technology when they build stuff (hell, even after giving one guy proper code for calculating any date he come back with his shitty VB.NET that was an abomination and had so many holes).

I've written a *lot* of different systems in Java. From embedded, web, graphical, network, rich client etc and the version gotchas (there are minor things you learn to avoid) are nothing in Java compared to the C, C++ and C# systems I used to work on. Hence, my statements.

Java is pretty much unique in its inherent support for cross-version support. There's a special deprecation annotation you can attach to any function or class that causes warnings if you attempt to use downgraded features. You won't find that in C/C++ or VB. In fact, one reason I bailed from Microsoft was that not only was I routinely getting nailed on MS apps to the degree that in extreme cases, I was looking at re-installing an old OS so I could install an old IDE so I could use an old compiler to make a 2-line emergency change, MS would routinely replace an entire API with a totally incompatible one. I got nailed hard on this with SOAP, but the Database API-of-the-day way outright comical - they wouldn't even have the kinks out of the previous one before the next one came along.

With Java's deprecation, you can make your panic fixes, note the deprecation warnings, and make proper version-related updates when things are less stressful (yeah, like that ever happens). The actual Sun-supplied deprecations tend to live forever, so even some items deprecated from Java Version 1 can still be used/abused today. They are a bit weak on the clairvoyance features, however, so forward version dependencies are a bit hit and miss.

The primary reason that major vendors are so picky about JVM brands and versions is that they want to keep their support costs down and even in a strict version-supportive environment like Java, the smaller the number of permutations, the better. Even when the language itself is supportive, the bugs vary from release to release, and yes, some "clever" application programmers do code to internal implementation details or mis-read specs.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a heads up that you over use parentheses. Your second sentence is shorter than the content in parentheses, and people tend to skip/skim over parentheses. Every sentence seems to have a parenthetical reference to something. Make new sentences instead of using large swaths of parenthetical text.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of whether you personally find Java's performance to be acceptable, it's proprietary. I prefer not to use proprietary development languages and tools.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[aled]

You must have checked a long time ago...or trying to use a program compiled for a new version of Java in an older runtime.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[aled]

I don't have any control over the developers and project managers at Cisco, or a SuperMicro, or wherever. Fact is - they wrote "java" and it breaks. Somebody dropped the ball along the way, and it's not just them.

I would have to say that they dropped the ball if they don't correct or update their products to support newer versions of Java or eliminate the need for an applet for manage an appliance (we are not in 2000 anymore).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, "Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, ", C or C++ "can deliver great results....."

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[FranTaylor]

"If you write only to the public APIs then Java truly is Write-Once-Run-Anywhere"

That's FUNNY. I've found a bug in a java program that failed because the vendors's version string was malformed.

Start up a bunch of threads and your Java program is NOT going to behave the same on every platform. Differences in OS schedulers means that a program that runs right EVERY TIME on one platform will fail EVERY TIME on another platform.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[FranTaylor]

Start up threads, and all cross-platform compatibility goes out the window.

Different java implementations have WILDLY different dynamic performance characteristics.

Face it, for any real program it's "write once test everywhere"

Tell me with CONFIDENCE that your "cross-platform" java code is gonna run without failure on OpenVMS's java implementation.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[FranTaylor]

Hard to do stuff your O/S doesn't as an application programmer.

It's EASY to do stuff that won't work the same on every OS.

Your fancy multithreaded java program, that works right every time on Linux, will FAIL on Solaris or OpenVMS because of their different thread execution models. You THOUGHT there were no race conditions in your code, but you couldn't test them, so you had no idea.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> Start up a bunch of threads and your Java program is NOT going to behave the same on every platform.
This is because a threaded application is non-deterministic. This is true for C and C++ programs as much as for Java programs. So I don't quite get what your point is.

> That's FUNNY. I've found a bug in a java program that failed because the vendors's version string was malformed.
Please elaborate as I'm curious about this. Note that I didn't say Java was bug-free (no non-trivial piece of software is, and the Java platform is far from trivial). Also, why would you rely on a vendor version string in the first place? sounds a little dodgy to rely on informational strings that are not actually part of the API. Furthermore, you found a bug in Java, big deal. Try and find a development platform that doesn't have at least some bugs in it (and the one you found is pretty trivial).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> You THOUGHT there were no race conditions in your code, but you couldn't test them, so you had no idea.
Actually, it's not that hard to write unit tests for race conditions (and the synchronization that prevents them). The tests may take some time to run, but that does not mean it is impossible. I'm wondering why you had no idea about this?

> It's EASY to do stuff that won't work the same on every OS.
I suggest you go back and re-read the comment you quoted. What the original poster said was that

So far your comments are akin to the old joke, "Doctor! doctor! it hurts when I touch my eye! so don't touch your eye.". Not every style of writing Java will produce the same results on all platforms. This should be a surprise to no-one experienced in the field. However, with proper testing it is entirely possible to write Java programs that will execute the same way on different platforms. I manage to do this, so I'm struggling to see what your argument is, apart from some alarmism (of someone with a different pet language? something you think is a better multi-domain cross-platform solution than Java?).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[aled]

Are you talking about real cases?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is a GPLed language proprietary?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

If only idiots and kids write bad java code as you say and java code from large corps is nearly universally bad as has been my experience then union of those two statements would be that large corps seems to only employ idiots and kids to write there managements apps. The truly bad part is for some of the apps I can see no reason for the java app vs a well written web app.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[silas_moeckel]

Nope brandy spanking new java apps with a latest and greatest auto downloaded java 7 something. Just a few weeks back got one of those fun update java and went from a working app that's is only a few months old to a non working app also took out a several years old app with the same update.

This is especially fun when the java app runs out of firmware with no other method of configuring the device and the device maker has no plants to fix it. Keeping that odd vm around with some specific version of java just to be able to configure a device is so much fun. Honestly it's getting as bad as having to keep some old version of IE installed to get some web app to work.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

The really really good programmers I know would prefer to work with PHP and Javascript than write Java apps for blue chip companies.At least writing good code in PHP and Javascript is a rightful challenge and the people you end up working with are nicer.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Well and development costs. The more versions they specify their apps work with the move development environments they need to support internally. And they have to do regression tests on all of them. And this is likely something that scales proportional to n factorial, so you quickly reach the point where there are not enough resources to track the specification as it evolves over time. Every change in the spec consumes programmer resources, the more targets you support the higher the cost.

This is true to an extent with compiled code using libraries. The difference is the costs as versions change are spread over the entire body of users and are done once in one place by the people maintaining the OS, compilers, and libraries, instead of for every application written.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> Face it, for any real program it's "write once test everywhere"
Yes. This is why we write unit, integration and system tests as part of development (this is an accepted part of Java development these days). Fortunately once you have these tests the testing of any new platforms and any code enhancements is effortless. You do Test Driven Development (TDD) don't you?

> Tell me with CONFIDENCE that your "cross-platform" java code is gonna run without failure on OpenVMS's java implementation.
You sound like you require Java to work without a developer ever having to their test suite against the target platform. Incidentally, what Java Runtime Environment implementation are you using on OpenVMS?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

Amen to your post. As another developer I certainly respect your skill and commitment to quality. Most developers (no matter what language) don't plan on giving themselves informative messages (eg. what was the failed value, what was expected/the range of valid values, what other related values are there).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

FYI the current year is 2012. The 90's were quite some time ago. If you are a windows user consider the change in quality/reliability/functionality from Windows 95 to Windows 7 today. The same is true of Java (and Linux, and Mac, ....). Your data point is rather old and rather out of date for this particular issue.

> We have a ton of server-side java *crap*. It is all crap. I have never seen a java server app that did proper logging-- seems all server-side java coders think uncaught exceptions leading to stack traces are "super cool".
Exception stack traces are usually very handy in diagnosing rare faults. Java's 'chained' exceptions are *exceptional* in helping (terrible pun intended). Stack traces have their place. The problem is with the coders for the software you are having to maintain. I certainly write very informative exception messages at the point of failure (fail fast, and collect up all the information you can before you throw). Quite often I'm also able to include a message on what went wrong and what should be done to fix it (eg. if there is an issue that I can't handle as a programmer, such as environmental resource exhaustion cases like network-down, or out-of-disk; in addition to the usual bad input validation).

The problem is not that the coders leave exceptions. The problem is that they are not thinking of what could go wrong at each step of processing and either failing fast (reporting before getting into an inconsistent state, and remaining in a safe state ready to process the next request) and what outside the system can screw things up (environmental problems). If you think this is unique to Java programmers then I hope you get to look after big server-side C++ systems some day where you get a core dump with no symbols. Joy.

> On the client side, things like the java app to manage Brocade FC switches will sometimes show 90% of the zones missing! Oh, you kill all java instances and re-run it, and all is cool. Yeah, java is great.
I think what you mean to say is that Brocade are useless with this app (that is, despite your frustration please get some perspective). Don't blame Java just because it is accessible enough that morons can use it. (I've done a lot of hardware interfacing in the past and I have to say that letting hardware guys write code is nearly always a disaster - at least as much as letting a software guy like me build hardware systems [it works, but it is not elegant like an experience hardware guy would do]).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[LodCrappo]

The problem (for me) is that none of those languages allow the creation of modern applications that work on all modern platforms.
That, and that finding a job doing any of them would be a real pita.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[RabidReindeer]

Start up threads, and all cross-platform compatibility goes out the window.

Different java implementations have WILDLY different dynamic performance characteristics.

Face it, for any real program it's "write once test everywhere"

Tell me with CONFIDENCE that your "cross-platform" java code is gonna run without failure on OpenVMS's java implementation.

OK. I'm confident. Subject only to the constraint that the OpenVMS JVM is Sun-compliant. I speak from long experience.

ANY multi-threaded environment is subject to synchronicity issues, and it's considered an axiom that multi-threaded code is 10x harder to work with than single-threaded code (and that interrupt service code is 10x harder than that).

You don't have to move to a different platform to get screwed by multi-threading, just change CPU speeds. Or peripheral speeds. Or system loads.

IF a multi-threaded application is properly designed and implemented, it should run on any compliant JVM. How well it runs will depend on how good a match the multi-threaded design is for the target environment. That's a whole different matter. Presumably one is multi-threading to obtain performance advantages inherent in parallel processing over the single-threaded model, so if there's a mismatch between the thread expectations and the target machine enviroment, that advantage may be neutralized. That's an architectural fault, however, not a language fault. It would work just as miserably in any language.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Bronster]

C and C++ doesn't have "write once, debug everywhere" emblazoned all over its marketing.

There's a difference between not claiming something, or claiming it and then not providing it.

In the second case, people make assumptions (like shipping stuff that's supposed to have a long shelf life and work cross platform in your langauge), because they bought into the hype.

That's what I object to. Stuff written in Java which doesn't work everywhere.

Still, the vendors of things which require badly written java to work have plenty of blame to share too.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Bronster]

Probably quite true, but I still don't have any control over that unless I'm a very big customer. But they require java because someone, somewhere, believed the glossy brochure which said that Java would solve all their problems and make them coffee while I did so.

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[SplashMyBandit]

> Still, the vendors of things which require badly written java to work have plenty of blame to share too.
Require? don't you mean vendors implement and distribute things in badly written Java. How is this in any way different to crappy apps written in any other language? Have you never seen a well-written and robust multi-platform Java app? they do exist (hint: I produce them :)).

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[aled]

Ah, it seems a common case. Some brands of device and networks appliances seem to have used Java applets for management in the first half of 2000 (or programmed like they were stuck at that age) and then didn't keep with technology advances. Somewhat more modern Java versions let the programmer specify the Java version in the applet tag allowing each applet use different java versions.
I wonder if it is possible to use some browser plugin like monkeygrease (for firefox) to change the applet tag dinamically allowing the use of this method in your case?

Re:How about getting java code to run on java

[Anonymous Coward]

Numbers != good code.

Might want to look over the code of a few of your favorite projects (that you haven't worked on.) Let me tell you about poorly-optimized. Oh, like Minecruft.

Super

[Osgeld]

Why?

Re:Super

[Anonymous Coward]

because it's possible.
making sense is not an obligation.
If this guy didn't make it, others would have :-/

On second thought, it could be a good excuse for asking your boss to buy you a CUDA-capable card, so your "code can compile faster" :-P

Re:Super

[Anonymous Coward]

"because it's possible."

so is cutting off your own dick, please let us know how that works out for you

Re:Super

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, I prefer to do stupid stuff in JavaScript.
It's much more fun than Java and it runs everywhere
(modulo a few rednecks who insist on using a non-standards-compliant exploder).
But I have to work a lot more to reach THAT level of madness
http://bellard.org/jslinux/

Re:Super

[fm6]

Why is any hack done? Because it can be.

Re:Super

[oakgrove]

Why?

I don't know how close the current state of the project is to this scenario but I'd want it because my netbook slows to a crawl everytime eclipse recompiles a module I'm working on and I don't want to turn off the auto-compile due to preference for not losing some other features that come along with it. And my netbook sits beside the couch always ready to go when I'm lounging with whatever recreational project I happen to be working on sitting in Dropbox. Nothing better in a quiet house on a Saturday morning than a big bowl of fruit loops and a fresh set of ideas to work on.

Re:Super

[shutdown -p now]

Warming tea would be one obvious application. I don't know if they've got to the point where it can roast coffee yet, I suspect they'd have to make Eclipse run there in its entirety for that.

Re:Super

[Anonymous Coward]

For the sake of everything holy, do NOT attempt to run COBOL on the GPU.

GPL

[binarylarry]

Unfortunately, Rootbeer is licensed under the GPL.

So you won't be seeing wide adoption of it or use in any commercial products.

The GPL has it's place but in a library like this a more permissive license would be better.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, people don't work for free.
Or if they do, you can't exploit it.
Damn communists, they don't respect other's greed.

Re:GPL

[quantumphaze]

Summary says it's a compiler. It should not force GPL on it's output any more than GCC would.

If I write proprietary code with gedit, is it forced to be GPL?

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

I'm just saying, GPL limits your freedom quite a bit.

Thanks for down modding me and then posting anonymously though.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, he should have licensed it under the MSPL.

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

Rootbeer appears to have some kind of runtime component that you need to use with your generated code.

I don't see an exception regarding that, so you'd need to GPL your code to comply with the license.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose freedom is limited ?
The only limit I know is enforced by Microsoft who forbids its employees to read xGPL'd source code.
My opinion is that the GPL is a license that tells the user to be responsible and respectful of the authors's work.

For the record, I don't have an account here. How could I mod you in any way ?

OK, I return to my JavaScript stupidities, licensed under AGPLv3 :-D

Re:GPL

[fm6]

Let's see, the Linux kernel uses the GPL. There must be millions of products with Linux embedded in them.

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

The GPL doesn't just cover the authors work when you use it.

You have to GPL all of your code, not just the part of the codebase that directly uses the GPL library. Essentially the author then gets to dictate the license of your software.

It's somewhat of a Faustian deal (that said I'm not against it in all case, just cases like Rootbeer).

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

Totally different thing, short stuff.

Re:GPL

[ThePeices]

No, *you* get to dictate the licence of your software. It is *you* who chooses to use a GPL library in your code.

The Author of the GPL code did not put a gun to your head and forced you to choose their code.

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

Right but if you make the deal, they own your code.

Not exactly freedom.

Re:GPL

[pcpratts]

I would be interested in publishing this under different licenses, such as Apache.

Re:GPL

[pcpratts]

Hello, I am thinking maybe I will use the Apache license...

Re:GPL

[fm6]

Different how, sparrow bean?

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

Right but if you make the deal, they own your code.

Not exactly freedom.

Please check your sources : the GPL does not claim ownership of code written by others.
No license can legally do that in the current international copyright framework.

Now, you have the freedom to believe all the FUD^Wmisleading affirmations that you want. Just make sure to be informed and to read the texts to clear any misconceptions or prejudices.

Back to my JS madness now.

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

Well they get to dictate the license of your code.

That's basically owning it, they get a say in how it's used.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

"They" do not "dictate" anything : see ThePeices's comment before about the gun, it's your choice.

The author of GPL'd code gets to say how HIS(/her) code is used. Because they own their code. Like everybody else.
This is the same basic logic as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle or whatever you wish : will you contact MS and ask them to license their source code in whatever-license-suits-you-so-you-are-happy ?
But the GPL garantees to not leave you in the mud, because everybody should pass along the same rights to each other. You can even make a buck (or a billion, ask RedHat) in the process.

Either you agree with a licence (whichever) and you use the software according to it,
or you buy a commercial version of "Free Software" off the author (Dual licensing exists)
or you buy commercial software (many providers exist)
or you write your own code (what I do).

Pick one, no need to bitch^Wwhine.

Re:GPL

[terpri]

They don't "own your code" in any sense. If you violate the license, you're committing copyright infringement, but it has no effect on the copyright status of your own work.

Re:GPL

[jkflying]

No, everybody owns your code, including you. GPL makes the code free (as in freedom), BSD makes the developer who uses the code free. It depends where your priorities are. If *you* are making a big project like this open source, surely you don't want tons of people leeching off of your work? Surely you want to see what probable uses are?

Also, just because RootBeer is GPL doesn't mean *your* code has to be GPL, only the changes you make to RootBeer have to be GPL. Just like if you compiled something with GCC it doesn't mean you need to GPL your code.

Re:GPL

[loufoque]

GCC is GPL too, yet many commercial products use it.

You usually only need to use a compiler for development, licenses like GPL only need to apply once you ship it.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you confused about the difference between GPL and LGPL? Chances are, so was the author of the software. If you believe code should have been released under LGPL instead of GPL, contact the author of the software. Chances are they were confused and are more than willing to adjust the license to LGPL where fit. People typically release software under GPL to make it EASIER for others to use it and contribute to it, rather than to inhibit it.

Re:GPL

[Sesostris III]

Alternatively, there is the Classpath exception that could be added to the relevant modules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classpath_exception

Re:GPL

[Odin's Raven]

The Author of the GPL code did not put a gnu to your head and forced you to choose their code.

FTFY

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not exactly the case. At any time, you could stop using the GPL library and take your code private again as you are the copyright holder. You also need to distribute your code on request. Most people put it up on a webserver to make it easier, but the GPL doesn't actually require that. The number of people who see the code can be somewhat controlled in this fashion if you choose.

Having said that, it's not really the spirit of the GPL. The point is to show how "stupid" copyright law is and that we shouldn't have it at all. The utopia for RMS is not to need the GPL once everyone has been properly trained to think his way.

You trolled so much I actually defended the GPL. Bastard.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

"Getting a say" and "owning" are quite different. Also, they don't get a say: you decide to release your under a compatible license if you use their code. What is so hard about this?

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

I'm not confused about anything.

You fucking retards on slashdot are also part of why the GPL is not useful.

Re:GPL

[binarylarry]

You don't compile your software against the kernel, you fuck up.

The kernel just facilitates running your software on the CPU.

God fucking hates slashtards.

Re:GPL

[amorsen]

GCC is GPL too, yet many commercial products use it.

The little library GCC uses for builtin functions etc. is not under the GPL.

Re:GPL

[fm6]

Yeah, it must be hard being a genius among idiots. My heart goes out to you!

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

It would also be possible to license most of the "compiler" part (e.g. the static bytecode analysis/translation parts) under the GPL, but any parts used in the "runtime" (e.g. classes linked from user code) could be licenses BSD/MIT/Apache.

That way the innovative part of the project (cross-compiling Java to CUDA) remains as a common good always protected under the GPL, but does not limit how projects are allowed to license their own cross-compiled code.

This still limits licensing options for people embedding your compiler within their java application, though... but that seems like a limited use-case, since it would only really be worthwhile for applications that themselves dynamically generate java bytecode (which is a pretty small subset, in my experience).

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, just like you are NOT forced to use the GPL, or any license,
nobody forces you to read, and even post on this site.
Enjoy your God-sent freedom and stop wasting your time :-)
You will see, it's just a matter of choice (and sticking to it).
Have fun with your life :-)

(captcha: "conflict" hahaha)

Blah its CUDA

[zixxt]

It's CUDA only, meaning it does not support any open standards. Call me when when I can target OpenCL.

Re:Blah its CUDA

[pcpratts]

OpenCL does not support recursive methods the last time I checked. If it does, it is very simple to switch in OpenCL.

Re:Blah its CUDA

[SecondaryOak]

Are you positive it's CUDA only? Browsing the code it does seem to have an OpenCL "backend", at https://github.com/pcpratts/rootbeer1/tree/master/src/edu/syr/pcpratts/rootbeer/generate/opencl

Re:Blah its CUDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Which makes me question the sanity of the whole thing: why not just write it in OpenCL in the first place, and skip the (necessarily) inefficient translation? It isn't like OpenCL is difficult to learn or program under. I'm sure in some trivial cases this translation might do well, but in more complex ones, it won't. You're typically using a GPU because you want the perf, and turning around to drop some of it on the floor seems silly.

The reasons languages like CUDA and OpenCL exist is because they are well matched to the features of the hardware. They provide high level language constructs for targeting this class of device. Java has its place in the world, but it just isn't the right tool for this sort of task.

Re:Blah its CUDA

[humanrev]

Where I work we've investigated OpenGL, but our programmers work with CUDA because the NVIDIA cards are just so, so more advanced and capable than anything else out there, CUDA provides much greater return for the investment. Sometimes open standards just aren't worth much if they're immature.

Re:Blah its CUDA

[Chris Mattern]

I think it's unfair of you to bar a CUDA.

Re:Blah its CUDA

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting because I've read blog post after blog post of programmers citing the exact opposite. They tend to call CUDA buggy and a pain in the ass whereas they seem to prefer OpenCL. With the added benefit, that they are not tethered to nvidia cards.

Any idea why there would semingly be such a large divide?

Re:Blah its CUDA

[Anonymous Coward]

jocl and lwjgl support targeting OpenCL... also its like at most a dozen functions that you could JNI yourself if you really wanted it that bad. I think has the advantage that it can be run sans JVM once its built, potentially sans high level operation system based on some CUDA demos ive seen.

There's hope yet!

[oakgrove]

released as open source on github

Damn, Slashdot, I almost had a freaking heart attack when I moused over (you don't think I actually clicked do you? New here?) the link in the summary and it was to the actual github page rather than some crappy 10 page blog post based on something pulled off the reuters wire from last week.

I'm impressed!

Re:There's hope yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rape a person long enough, and he will be impressed when you *don’t* rape him for a day...

I think (y)our definition of "impressive" is way off...

Re:There's hope yet!

[binarylarry]

For the most part, slashdot's readers are much more stupid than the editors.

Very nice.

[Animats]

Here, from GitHub, is the short presentation. This is very impressive. It finds parallelism automatically, at least for simple cases. Over 50x performance improvement on matrix multiply and naive Fourier transform (not FFT), both of which have very simple inner loops. Not clear how it does on less obvious problems.

Re:Very nice.

[pcpratts]

Actually, rootbeer does not find parallelism automatically. You must encode parallelism into your program. But it does get good speedups.

Re:Very nice.

[loufoque]

The funny thing is that this is still slower than a good CPU matrix multiply.

Re:Very nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo... when can we see minecraft utilize this? :D

I only have one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it make Minecraft look better?

Re:I only have one question...

[Romanmir Cumelon]

Will it make Minecraft look better?

Or run better/faster?

Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[frankgerlach11]

Java does indeed provide some benefits, such as memory safety. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of

-Garbage Collection, which kills User Experience due to unpredictable freezing of the whole program
-no way to allocate more than just primitive variables on the stack. That eliminates the fastest allocation method of all.
-being forced to use Arrays Of Pointers, when an array of objects would be perfectly sufficient
-being forced to use a pointer when object agggregation would be perfectly sufficient
-being forced to use the GC even if an object tree is in no way cyclic
-not having Destructors

I've create a programming language called Sappeur which has the same memory safety assurances as Java, but does not have all the downsides as listed above. It is still a bit rough around the edges, but it clearly works and demonstrates that the Java inefficiency is not a god-given thing. Sappeur programs start up as fast as any C or C++ program and terminate equally fast. They are nearly as efficient as C++ programs, which means they are much superior to anything you can do in Java or C#

Here it is:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sappeurcompiler/

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[sydneyfong]

Congratulations on inventing C++

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[pthisis]

Garbage Collection, which kills User Experience due to unpredictable freezing of the whole program

Note that this is a product of a crappy garbage collector in the Java runtime, not intrinsic to garbage collection per se--there are plenty of well-known real time GCs that allow you to set a maximum latency on the collector.

See, for instance:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.4550
http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieberary/GC/Realtime/Realtime.html
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=604155

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read "Sappeur which has the same memory safety assurances as Java" ??

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[tepples]

So why hasn't Oracle improved the garbage collection behavior of Java Standard Edition based on the proofs of concept presented in those articles? Or if it has, why does there remain a perception that Java's garbage collection performs poorly?

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[TheSunborn]

They have. The multithreaded garbadge collecter which is available in java 7 really only pause programs for a very very short time because it does most of the garbadge collection in the background. (Also a very good use of modern multi core cpus).

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[sydneyfong]

Hmm, my bad.

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[swilver]

It's not all that bad these days.

Garbage collection will only pause for user noticeable times when running huge memory sets (think gigabytes). Some care must be taken not to overdo the creation of garbage -- ie, throwing away a full frame of HD video as garbage at 24fps can create 100's of MB's of garbage per second. Even under those loads it is possible with some tuning to get a smooth experience though.

Objects these days can be allocated on the stack if the compiler determines it doesn't escape the method it was created in (escape analysis).

As to your other points, I don't see any of them as down-sides, they are minor issues at best in properly written Java software. We're more worried about design and long term maintainability and compatibility.

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

He still has a point. Everyone wants to create a new language. But there are plenty of well designed, mature and well tested languages out there.

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly don't think so. The combination of efficiency, real-time-capability and security is unique to Sappeur. Note that Sappeur also has special support for multithreading, which is a major issue with C++.

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

Real programmers learn to work with the garbage collector. I struggled with it for awhile myself in C#. Eventually it weeded out a lot of bad habits that older high performance coding books always pointed out better alternatives to. One such bad habit was storing references or pointers in a value type, with the assumption that because it was instantiated elsewhere it'd be ok. I see a lot of people do this, likely under the same assumption, but that's one more object the GC must traverse to clean up the object being referenced.

I have serious doubts that most of the people that complain about the GC would be able to write sane memory management functions themselves. The average quality of code in managed languages is not good, having to write our own memory managers would certainly raise the average by forcing out weaker programmers. That's what makes managed languages so nice, you can jump in and write crappy code that does what you need, then you can spend a bit of time refining it later if it works out, you don't have to worry about keeping memory in order until it comes to the refinement steps where you want to factor out unnecessary stuff.

Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy

[pthisis]

So why hasn't Oracle improved the garbage collection behavior of Java Standard Edition based on the proofs of concept presented in those articles? Or if it has, why does there remain a perception that Java's garbage collection performs poorly?

Who knows, that's hardly the only major issue with Java.

If I were inclined to put a reason on it other than laziness or ignorance: Possibly they've focused primarily on throughput at the expense of latency, believing that's a better bang for their buck for wherever they're making money selling/supporting Java? Which is plausible, if desktop Java is paying out more support to 3rd party tools and toolkits (money not going to Oracle), while server-side Java helps fuel more JVM support contracts and Oracle DB sales?

If so it seems a short-sighted policy.

Got any that can run on OpenCL ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I do not use Nvidia GPU
 

Re:Got any that can run on OpenCL ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I do not use Nvidia GPU

The authors decided only to design it for good gpu's.

You are definately not a skilled programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a skill programmer would know that Java has evolved and that the language has many features that it didn't have in v1.0

Re:You are definately not a skilled programmer

[petermgreen]

a skill programmer would know that Java has evolved and that the language has many features that it didn't have in v1.0

A few new features have been added to the java language over the yers but many features that have been in other languages for years are still missing. For example

properties*
method pointers**
user defined value types
parameter pass by reference
operator overloading

* Specifically i'm reffering to the language feature that VB and Delphi have, not the conventions that Java has to make up for the lack of that language feature.
** You can achive a somewhat similar effect with interfaces and inner classes but it''s a lot messier.

Re:You are definately not a skilled programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

In many cases Java developers have turned to other languages such as Scala, Groovy and Clojure for more advanced features. It is still somewhat ironic that you cite rapidly declining dinosaurs such as VB and Delphi in an argument against Java.

Re:You are definately not a skilled programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Since these are all either useless or dangerous. I'm happy not to have them in Java.

Legal Problems.

[softcoder]

Considering the approach that Oracle is taking of trying to copyright and charge license fees just for using the Java API's (see Oracle vs Google) I cant see any sane person developing on a non-Oracle provided Java platform. If they can sue Google for Dalvik they can certainly sue whoever deploys Rootbeer if they feel like it.
pgmer6809

Re:Legal Problems.

[DrXym]

They can sue. Doesn't mean they're going to win.

Re:Legal Problems.

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Did you miss the news? Oracle lost that battle on all claims.

Of course they can still sue.

Re:Legal Problems.

[LodCrappo]

IANAL but since Oracle has now designated OpenJDK (GPLed) as the official reference platform in place of their own, I don't think there are many (any?) legal problems to worry about. Can a company that contributes heavily to a GPLed language turn around and sue somebody for using that code? I didn't think so... but again ianal.

Re:Legal Problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

But because US law works so well, it does mean you'll be ruined long before the trial is over.

Re:Legal Problems.

[ultranova]

They can sue. Doesn't mean they're going to win.

Doesn't really matter who the law would eventually side with, if it takes long enough to do so to bankrupt you.

Re:Legal Problems.

[devent]

Nice FUD, troll. Google was sued because they took the Java APIs and have not got a license from Oracle (that was before Java was released under the GPL with OpenJDK). At least that what Oracle was trying to convince the judge and the jury.

Long story short: Orcale was thinking that Google needed the TCK license (or other license) to use the Java APIs. Orcale was trying to convince the court that APIs are copyrightable (or more specific, the Structure, Sequence and Organization of APIs). We now all know the result of that venture, the SSO of APIs is not copyrightable and Google did not needed any license from Sun/Oracle.

Since Java is now at least 6 years under the GPL there are no issues anymore.

I think there is still a Field-Of-Use clause, but that only applies to the TCK license and is needed if and only if you want to market your Java implementation as "Java". That was the reason why Apache Harmony was not an official "Java".

Re:Legal Problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to blame someone, blame SUN and Google. Google knew they should have paid for a license, but they decided to risk it. No one is innocent here. Any pretense that Google is some how innocent in this situation is blind and stupid. Google is "less evil" than Oracle, that "most" people can agree with. But regardless of oracle, SUN and Google both have their share in the blame.

Re:Legal Problems.

[caseih]

Nice try with the FUD. rootbeer is simply a bytecode translator. The Java API isn't involved here at all. And the place where the translated bytecodes execute is the graphics card, not some Java JRE-derived virtual machine and runtime API implementation. There is no runtime involved at all. The Java code is simply math that gets translated directly to GPU instructions.

This is no different than Google's Web Toolkit which translates Java (not necessarily bytecode though) to javascript, which has never been under any kind of attack.

So let's be clear. To think that rootbeer would be under some kind of threat from Oracle because it involves Java is pretty silly.

Java is dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that's what all those Node.js people keep saying.

Re:Java is dead!

[maxwell demon]

But has Netcraft confirmed it?

Does it...

[malv]

also automagically turn all serial algorithms into massively parallel as well?

Re:Does it...

[pcpratts]

no it does not. but it is very solid at converting parallelism specified by the programmer into a GPU program.

GWT

[rve]

- it would be fabulous to just write in Java [akin to how I can do this on the Web using Google Web Toolkit]).

I cannot let any undue praise for GWT go unrebuked. While I find it impressive from a technical point of view, I've come to believe actually using it is a potentially expensive mistake.

What you write for GWT, I wouldn't call Java but a-language-with-a-java-like-syntax-but-totally-different-characteristics. If you use your Java best practices, you'll end up with code that doesn't compile - only a certain subset of the Java api is supported - or worse. Don't assume a particular Locale? Using GWT you better assume the default. Program to interfaces rather than implementations? If you do that with GWT the client ends up downloading 20 megabytes worth of javascript to support every known implementation of every sub interface of java.util.Collection. Choosing GWT is also a way of saying 'who needs a steenkin frontend specialist?'. Since all that frontend stuff is generated from java-like server code, your UI will end up being coded by your server side java people. Finally, I'm not convinced Google will continue to support it, since they are actively working on a number of other javascript avoidance technologies, and have a history of announcing the end of life of a product they lose interest in with only a few days notice.

Re:GWT

[SplashMyBandit]

GWT ain't perfect. But I sure as hell find it better than the alternatives. Frigging around with browser-specific Javascript still has to be done sometimes, but doing everything in it is madness (kinda like the idiots who used to insist on working with a bunch on inline assembly rather than embracing C++). I'd rather adapt my Java style appropriate to the target (after all, I have to do this when I also program for Android) rather than be inflexible at the cost of increasing my own workload and making a Javascript maintenance nightmare for others.

Re:GWT

[rve]

making a Javascript maintenance nightmare for others.

The maintenance nightmare is GWT generated code. Eventually something will go wrong, even something small (like 'why is this box displayed 5 pixels to the left in IE9???')

In a normal project, you ask your local frontend specialist, but in a GWT project it's all generated, so while they may be able to tell you what is going wrong, it is your nightmare to track down just which component generated that bit of faulty html and why.

I say this as someone who is now maintaining a GWT project written by others.

Re:GWT

[SplashMyBandit]

Here's a hint. To fix your problem you have to work with the CSS style - *this is exactly the same as if you were working with hand-rolled Javascript*. The fact that GWT has generated code doesn't really enter into it.

> Eventually something will go wrong, even something small (like 'why is this box displayed 5 pixels to the left in IE9???')
Yes, well the IE series is the bane of anyone working with CSS - they always have to do it a little different to the other browsers (it is common for some simple tags to work fine in lots of variants of Firefox, Chrome and Opera, yet IE will do something retarded with the same markup). It is a shame corporates are so behind the curve they insist on uniform use of IE when they could just as easily choose a much more standards-conformant browser.

So I think you ought to put the blame where it is due, with IE.

On the other hand, I completely understand your frustration with working with someone else's codebase. It is not the way you would have done it. We all feel that way when having to maintain someone else's code. However, do you think you'd really feel any different if you'd picked up a bunch of PHP or Javascript spaghetti? I like GWT not because it is good, but because it is the least worse way of getting a team to produce nicely interactive applications on the web (IMHO).

Shouldn't title be more specific

[Kartu]

Shouldn't title mention "nVidia GPU" or did I miss that AMD now supports CUDA on top of OpenCL?

Re:Shouldn't title be more specific

[loufoque]

At the moment, few people care about ATI cards for anything else than video games.
This may change in the next few years as better ATI graphics card for HPC are introduced.

Re:Shouldn't title be more specific

[Anonymous Coward]

At the moment, few people care about ATI cards for anything else than video games.
This may change in the next few years as better ATI graphics card for HPC are introduced.

With whe HD7970, ATI has the best OpenCL architecture for most algorithms. The GTX680 still wins in some cases, but ATI is definitely up there with them now.

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome. Now this is useful because ...?

why are you working for oracle for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

if oracle wants a java compiler let them write it, stop being a corporate toady.

c- java simple

[gl4ss]

yeah, you can even automate it..

now, I wonder if this gpu project could be used to run http://www.ode4j.org/ ..(ode for java is a port of a c/c++ physics lib to java, mostly automated conversion. it actually works pretty nicely.)

Wrong direction...

[aaronb1138]

Given Java's current direction (Oracle) and all of the hell we (the IT industry) have been put through already with Java's false promises of WORA, shouldn't most of our efforts be towards abandoning Java entirely. Frankly, code translators, like Facebook's PHP to C translator seem like better investments in code performance and portability (I am aware portability is not their goal, but it is an interesting side effect).

Get the industry to rally behind a consistent language which has strong RAD functionality (Python?) and find better ways to translate and optimize the slow chunks of code during interactive compilation and profiling. IDEs and compilers need to move the direction of content creation tools like Dreamweaver, where the developer can see the results interactively and instantly on a variety of platforms via virtualization. How great would it be if following a multi-platform compilation run, a LibreOffice developer could see and interact with the results on Ubuntu, Windows, OSX, and Android all at the same time?

Running crap code on more interesting platforms does not fix the problems already there.

Re:Wrong direction...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Running crap code on more interesting platforms does not fix the problems already there.

The same can be said about PHP, which after all is (a) crap and (b) not WORA at all (point in case: libraries still supporting PHP 4 because hosting companies don't upgrade).

By absolute measures -- yes, Java is crap. But it's still better than anything else out there... kind of frightening, isn't it?

Re:Wrong direction...

[TheSunborn]

Nothing which the require the developer to write in php can be called progress.

And while the ability to run LibreOffice and modify the code while the program is running would be really cool, the available tools are still far from able to do that.

There are funny enough java tools which are working in that direction. And the best are able recompile parts of a running program, and then let the program use the new code without stopping it.

Re:Wrong direction...

[swilver]

You must be doing it wrong. WORA is working perfectly for me and everyone I've met in the field at the various companies I've worked for in the past 15 years. Usually it is written and tested on Windows boxes, and deployed on Linux, already at my most recent job it is developed on Linux and deployed on Solaris.

Malware

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean the malware can now run on the GPU and evade detection by a virus scanner?
Will we need a new virus scanner for the GPU?

NDK

[tepples]

Android has had NDK for at least as long as I've been using Android. It's Xbox Live Indie Games and Windows Phone 7 that aren't allowed to use native code.

Technical vs. business

[tepples]

It is surprising that an applet can't be rewritten

Well technically it can. Business-wise it'd cost money, and the manufacturer would rather sell you new hardware containing the rewrite.

Java and home PC input devices

[tepples]

How should a Java application read the joystick, camera, and microphone attached to a computer? For example, this joystick driver is described as "Works on Windows and Linux" and presumably not Mac OS X.

Re:Java and home PC input devices

[SplashMyBandit]

JInput supports all devices I have yet thrown at it on Mac, Linux, Windows (which is Saitek Rudder Pedals, Thrustmaster F-16 MFDs, Thrustmaster Warthog Hotas, Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS, lots of different mice, lots of different keyboards, a PS/3 DualShock controller [a passable budget replacement for a 4-axis HOTAS]). The only thing that JInput couldn't do is work with my TrackIR 5 head tracking system. Fortunately there is an excellent project called linux-tracker that allows you to use the TrackIR 5 on Mac and Linux - although you have to do the Java integration yourself. linux-tracker also has some support for cameras. Next on my list is using OpenKinect to support Kinect for headtracking in my sim (means no stupid reflector headgear or headset clip like the TrackIR), fortunately OpenKinect already includes both JNI and JNA (much better) bindings for Java integration.

With regard to microphone integration I haven't done anything with that myself. JOAL is good for outputting sounds in a cross-platform way but I haven't even looked to see whether it does input (JOAL is a wrapper around OpenAL).

JInput isn't perfect though. It doesn't register new devices once initialized, which someday I hope to contribute back to fix this. If a device is plugged in when you initialize JInput in your program then it works really well.

Try running Eclipse over VNC

[tepples]

In before someone suggests a workaround of using your netbook to connect to a more powerful computer using X11 or RDP or VNC, in much the same way that iPad apologists claim to be able to use their iPads for software development through remote access. But then I've had to work around it a different way because I'm often using my netbook on the bus, which does not provide Wi-Fi to passengers, and I don't have the money to "Share Everything" as Verizon Wireless has been calling it.

Appeal

[tepples]

Oracle lost that battle on all claims.

They can lose, but that doesn't mean they can't appeal and use up more of the opponent's legal funds.

Linking GPL Java class libraries to non-free app

[tepples]

As I understand it, a patent license associated with a covered work applies only to derivative works of the covered work, and all such derivative works have to be GPL. If an interpreter with a JIT compiler is GPL, is it even permitted to distribute it alongside GPL-incompatible applications, or would they be considered linked to the libraries? Consider that the license of Linux is GPLv2 with an express exception allowing the use of non-free applications:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".

If this "NOTE!" is proved necessary, Oracle could claim copyright infringement against anyone who bundles a modified OpenJDK with GPL-incompatible applications.

When was Android first published?

[tepples]

Google was sued because they took the Java APIs and have not got a license from Oracle (that was before Java was released under the GPL with OpenJDK). [...] Since Java is now at least 6 years under the GPL there are no issues anymore.

I don't remember being able to buy an HTC Dream, the first Android phone, in 2006.

We now all know the result of that venture, the SSO of APIs is not copyrightable

How is the structure, sequence, and organization of APIs not copyrightable, while the structure, sequence, and organization of a video game is?

Re:When was Android first published?

[devent]

I think they started developing Android way before a first release of a Android phone? From wikipedia:

> Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October 2003 [...] Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making Android Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google.
> On 17 November 2006, Sun announced that it would be released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), thus making it free software. This happened in large part on 8 May 2007;
> J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)

So I think Palo Alto started development of Android in 2003, which at that time Java 1.4 was available.

I'm not a lawyer, but since APIs are only a dictionary of methods, classes, (i.e. of names or facts) they are not protected by the copyright law. Please go to http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoogle to a better explanation.

Re:When was Android first published?

[tepples]

I think they started developing Android way before a first release of a Android phone

So if I understand your explanation correctly, Oracle was accusing Google of infringing copyright solely by making copies behind Google's closed doors.

[The GPL release of OpenJDK] happened in large part on 8 May 2007

And the beta version of Android wasn't distributed to the public until a few days shy of six months later, again according to Wikipedia.

Re:When was Android first published?

[devent]

I would think that the APIs are going back to Java 1.0. So when Google released Android the APIs Android is using are back from Java 1.0, so Oracle believed that Google infringe on their copyrights. For example, almost all in the package java.lang (java.lang.Object, String) are from Java 1.0.

Re:When was Android first published?

[tepples]

As I understand it, properly written packages for Java 1.0 are supposed to be compatible with GPL OpenJDK, and OpenJDK was published before Android. So where's this solid proof that those parts of Android in question were copied from Java 1.0 and not replaced with copies from OpenJDK before publication?

Bitcoin

[tepples]

few people care about ATI cards for anything else than video games

Aren't AMD cards better than NVIDIA for the calculations used in Bitcoin verification?

"realtime" GC

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used quite a few languages which use GC and even though some are quite mature now, like VW Smalltalk, all of them freeze on a regular basis, just when you don't want it to happen. I have also used and developed large-scale systems which do not have this trait, and all of them were done in C or C++ and they use explicit allocation or reference-counted memory management.

Only academics claim that refcounting is inferior; engineers have built lots of systems based on that technique and they work extremely well.

Thanks for the references; I will look into them, but I am still highly in doubt about "realtime GC" and I have never heard of anything actually realt-time critical being done in a GC language. Where is the drone flown by a LISP control law program ??

Re:"realtime" GC

[pthisis]

I have used quite a few languages which use GC and even though some are quite mature now, like VW Smalltalk, all of them freeze on a regular basis, just when you don't want it to happen. I have also used and developed large-scale systems which do not have this trait, and all of them were done in C or C++ and they use explicit allocation or reference-counted memory management.

1. VW Smalltalk uses a full (non-generational) tracing collector which makes no pretenses of being low-latency, let alone realtime.

2. Refcounting is a kind of GC, not something different; mark-sweep is the other most common algorithm, but it's a mistake to refer to any one method as "garbage collection" at the expense of others.

3. If you want to look at real-word implementations, Lua and squeak are probably the two most prevalent systems that use realtime GC (squeak is only mostly there--doing weird things in destructors can make it not real-time). OCaml is 2nd-generation incremental, which is not realtime but is low-latency in the common case.

Lua added incremental GC as of version 5.1 mainly because it's seeking to be used as an extension language in games which have pretty rigorous soft realtime requirements.

IBM's Metronome (AKA Websphere Realtime) is a realtime JVM that's seen a fair amount of use in the real world. It uses a newer algorithm by Bacon (who's mentioned above) that's completely hard realtime and fits the constraints of the JVM. http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_project.php?id=174

Re:"realtime" GC

[pthisis]

Where is the drone flown by a LISP control law program ??

Oh, yeah, and it's not a drone but there were certainly a number of military robots developed by IS Robotics and others using realtime Lisp variants in the 1990s. e.g.:

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA399584

The Real-Time Dynamic Languages contract consists of three separable efforts:

1. Evolutionary Design of Complex Systems (EDCS) (CLINs 0001 and 0002).
2. A Behavioral Programming Approach to Adaptive Autonomous Control (SAFER) (CLIN 0003).
3. Adding an Active Vision Head to the M4 Robot (CLIN 0004). ...
The portable Common Lisp subset used to develop the software is based on previous work by iRobot on
L, a Common Lisp subset that currently runs on 68000-based machines. L was carefully designed and
implemented for use in small, embedded processors operating under real-time constraints; it is currently
in use on a number of walking, tracked, and wheeled robots being developed by iRobot.

The memory management system for L has been redesigned, making use of recent research results by the
garbage collection community, particularly in the area of real-time garbage collection.

Yo dawg

[Hognoxious]

No one becomes a bad student without, at some point, having a bad teacher.

Presumably that bad teacher was once a student. A bad student - after all she wasn't very good at studying how to be a teacher, was she? Perhaps that was because her teacher of teaching was bad. Rinse & repeat.

So who's to blame? Jesus? Buddha? Aristotle?

Java compatibility 5/6, 32 and 64 bits

[aled]

We had an incident a couple of years ago were all our apps (four jboss instances) started running in java 6 32-bits instead of the java 5 64-bits they were always tested and run because of an error on the data center provider who maintained the operating system installed and changed the system default version of java.
We didn't even notice the change except that a third-party native shared object (a dll in linux) started to fail, because it was compiled in C for 64-bits.
Modern Java reasonably written has wonderful compatibility and portability.

CUDA, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So AMD hardware aren't GPUs then? Where's the OpenCL support? Well?

You are beyond ignorant

[Anonymous Coward]

Properties .... really?? I guess you never programmed in Java.
Method pointers ..... I guess you have no clue of how object oriented programing works.
user defined types ..... what the hell do you think classes are?
parameter pass by reference .... are you really this dumb??? How the hell do you think Java passes data??
operator overloading .... HINT: Java is not C.

In conclusion, you are beyond ignorant and really hope you never work on anything computer related ... because you don't even have the ability to self educate yourself.

Re:You are beyond ignorant

[petermgreen]

Properties .... really??

Java DOES NOT have properties at the language level meaning that code using objects inevitablly ends up get/set infested making lines of code unnecessarily long and obscure. If you have ever programmed in a language that has proper support for them it's painful to switch to a language that doesn't.

I guess you never programmed in Java.

I have programmed in java usually because of libraries I wanted to use and wide support but I find it a horribly constricting language to work in.

Method pointers ..... I guess you have no clue of how object oriented programing works.

Method pointers are by far the neatest soloution to event handling i've come across though admittedly inner classes aren't worlds away from method pointers just uglier (much like the getters and setters java coders use to make up for the lack of properties).

user defined types ..... what the hell do you think classes are?

I said value types. Java classes always have an implicit pointer.

So if I want a big array of my custom data type I either have to seperately allocate every element creating a load of unnessacery work for the memory manager and an unnessacery pointer lookup on every access or use paralell arrays of primitives (which is what those who want high performance and are stuck with java do but it's a pretty twisted way to code).

parameter pass by reference .... are you really this dumb??? How the hell do you think Java passes data??

Java parameters are always passed by value. This along with the lack of user value types means that all your options for returning more than a single numeric value from a function suck.

You can create an object and return it. Unless the VM is doing REALLY clever optimisation* this means that for every invocation of the function an object will be created and most likely thrown away.

You can fill in values in an object provided by the parent (while the parameter itself is passed by value the implicit pointer mentioned about comes into play so the function can change the objects fields even though it can't change what object the caller is referring to). This isn't as bad as the first option but depending on how often the parent function is called it can still create loads of unneeded garbage.

You can use static variables or fields in the object the function belogs to (if it's an instance function) etc (YUCK).

operator overloading .... HINT: Java is not C.

Afaict Java is basically the subset of C++ that sun thought crappy programmers could come with and that they could successfully sandbox (with the technology of the early 1990s) with garbage collection (which was needed because manual memory management is hard to sandbox and hard for crappy programmers to cope with) added on.

you don't even have the ability to self educate yourself.

You sound like someone who completely lacks the experience to compare and contrast different programming languages.

* I firmly belive that if you have to implement escape analysis to make up for the lack of reference parameters your language is fundamentally broken.

And The Worst Case Behaviour ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what is relevant when you play a shooter game and somebody aims at you; can then the "seldom" GC event kick in ?

Memory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at this

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=java

and please don't tell me memory is cheap. There will always be applications which max out RAM and you cannot simply "solve" that problem by buying more. There are always some hard limits on what you can plug into a certain class of computer. Don't assume everybody is in the transaction processing business writing business logic;some people are actually developing database engines, data mining engines, signal processors, CAD systems, realistic 3D games, simulators, image processors, movie rendering engines and the like.

Lazarus ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a freeware delphi clone and it displays almost all of delphi's advantages plus it is multi-platform. So extremely quick compilation, nice IDE, nice GUI library, proper type system and efficient runtime behaviour. I don't think python has all that.

WxWidgets, Qt, GTK - All WORA

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can create portable GUI programs which are also highly efficient. Just don't use platform-specific stuff such as Windows-only system calls. Also, that approach can be also applied to many other fields such as Sound, networking, database access, printing and so on. Just don't blindly take some vendor's lock-in API. Research what exists and leverage that.

The submitter is new here

[Anonymous Coward]

The submitter is new here and the mods didn't RTFA and therefor failed to catch this.

Simple solution

[Skapare]

Dump x264 as badly designed and use a new video compression design that can take advantage of the parallelism.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it does not at all make sense to generate String objects in every iteration of a frequently used loop. Re-use a StringBuffer on every iteration in that case. Re-using frequently used objects is probably a good idea. But that does indeed lead you into making your own memory managers, as it is not obvious when you will have to release an object pool. Still, it is almost inevitable to create garbage and even if you do it at a very low rate, at one point the GC will kick in and according to Murphy that will be 30 minutes into a critical presentation to your customer.

With Android phones, I suspect it kicks in every minute or so and it does indeed damage User Experience.

CPU to GPU to GCPU

[tchiwam]

Interesting how in the 80's the CPU was doing most of the graphical heavy lifting, it then moved to the GPU in the 90's, and now the kernel is moving there too... When will we see a booter straight to the GPU ? I think some projects are already thinking about it.

A blessing for Minecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Concidering how much CPU Minecraft takes up, tranfering the load to the GPU will be a blessing

Aparapi?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this different than Aparapi?

http://code.google.com/p/aparapi/

Aparapi is a heterogeneous compute and data parallel framework for Java that automatically generates OpenCL from bytecode. There is no reason that Aparapi could not produce CUDA or HSA are well.

Aparapi was open-sourced by AMD over a year ago and is actively maintained by both AMD and other contributors.