Java 2 & Hotspot on Linux in 2000

djKing wrote to us with the news that Sun will be releasing a "Java2-compliant JVM for Linux that brings the performance, functions, and Java HotSpot features of the latest Java specifications to the Linux community", which will be announced at the Java Developers' Conference. As well, IBM will be announcing the free general availability of a JSDK 1.18-compliant JVM, with performance better then that of Windows NT JVMs.

Comments

Java Advocacy

[HRbnjR]

First, to those who think Java is closed, let's get it straight, Java is open...Suns _implementation_ of Java is closed! Anyone can download and implement the Java spec...as several have. And Sun is at least attempting to achieve some consensus and standardization for what they create, which is a hell of a lot better than most other companies (how many people did MS ask for input on, say, DCOM???).

Sun's implementation of the spec may be closed, but it is still more open than a lot of other closed software. Their community source licence, if not that great, is at least a step in the right direction, and if other companies took this step, we would be decidedly better off. It takes time for the corporate world to embrace, understand, and experiment with open software...Sun is heading it the right direction. Keep in mind, they have to make money to survive. Eventually, given the same time C/C++ has had, there will be many good open implementations.

Java being an open specification, with independant, and open implementations, makes it as open as anything else in this world. Just because there are closed implementations, doesn't make Java closed. If Sun started charging $10,000 for their Java implementation tomorrow...what would happen? The whole community would start working on Kaffe, and you can bet IBM (with all they have invested) would do a cleanroom and open source it, but basically, life would go on without Sun. What would all the Visual Basic programmers do if MS started charging $10,000 for VB? Look at how many people use VB! (Don't even get me started on comparing them)

As for Java changing "every five minutes" as some people like to quote, or about it being unstable and buggy. Well, that's true, or at least it has been in the past. But Java is a really new language!!!! I'll say it again...it's new! Java, like Linux in some ways, has been pushed into the spotlight before it's time, because it fills the need better than any of the alternatives. I think Sun has done a great job of moving the languages features forward quickly enough that MS can't hijack it by adding missing/needed features that will in turn tie Java to Windows. Being a full time Java developer, I could never go back to C++/Win32, despite the bugs, and a _few_ missing bits here and there, Java is a _great_ language to work with. Stability and speed, and more open implementations, these will all come with time. Actually, Swing is becoming useable, and the new JIT's are actually quite fast on "reasonable" hardware.

Java is just now really starting to become a viable platform. Linux is in the same vote, it's a relatively new operating system, and is still evolving at a pace at least as quickly (or more) than Java in areas such as multimedia, multitrack digital recording, DVD, USB, component architectures (KOM/Open Parts), etc.

Most importantly, Java is the only real chance Linux has of putting down windows in the enterprise. Even once all the productivity apps are in place on Linux, and the interface (Gnome/KDE) blows away Windows, and it's easy enough for grandma to install, the MS installed base is going to be the problem. Java gives companies a way to easily migrate from Windows to Linux. Java is the link that will let this happen. Normally, convincing a MS based company to develop their inhouse software on Linux would be impossible. But Java is a good language for _MANY_ other reasons than being cross platform, which will get companies to use it, even if it's only on top of Windows. Then one day, when they discover Linux, they will find that they can slowly (or quickly) throw away their Windows boxes without spending a trillion dollars migrating a myriad of software all at once. Without Java, it will never happen.

That is why Linux and Java are a good match.

We have an Open Source one. Who cares about Sun?

[Bruce Perens]

This appeared today on Technocrat. I hold the copyright of the article, so I can paste it in here.

Transvirtual and the Kaffe Core Team have released Kaffe 1.0.5 (finally!). It's got a new JIT, new processor ports, a clean-room RMI implementation, kernel threads, and much more. For more information see http://www.kaffe.org/

Transvirtual Technologies, Inc. today released Kaffe OpenVM 1.0.5, the only complete Java implementation available with a true Open Source license.

The release heralds a major improvement in the reliability and performance of open source Java implementations. Tests conducted with various Open Source server side Java applications, including the popular Apache/JServ webserver and the Enydra Java/XML Application Server, demonstrate Kaffe out performs its Java Linux rivals by as much as 300%. Kaffe also proves more reliable than other Java implementations which simply hang when running under heavy load.

Transvirtual targets Linux as their primary server-side, desktop and embedded environments. Kaffe, developed using the Open Source model, once again demonstrates how Open Source can offer a better, cheaper, faster and more reliable product than proprietary alternatives.

This new release of Kaffe also offers a number of new features, including:

* Bundling of the KJC Java compiler from Decision Management Systems (http://www.dms.at/kopi) - a complete JDK 1.2 Open Source compiler suite.

* A complete Remote Method Invocation implementation written in collaboration with the GNU Classpath project (http://www.classpath.org).

* Support for the the popular Cobalt Network Web Servers.

* Support for the MIPS and StrongARM processors (Kaffe already supports Pentiums, Sparcs, Alphas and Motorola processors).

For more details on Transvirtual Technologies see their web site.

For more details on the Kaffe Open Source Project see The Kaffe Project Web Site.

All names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Java used almost everywhere for new development

[rcromwell2]

In terms of academia and research, if you look at the IETF and W3C, almost all "new" protocols start out with Java prototype implementations. This is particularly true of the W3C. Jigsaw, XML, XSL, P3P, SVG, ...

If you look at commercial websites, E-Trade and Datek come to mind, you'll see Java on the backend.

My own free pop/webmail/antispam service msgto.com) uses Java for everything, JSP, servlets, SMTP, POP server, etc. It's also
faster and more responsive than Hotmail.

Yesterday, two spammers took "revenge" on our site by redirecting spam bounces to my site. In a
10 hour period, about 1 million bounced messages were received and discarded on a lowly dual-processor Solarisx86 box. Even now, we are getting about 10 messages per second but 'top' shows only 10% CPU utilization for the JavaVM and 30M memory used. Java definately scales.

Solarisx86 was used for only two reasons. One, when development was started, JDK1.2 wasn't available on Linux, and our servers use JDK1.2 heavily for its new garbage collection/memory management features and fine grained security.

Second, Solaris can scale to thousands of threads across multiple processors. Only TowerJ on Linux allows massive numbers of threads (by not using kernel threads), and Java's I/O mechanism relies on launching large numbers of threads. But TowerJ is not JDK1.2 compliant: bummer! Otherwise, I would love to have a bunch of rackmounted VA Research boxes.


The only place Java really failed was on the desktop application area. But I'm of the opinion that the general trend is that we are moving away from desktop applications and more towards web-based applications. So in a sense, most new desktop apps will fail, regardless of the programming language they are written in, and especially those that try to compete with areas Microsoft dominates. When was the last "killer-gotta-have-it-client-side app created" I can't think of many besides games, browsers, and other multimedia related utilities.

In the past, if you wanted to manage an address book, or a database, someone would ship you a VB or some other 4GL based app, that displays forms on your desktop and inserts them into the DB. Nowadays, most of these apps can be done on the network. This covers most business uses.

What's left for the desktop apps is multimedia. Music, Games, animation, art.


This Sun/IBM announcement is great news. I only wish that IBM would come out with a JDK1.2 compliant VM, because IBM seems to be alot better at optimizing VMs.

-Ray

This is a Good Thing (tm)

[GnuGrendel]

I know a lot of /. readers don't like Java for X, Y, or Z reasons, but this is a really REALLY Good Thing (tm).

The direction middleware (such as application servers, transaction monitors, messaging servers, etc) is going is Java, like it or not (I happen to like it quite a bit). Enterprise Java is getting even more hype in these areas than Linux itself *grin*.

As I've personally just been doing an overview of a systems architecture for a large (fortune 50 or so) company's internal functions, I can tell you that Java support is really holding back a lot of the enterprise middleware products that are available for NT, Solaris, AIX, etc. I had to recommend not using Linux because these enterprise applications are not available for Linux. Hopefully, this move from Sun and IBM's great work on Linux JVM's will help to remedy this situation.

Plus, with the Apache Jakarta code finally having dropped (thanks again Sun!) it will be nice to have a fast, stable 1.2 JVM. I've heard that the Blackdown port is relatively stable, but the Volano benchmarks show it to be relatively slow.

IBM is likely the motivating force here...

[russcoon]

I have this sneaking suspicion that IBM was the motiviating factor in all of this. I work in/around an AS/400 shop (but I am a web designer) and it seems to me that IBM is pushing Java just as fast as it'll go. Additionally, it makes sense for IBM to pursue this route in terms of client independence. IBM really doesn't have a competitive client to push into the market at this point, so by pushing Java to every other platform, they hedge their bets and can sit back and watch the client wars play out while they focus on the Big Iron behind it all without having to worry quite so much about interoperability problems. My guess is that they will drag Sun kicking and screaming along with this plan through some kind of liscensing deal that we may/may not be privy too. Heaven knows that IBM's patent arsenal affects Sun _somehow_

Is it IBM vs. Sun??

[Ledge Kindred]

I've been using IBM's JDK1.1.8 for some time now and have found it's extremely stable and extremely good performance - not what you'd expect at all from something labeled "Alpha version" - it hasn't crashed at all under some pretty severe situations, even using native threads and the JIT.

The IBM JDK does need a kernel 2.2/glibc-2.1-based machine, but if you're "into" Java, you're going to want to be on those versions anyway for the improved native thread support. (read: "working native thread support.")

We'll have to see how things turn out in a few months regarding a Java2 JDK, but I'd put my money on IBM. Sun's good at talking the talk, but IBM has proved themselves to also be good at walking the walk. (And it seems like the poor Blackdown guys have just been getting the shaft...)

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Re:Is there a need for Java?

[Ledge Kindred]

You've touched on the place that Java is developing quite a following. Not too many people that I personally know of are working on building full-screen interactive applications, we're all working on using Java as a back-end, middleware app, application server, servlet engine, database gateway, what-have-you, which is where it really shines.

Some of the things that I personally think make it ideal for server-side programming are: excellent database API (JDBC), native support for http and ftp xfers, multithreading, a very easy to use exception handling mechanism, and the object-oriented programming model can be mapped very well onto things like database and file objects. When you're not trying to do interactive graphical apps, speed is very good and only a few percent behind compiled apps with most things I've seen.

The cross-platform-ability also makes it easy to develop on Windows or Linux boxes, then take the same code and drop it on your Sun E10000 to deploy. You just have to make sure your Windows-based developers aren't using MS J++ and writing incompatible code... :)

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