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Java on BeOS, supported by Sun
John Kenneth Grytten writes "Be and Sun have announced that they will be working together to bring Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition and PersonalJava to BeOs." They expect to have betas ready by the end of the year, with shipping versions going out 1Q 2000.
They don't want to sign their death warrant just yet. It behooves them to foster the impression that Java's best environment is on a Sun box. If a kick ass JVM comes out for Java 2 on Linux, they are surely up shit's creek.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
good because I love beos, and everything that it stands for but having no java support sucks. Not to mention that the javascript support for all of the web browsers for it suck
Heh heh. BeOS 1, Linux 0.
This isn't to knock the Blackdown team -- they have done a terrific job. But doing such a port really is a lot of work, maybe too much for a closed porting team. If we could open up the porting process and let those of us with different systems really bang on it, I'm sure things would be progressing much more rapidly.
Matt Welsh
Its said that a JDK with hotspot features is coming soon for linux. dont you read slashdot?? :)
---> Did you know Linux stands for Linux Is Not UniX ?
The real winner of the MS trial is Sun. This will pretty much open the door for them to slaughter them in the court room over MS' breach of contracts.
What I personally would like to see is Java used on a wide-scale basis for Office Application software, etc. That way platform architecture would not hinder the software.
Funny, it was just yesterday I was wondering if there was a BeOS Look And Feel for swing. Anyway, it is good to see that BeOS will be supported. Now if I could only get a supported version for FreeBSD, I'd be set.
Great! Windows95/98/NT, BeOS, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, all have or will have Java2 support.
Now if only Mac would get something a little newer than 1.1.6. I can't believe Be is just now getting it. They were on the ball about getting Gtk+ ported....
I guess Sun just wouldn't help em. I wonder if the recent "Finding of facts" helped push this into action.
I think that the best hope for desktop computing is Be. Now that Microsoft is under the legal gun, it's excellent that Be start getting more support. I wonder if this announcement was timed on the MS findings...
I would like to see the Sun port to Linux surface... I love the Blackdown stuff, but that's still in prerelease...
Be on the desktop, Linux on the server side... Rah.
Its good to see Sun working with Be and the recently anounced true effort to support Java 2 on Linux (bejond just giving some small help to blackdown). I'm not a BeOS user but I do develop with Java some of the time, I want to see my programs available to everyone. I wish Sun would really beef up their community process. They need to setup an online CVS system instead of just releasing the source for each version... SB
Seems that BeOS is the new darling of pop media. Probably in Sun's best interest to develop it on Be first.
Woohoo! There's another reason I'm going to snatch BeOS as soon as I can. I'm a Java developer, and I think Java support is great for alternative OSs.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
For server side stuff, and for embedded stuff, Java is the way of the future. I'm glad to see movement in this direction--personal Java for Be has some real potential. Java is the only credible threat to WinCE in the long run. (Much as I like the palm pilot, it's internal memory model and APIs just don't give developers enough to work with.)
However, I have to say that I don't see much good in the future for Java as a GUI platform. Be is definately a GUI platform, so it seems to me the first step is to get that stuff working, at the technolgoy level. Maybe the Be developers can return the favour and help make Java an effective GUI platform.
Realistically, the competition is shockwave--it's fast, slick, and definately well on its way to being a class one killer app.
Java just isn't competing here--it's still slow, clunky, and cumbersome. It's pretty obvious that Sun spent 10 years perfecting Java for embedded and server applications, making a damn fine product. But then they hacked a bunch of GUI stuff onto that in a few short months and called it a "web applicaton". Applets are an outright disaster, and GUI applications don't fare much better.
Which is a shame, since it's such a good idea. Shockwave is going to kill Java unless something is done to speed up the raw GUI performance.
Don't take me as a Java hater, I'm not--I love Java on the server, and even have a big free software project devoted to making life easier there (webmacro). I just don't like the Java GUI.
Well, this is a press release, not an actual software release. It could turn out that a year from now it's announced for some other OS and someone says "Other OS???!!! What about the BeOS port promised a long time ago?"
-beme
-beme
1971
I know C, C++, Ada, Java, COBOL, x86 asembly and I still like Java the best. Why? Because it's a nice OO language that saves me lots of time in the R&D department. Hotspot is really helping the speed issue a lot. But speed of execution is not the only measure of speed. You can develop an app in Java a lot quicker and if you pay attention to what your doing, it really will be WORA.
Think how functional Marabilis could be if they had kept the javaicq port going. Now they would have a nice version on Every platform. As it is, you have 10 versions that all lack features because we have to make them ourselves without all the protocol knowledge we need. This could have easily been avioded. Also, the java version would let you use icq on a computer that didn't have it installed. You could set it up so that you could go to a website and log in if you were on a friends computer or a lab computer... or whatever.
Sad sad sad...
This is REAL BeOS news. Keep going Be Inc ...
Will the world be filled with endless "BeOS vs. Linux" arguments, instead of "Mac vs. PC"?
I am a Linux user and I'm OK, (so don't flame me)
</disclaimer>
It's wonderful to see more and more people taking BeOS seriously. Every OS need a good JVM (even Linux). Let's hope Sun is serious about this.
By the way, "BeKaffe" has been around for awhile now. They are an independent effort working on a Java AWT.
I would say Linux is all over the place ..
I've been itching to get my hands on BeOS for over a year now, but I'm a little apprehensive about shelling out $$$ for pay software that's hung at it's current version level for so long.
Does anyone have any information as to when the next release for BeOS might be expected? I'd just hate to have shelled out $60-$90 for a new OS to play around with just before a new major release renders it old tech.
PS: All apologies if this is seen as off topic.
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
I'm not aware that they have delivered on any of them. Have they actually
-- Slashdot sucks.
....sometimes this is what you want in a language, sometimes its not. For those other times, Java (or Perl) are good tools.
One of the major selling points for Be is the speed. Remember "It boots up in under 20 seconds!"? Hmmm...now add java in any form...this is a joke right? Java has had its day in the sun (no pun intended), though that's questionable to begin with. It's slow, ugly, and a real hog of cpu and memory. Can't we move on? There are _hundreds_ of better alternatives.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
If NeXT had properly marketed it it would be cross platform.. As it stands you've only got MacOSX, Windows, and sort Unixes with GNUStep. Other than that, it's everything Java wishes it was, with a better base language to boot :)
Java v1.3, which is actually a solid client-side programming possibility. v1.2 is nice for servers and networking, but Be is really looking for client applications. --JRZ
I had been planning on installing BeOS in the near future, and had been lamenting the lack of Java.
:) )
They're suggesting a fast timeframe, though. Beta verion in less than 2 months? Production version by 1Q2000? I also wonder which version they'll be porting 1.2, or 1.3 (hopefully 1.3 since it has the client-optimized version of Hotspot). Mind you, I guess much of the Swing stuff is already written in Java, which should make it pretty easy to port (at least, that's what the Java advertising always says
I wish them the best of luck, but won't be shocked if those delivery dates slip at bit.
Dana
The most recent publicly available BeOS is R4.5.2.
Be is working on a 4.x relase codenamed Maui. It should have improved media nodes and some other goodies.
The BIG improvement is Dano, which will probably end up being R5. Dano will have totaly reworked and improved networking.
I would guess that it's probably easier to get Java running well on BeOS than any other environment, because Java is a thread-based language. From what I understand, Be threads are a snap.
D
----
Bill Joy,
Why do you share your toys with other like BeOS and NT(who hates you), but not with me.
I want to be your friend, but you are making me mad. Don't you realize that Kaffe, HP, MS and I(linux) could get together and stomp on you?
-Linux
This is great news. We've been memeber of the BeOS developers program for a couple of years, but I haven't been able to do any 'real' development on it because our code has to be able to run on other machines.
BeOS itself is so slick..once you've used it, it is such a drag (literallly) to go back to NT, or even Linux. There is _no_ refresh lag, resources are used up smoothly and predicatbly, and the whole thing boots instantaneously (at least when compared to NT!) Also, with real file jouranling, you can even shut the machine off (not reccommended though!) and not worry that you've just corrupted your entire file system; when you shut down correctly, there is hardly any wait at all.
BeOS also has a commendably simple, clean and elegant API implementation. Actually, its the cleanest, most rational C++ implementation I've seen. (Hmmm, maybe thats not saying much. I guess I should say its a great implementation regardless of language.) Interestingly, they have explicitly avoided all the C++ 'enhancements' like STL, exceptions model, etc.., etc.. and are really writing to the bone; they're really using C++ like C with simple object extensions which is the only way I'd ever use it.
I love Java, but I'm not a completly fanatical idiot about it. Right now, you simply couldn't implement the low-level parts of a decent OS in Java. If this is a good Java implementation, with the BeOS finegrained threading, clean graphics mdel, etc.., this has the potential to be the best Java implementation of them all. Truly the best of both worlds.
Still trying hard to keep my expecations down so if its a half-assed implementaiton I won't Be Bummed..
it looks like where Java will succeeded is in the Middle tier. so I'm unsure on how useful it will be for poor BeOS. a lot of barley functionally games do not make a OS succeeded. Either Java needs to start providing a good way to make good windowed apps or people actually need to write stuff for BeOS. I have heard about something called something like "JFC", it's supposed to be a really good API for creating GUI's. I still am skeptical if it will allow Java to make usable GUI apps in a "pure" "portable" java however.
It would help a lot of BeOS didn't try to get money for there OS. I'd love to check it out, but I'm not about to spend $80. also why the heck did they give away the PowerPC one and not the Intel one? maybe the Intel support still sucks to hard and they're afraid it won't work on 90% of the boxes out there.
as far as I know it won't play well with my TNT2. darn..
a while back a purchased O'Riellys book on BeOS development, not a great book. but it did say "BeOS on CD-ROM". when I got home I found out it was for the friggin PowerPC. (ARGGH!!). I mailed them a little letter and ended up getting the "BeOS Advanced Developer Topics". so if BeOS would just let me download there OS I would write some Killer apps for them.
-Jon
this is my sig.
Don't forget that Sun think that they're in a difficult position because of the Linux vs Solaris issue, so inevitably there will be internal pressure from some of their divisions *not* to help out the Linux scene too much. In contrast, adding value to little ol' Be holds no danger for them.
In reality of course, assuming that they really make no money from Solaris as the rumours suggest, their best bet is probably to GPL the entirety of Solaris and to support all free operating systems equally on their nice hardware. Unfortunately, internal politics may not allow that --- the Solaris empires within Sun are far too deeply entrenched in the internal political mechanisms of the company. A pity.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
This was discussed on BeNews a few days ago, and it is believed that there will be a R4.6 very soon, with R5 (the one that's supposed to have complete hardware-accelerated OpenGL support) coming next spring. I'm not sure where any of this info came from. I really like R4.5, and the nice thing about Be is that each new major release only costs $25 for registered users, so you don't stand to lose very much if you buy a 4.x release just before R5 comes out.
Sorry for the double post.
- sigs are for wimps.
? I'm not the brightest lightbub
;-)
No you're not
Linux is much more of a moving target than BeOS. It's probably considerably easier to get this working on BeOS than on Linux.
Remember, BeOS *does* have a POSIX layer which can be used -- and it changes less often than libc/glibc.
The new networking kit should be lightning fast. This is what a Be Inc programmer wrote regarding the tcp/ip stack. "The stack that is being worked on will be very cool. It was designed by looking at BSD and linux and anything else, and trying to figure out how to make it faster and more modular. I am personally very impressed with the design. I, however, do not know when it'll be released. It's fairly far from done, so probably not the next release..."
Java isn't slow anymore. and haven't you heard about hotspot? And lest ye forget: It's about the cross-platform compatability, stupid. Not a lot of people clamoring to write a Be-Only app, but a pure Java app, that runs on Linux, Be, Winders, AIX, Solaris, without so much as recompiling. Now THAT's a language!
I recently wrote an app that needed non-blocking I/O. I had to implement it with Threads. There was no other option. If MacOS doesn't have threads, I don't see them porting any time soon.
On the other hand, they can surely get it to work with MacOS X. Anyone know why mach threads are an issue?
Joseph
Just to clarify your misconception. Be Inc. does not give the BeOS PPC version away for free. Ti ships on the same CD as the Intel version. They did at one point when there was only a PPC version, PR2 for you Be-Intel users. They offered it as a download to get more people using it. Apple had stopped provided the needed specs and Be wanted to show that there was enough support and hardware purchasing power to warrant Apple, Steve Jobs, providing Be with thte needed specs.
Java is a high-level programming language. C is a low-level programming language. Java provides bunches of features that C does not. That means that if you are competent in both Java and C, you will be able to write larger and less buggy applications in Java than in C.
It's not that people don't program in low-level languages because they're too dumb to figure them out. It's that people don't program in high-level languages because they're too dumb to figure out their utility. =)
-jacob
The future of Java on Linux will come form IBM, not Sun.
Upgrading works like this:
To upgrade from a dot-oh release (4.0) to a point release (4.x) = $0
To upgrade from a point release (4.x) to a point release (4.y) = $0
To upgrade from a dot-oh release (4.0) or a point release (4.x) to the next doh-oh release (5.0) = $25
Except that getting Java to work properly on anything except green threads (which is a userland thread-emulation package), win32 threads or Solaris threads is a real bitch.
It took the blackdown people ages to get it right (in their latest 1.1.x release it's pretty good and supposedly they've gotten it to work with 1.2 too after a _lot_ of work). Just look at the amount of non-solaris/win32 ports of java2 that aren't in alpha/beta. There's not too many of them, is there.
I wouldn't expect it to be any easier for the Be people. No matter how elegant your threads are (some people argue linuxthreads are just that), that won't help you at all if your threads dont work the same way as they do in Solaris.
Seriously, the lack of kernel threads and preemptive multitasking is so 1992. The MacOS may be cutting-edge in terms of user-friendliness, but it's like a house with a great paint job and 100-year old wiring inside.
(Bring it on! God, I love OS flaming!)
Ages ago, Be had a pre-release version of a JDK running on their operating system using native threads. Apparently, Java ran *extremely* well using the BeOS native threading.
Assuming they aren't bound by NDAs, and that BeOS still possessed the code, documentation, know-how, or all three, there isn't any reason they simply couldn't adapt the techniques they used from the old JDK to the new one (with appropriate modifications, yes).
It really brings a big smile to my face when Linux users tell me all about their FREE OS. So tell me How much did you pay for your computer???? How much was that free Redhat/Debian distro??? Monthly ISP fees to download free distro??? Cost books and magazines on Linux??? Etc... Etc... Etc...
more like BeOS 1 - Linux 30?
heh
Linux gets much more commercial vendor support than beos, at least in the hardware support department. BeOS is really damn cool but unless something drasic happens i dont see it getting out of its niche market..
VolanoMark VM Results Technically speaking, Linux is fastest but only with the TowerJ VM which costs mega $$$. The IBM JDK is the next fastest VM on Linux but it's behind VMs on NT and OS/2
Yeah, I remember that one. It was for DR8 and was fast like hell.
That's the way you're supposed to do it, but the way. Java's a great language and while it can be slow (Blackdown's JVM) it can also be very fast (IBM, TowerJ) The features of the Java language and libraries allow you to develop applications in a small fraction of the time it'd take to build the same thing in C or C++. C is not the best language for all programming tasks, it is only the best language for some programming tasks.
No, Bush really didn't really say that. In fact, during the 10th anniversary of the fall of the wall, he was so concerned about not repeating Kennedy's blunder that he said: "Ich bin ein sehr glücklicher Ehrenbürger von Berlin", instead of the grammatically correct "Ich bin ein sehr glücklicher berliner Ehrenbürger". (Sorry, for this completely offtopic post, which isn't even the first, but I was rolling on the floor when I heard him uttered that sentence...)
A couple of months ago, hanging out on comp.sys.beos, I read a statement that went something like "Be has been remarkably good at avoiding several landmines that would destroy them" -- and on the list of landmines was Java. I've been trying to figure out why this is so.
Ideas?
Tweet, tweet.
http://www.javasoft.com/pr/1998/11/pr981102-01.htm l
where sun promised to port JDK 1.2 to Linux, over a year ago! Sun has not yet provided a reference implementation for Linux. All we have is the blackdown JDK 1.2 prerelease which is buggy and *so* slow. Based on the above announcement, I wouldn't expect a BeOS JDK from Sun anytime soon, if ever. All I can say is don't get your hopes up when you read about Sun porting JDK to another OS. Sun has a reputation for making vapor announcements, with the above link as evidence.
I can't choose!
... heh heh of the 3 Linux has more apps available more active development on new technologies like PPPoE (followed very closely by FreeBSD).
;-)
;-)
...
The "firewall" is Linux because my provider has moved from DHCP to PPPoE
The BeOS system has an X server on it and I often connect to the Linux or FreeBSD boxes and run KDE applications from there. They look really nice on a BeOS desktop if KDE on the xclient machine has a BeOS theme running
Hard to decide which I like best:
- BeOS may one day be the multimedia OS (once the apps start to appear) but right now there seems to be a lot of cool MM stuff happening on Linux (/w KDE especially). Running multiple MM apps under BeOS produces *much* lower loads but they actually don't seem *that* much faster than some Linux Apps (the machines are basically identical).
- Linux filesystem is lightning fast but BeOS journalling (slow by comparison) is nice to have.
- SysV init on Linux is complex but I like what it offers (lots of status checking and easier customization of the server)
- FreeBSD bootconfig is awesome - as well the damn machine just chugs quietly away: over 4 months uptime now (as IMAP and web server - not too busy). There's something damn stable about it
Next victims: a MacOS/X server on a G4 or maybe an old black hardware NeXT machine or maybe Darwin
Why does Sun waste it's time on a two bit OS like BEOS that will never make it in the market. BE has been trying now for several years to create a new OS and still can't get anyone to write commercial quality applications for it. I guess that says it all that there success is doomed to fail soon... It would seem that Sun would do better to create a port for Linux and FreeBSD that would be more mainstream OS's than BEOS...
I kind of find it strange that no one mentions financial news from the Be world...
Last week, their stock dropped from the 8-range to the low-6 range. Just today, it rebounded completely. Does anyone know why?
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
The JDK and JRE 1.1.8 for Linux are officially released, from my understanding. The current version of the HotJava browser doesn't work on them though - it dies right out of the box... so I don't know how stable IBM's Java port is. (HotJava is supposed to work on Java 1.1.x anyway..)
Yes, I know HotJava's not that wonderful a browser, just thought it'd be a good test to see how well IBM's JDK and JRE work.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
As you may or may not know, Microsoft's stock dropped considerably today. (They finished down 1 and 5/8 points--click here for more info). This, and the news of Java on BeOS, sent Be Inc.'s stock up more than 80%. Click here for some more info on that. :)
Your Friendly Neighboorhood Netscouring Dood,
Warren
After I read all these posts, I conclude that all you Linux guys are jealous that BeOS gets Java2 while Linux does not. Im just wondering: werent you the guys that were always whining "Its not opensource so it sucks"? And now you complain that some closed source app gets ported to a closed source OS. You know what this makes me? It makes me laugh.
Several people are making commerical apps for BeOS. And I think Linux and FreeBSD are the wastes of time here. How the hell is Sun gonna make make money from a free OS? Think about it.
High level languages are great for many things. I program in Java and Perl almost exclusively. But I would never write a real datatbase program, or a arcade style gaem, in either of those languages. High level languages in general, and interpreted langagues in particular are just not cut out for that sort of thing. Never mind when we start talking about writing OS's.
It is more than just the speed issue (although that is a big one!). There are things like compactness of code, etc.. In a low level language you have to work a lot harder to get anything done, but (if you are good, and have the right ideas), the code you come up with is far better than what you could produce in anythign else. Really good compilers/interpreters can help to narrow the difference, but..
Lesson to be learned here: Just like every other issue that splits the computer world, there are always tradeoffs. You just have to pick the tool that best fits the job!
I guess there's a port of the JDK 1.1.8 for FreeBSD available.... That's FreeBSD 100 / Linux... umm... -1?
However slow it may be compared to ext2, I would die a happy death if the only filesystem I ever used again was BFS. Attributes are just plain cool for advanced users, and just plain helpful for novice users. My BeOS desktop just looks so neat with my custom icons, and managing MP3's becomes exponentially easier with an ever growing collection. BFS is just so clean and spiffy and .. and .. I WANT EVERYONE TO USE BFS FROM NOW ON. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
Care to back up that claim with some data? Servlets can be just as fast as mod_perl or mod_php. See this benchmark.
Besides, Java isn't really interpreted any more. Thinks of the Java bytecodes as a (mostly) platform-independent distribution language.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
finally someone who has seen the truth. Additionally to this: Why is Slashdot nowdays only associated with Linux? Wasnt it supposed to be for all alternative operating systems? To me it looks as if the Linux community has forgotten that MS is still not defeated. So why are all of you attacking Be? Just my 2 C
It's sad that the only company innovating in the industrial design space right now is stuck with such a lousy operating system. Just think how fast those new G4 machines or even the neat new iMacs would run if they could run BeOS. The Mac OS is a piece of shit with a bloated memory and disk footprint that slogs down even the fastest of processors with its legacy compatibility dispatch-table-happy bloatage and crash-once, reboot-everytime knee-jerk "kernel." BeOS has been in development for about 10 years. It shall prevail. It rules simply because not too many aspects of it suck. It's closed-source; big deal. Name one non-distributor open source company or project that has been financially successful. Money lets us eat. Rock on, BeOS.
First, if you haven't played with the BeOS, free up a partition and install that bad boy. It'll only take a few minutes and you'll impresssed.
On to my point...
Having a supported JDK on Be is a great thing for developers, but for it to be really useful, there needs to be a good IDE available.
Text editors and makefiles are cool, but big projects want IDEs. I wonder if Metrowerks will step up?
Java provides bunches of features that C does not. That means that if you are competent in both Java and C, you will be able to write larger and less buggy applications in Java than in C.
Sorry, gotta respectfully disagree
However, it is a VERY nice and easy language. Part of the speed problem with Java is not just the VM, but the way the language works (dynamic linking, heaps, gc, OO) etc.
I'll be happy the day I get my native compiler for Java
'Cuse me? If you'd been watching the Be front, you'd know that drastic things ARE happening. BeOS is getting more commerical support at an ever growing rate. Check the back issues of BeNews sometime.
Sun has a pretty big ego right now.
But can you say S.G.I.?
As for an article on Slashdot that doesn't have to do with Linux? Ha!
I've been following BeOS for a while. I went to their HQ and saw their demo. I got a 3.X cd and installed it. I've tinkered with it, and followed the development... so...
aside from BeOS being cool for video editing and "Neat" and good for non-geeks to use, who's going to buy it? Or... how's Be going to make any money?
Before they were targeting themselves as a niche product, but linux/unix apps are now available that do many of the things they were targeting as a niche market.
Be's refusal to go opensource with their OS source has made it inaccesible to many developers like myself who might have put significant effort into developing and porting to BeOS.
I just don't see how Be plans to make money... or why anybody should use it as opposed to unix or even windows or MacOS as a platform besides to be different.
But C is not an OO language. Both Java and C++ are OO.
Try the latest GCC.
http://www.insight.com has it for $38.99. Beyond.com and others have it for similar prices.
The drop was most likely due to a suit against Microworkz, a big BeOS web appliance maker, and the jump was thanks to the MS trial statement probably. Thanks for playing.
From a certain mindset, or perhaps political standpoint, you are correct.
On the other hand, there are those who approach open source/free software/etc. from a more pragmatic standpoint. They want *good* software: software that isn't bug-riddled, poorly designed, painfully slow, and counterintuitive. For those, they see open source as a way to avoid those pitfalls.
BeOS is a closed-source example of how to do things *right.* ESR, the champion of the pragmatic, and not ethical/moral, open source arena, praised BeOS for it's technical points. Unfortunately, ESR also slammed it as being proprietary (contrary to his statements about wanting to live in a world where software doesn't suck).
Frankly, I used BeOS, and now I'm learning Linux, and so far I've yet to find anything I want to do in Linux that I can't do in BeOS easier and quicker. As a developer, I've yet to find any API in Linux that approaches the cleanliness and coherency of the BeOS API (KDE, compared to the BeOS API, is a disaster). The only sticking point, as you say, is the proprietary nature of BeOS. Do I want them to go open source? No. Be, Inc. simply wouldn't survive. On the other hand, the closed source nature means they are limiting themselves somewhat. It's a very tough call - do I give in to the siren call of freedom and go to Linux, or do I simply use what actually suits me better and stick with BeOS?
Java + BeOS won't work very well. Swing is way slow and will not resemble BeOS's UI at all. For Java to truly help BeOS, it must become a high level controller for BeOS native code rather than this idiotic "Pure Java" crap Sun has regurgitated on us. Quality applications come down to how easily the programmers can write, debug, and ship code that is fast and crash-free. Java simply isn't there yet. Has anyone tried Java as an ActiveX automation controller? It works great, and has no speed problems. And, it's very WYSIWYG. BeOS needs this kind of application programmability for it to truly move forward. Sun should get a grip and retract on Pure Java, allowing better integration into BeOS, Windows, Linux, etc.
why is this guys post moderated at flamebait?
As soon as Linux pays a few hundred grand to Sun, I'm sure they'll be happy to speed up the port. But since Linux isn't a company, that won't happen. Sun doesn't want to deal with communities, it wants to deal with companies. Why are none of the IPO-flush Linux companies investing in Java?
Yeah it's fun to play with and see all it's cool little things, but when it comes down to doing business it just can't play....
I know Linux started the same way, but it had one advantage that BeOS doesn't. They allowed you have the source code. That way lot's of folks who wanted to tinker with it could. And that my friends is how it got where it is today...
And if you think having Java on it is going to change this then you better look around, to this day there hasn't been one successful commercial application written in Java that has succeeded in making money.... The only way Java would be successful nowadays would be to allow you to compile to native code. Let's face it the performance of Java is just not upto the task...
They already got "sick amounts of venture capital", then it ran out and they did an IPO. What do you suggest they do when that money runs out? And before somebody says services, exactly what kind of services do you have in mind? 99% of BeOS users need no tech support and aren't willing to pay for customization.
Where's those 'legions of programmers' now? STOP WHINING AND PORT IT YOURSELVES YA BUNCHA OPEN-SOURCE HIPPIES!!!
Thats because BeOS doesn't support shitty hardware. Use BeOS only if you want to be on the cutting edge and have the hardware to back it.
There are many _professional_ studio devices that are supported by BeOS, but not by Linux/Windows.
I am NOT a programmer, I don't even know basic. I was using RHL 5.2 > Openlinux 2.1 > Openlinux 2.2 and now BeOS. My system: Diamond Micronics MoBo C200 AMD K6-2 300Mhz 128MB RAM IDE ATAPI ZIP 100 Creative Labs Riva TNT 16MB PCI video card Creative Labs PCI128 Soundblaster Generic 56K Modem (jumpered) Installation: Its easier to install than DOS. Stability: Hangs every now and then when on the 'net, kinda like the first version of W95, well, maybe not that much;-) The PS command from the shell (BASh) is the only default way to manage threads? or to kill a hung app (there is a funky key combo too...but its never worked for me. So I downloaded a program called SLAYER wich is just like the GUI task manager in KDE. Applications Surprisingly, it ain't that bad, I am am very content. Although a free Office Suite wouldn't hurt. Hardware Support is very limited, if it is new and popular ya' got good chance it'll work. EXCEPT PRINTERS - - BIG WEAK POINT only a small handful of printers are supported Speed oh my god, I didn't know my PC could do that? Overall I am damn near ready to delete Linux BTW I got my copy at Worst er, Best Buy with a VERY WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT IT BOOK (BEOS BIBLE) for all of 49.99. Besy fifty bucks I ever spent - -I am HIGHLY impressed. GO FOR IT!
fuck you! I rape your mom!
Not being the brightest "lightbub", maybe you should avoid shooting your uninformed mouth off. If I were dim, I'd try not to advertise it.
What seems to be very promising for Linux is IBM's JDK once they fix the scaleability issues, which I have a lot of confidence they will. Why? They seem to be undergoing a transformation recently and producing a boatload of great stuff, especially for Linux.
Who's the fool that moderated this one? The guy was probably expressing an honest opinion. I would tend to agree with him, mostly because I know C a _lot_ better than I know Java. (I'd been doing C for a fun-filled two years when the CS dept. switched to using Java. I'm doing a weird program, so I had been in the C courses in first year, but got the Java second year courses. Fortunately, everything before 3rd year here is easy, so learning Java was no prob. (except for the project with the GUI... GUIs suck... (for some things) :)) When I learned Java, I was not too impressed. It has some nice features, but it sucks for tty I/O (as one example!). Where is the functionality of scanf(). Oh my mistake, "method"ality in OO :)
OTOH, Java would be a great language for writing interactive programs, but so is C++. I like C when I want to write a program that takes some args on the command line, does its thing, and exits. This is by nature procedural. OO almost gets in the way for this, especially if the program is fairly simple.
Anyway, moderators, just because the guy slighted java doesn't mean he is flaimbait. Java is _not_ unanimously a Good Thing for all tasks, or all programmers. I am not "against" Java. It has its uses, but it is not for everything.
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
Okay, this is going to sound both strange and very nit-picky, but:
Garbage-collection as slower than hand-allocation is a myth.
If you're familiar with GC algorithms, think about a standard copy-collection scheme: it takes time proportional to the amount of used memory to run, so freeing memory is O("reachable memory"). Now think about deallocation by hand: you free everything you ever allocate, one at a time. That's O("all memory used"). In typical programs memory is allocated all the time but doesn't need to stick around for long, so the memory reachable at any time is quite a bit smaller than all memory.
Don't fear garbage collection. It is your friend. It wants to help you. If it doesn't seem gritty enough, code while watching detective movies or something. =)
-jacob
Guess what, Linux is as proprietary as the next OS. You don't own it and is has a license that makes it very clear what you can and cannot do with it. Just because you can play with it doesn't make it yours to keep.
Have heard this before and I'm curious. Exactly what is it about a closed OS that makes difficult to develop for. I've seen some of the BeOS apps and they look pretty good, some are even commercial apps that look very good. I'm not sure what I'm missing here, so please enlighten me. Thanks
more hardware and software. "
I cna't agree with this. You list the imprortant features of a desktop OS being:
I can't see the cost argument. Some linux distributons cost more tan BeOS, and people willingy buy Windows 9x which is two and a half times as expensive as Be, or even NT, which is ten times as much. I also believe hardware support has almost stoppoed being a barrier for Be. I think the latest release really has brought it up. The only place where it really still does need improvement is in 3d support. But it's quite useable atm. Your software support criticism is valid. Hopefully the next version of Gobe will tidy up the couple of significant shortfalls it currently has (it's preview page certainly indicates this and more) so that productivity is up to scratch. The other thing both Be and linux need, and which has been talked up on this forum heaps recentl is browser support. But Be Mozilla is only a tiny bit behind the rest.
I strongly agree with what Luke said: Be outstrips linux as a desktop OS even right now. I can install it with a bit of dial up networking support on a computer illiterate friend's PC and just let them go. They are satisfied with the interface, and changing basic settings. With linux the learning curve, etc for a desktop OS is far far higher. As Luke said, Be and linux have the potential to be a rock solid combination for client/server combinations, and I'd really like to see greater integration through networking, applications, etc between the two of them.
Believe with me, my saplings.
The only thing I can't do is slap my own copyright on it. I do for all intents and purposes own it, as copyright is not a 'right' that you can morally apply to even your own property. It is unfortunate that we have the capability to distribute software in other than the most easily modifyable form. But really the GPL just tries to nullify copyright.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
Um, I don't get it. (yeah stupid :)).
Eventually wouldn't the GC release all memory used? What happens to an object that's now unreachable?
I use BeOS daily, both at work and at home.
At work, because I work as a programmer for a company
I cannot name that creates cross-platform
high-performance media applications. I was first hired
just to keep an eye on BeOS (as a potential target to
port apps), then we decided to actually port our
existing apps to BeOS ; we recently decided to use BeOS
as our primary development platform, because it's just
far ahead of the competition as being both easy to
program, easy to use, and extremely high-performance
(i.e. the latency we get now under BeOS is better than
the target we had under NT, and the BeOS implementation
of our core engine is still very basic and definitely
not optimized). The technical support we get from Be
is massively better than any other support in the
industry. They answer questions in an incredibly fast
and accurate manner.
At home, side-by-side with Windows and Linux, but BeOS
is my primary OS now. Windows is secondary for the very
few tasks that I currently cannot do in BeOS (namely,
playing games and browsing a couple web sites), and
I almost no longer use Linux. I can do in BeOS almost
everything I could do with Linux, except playing a
couple Linux-only games.
Has a phd from stanford and ain't no genious with windows. He would be lost with linux. Its non-sensical to state linux is good for the desktop. Frankly, as far as Im concerned its stupid, and you know it deep down. You know, you linux people keep trying to make the thing a desktop os, your gonna lose. Concentrate on the server, and shutup!
I wasn't talking about copyrights. I simply said that Linux is a proprietary OS. It's license makes it that way.
The algorithm I was talking about (called "stop-and-copy") works like this: you have two chunks of memory- "old" and "new." You always allocate memory from old. When you need to GC, you start at what's currently in scope (which is in old) and copy it to new. Then you go to everything that you can reach from the objects in scope and recursively copy into new until you've copied everything over. Now you turn "new" into "old" and "old" into "new" and voila, your garbage is collected.
All of the memory that you allocated but that is unreachable doesn't get copied, so that memory is reclaimed. However, you're doing work based on the amount of memory that's still active- if you have 10k of active memory, the GC will copy 10k into new, regardless of whether there's no unreachable data or a million megabytes of unreachable data.
There are other GC schemes, but you'll find that all but the most brain-dead are actually not that bad in terms of their efficiency. The idea of garbage-collection as a bad thing seems to be the result of bad PR and the absence of any popular languages that are fast and that do garbage collection well- as you pointed out, Java does lots of things that make it slower than C++. However, since the most obvious difference between it and C++ is that it is garbage-collected and C++ is not, the conclusion most people come to is that garbage collection must be what makes Java slow. It isn't true, but that's what people see. Oh well...
-jacob
You don't have to free dead objects, and do bookkeeping, individually. You can copy the live objects (usually far fewer) and then treat the whole block as uninitialized memory (unless you're doing something bizzare with finalization).
I don't know what definition of proprietary you are using, but according to the language of the FSF, software placed under the GPL is Free Software, which is the opposite of proprietary software. What definition of propietary with respect to software could you possibly mean without talking about copyrights?
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
I actually felt that the productivity improvement of Java over C++ was minimal compared to Python over Java. But you're right, developing an app quickly and easily is really cool, and Java can be helpful.
will take over the desktop of the average user. Debian,Corel,Red Hat,Mandrake and others are going to SELL Linux to the average joe, or the average joe won't use it. He won't take the time to download and config it without a manual shipping with it. So the free for the desktop advantage Linux has over the BeOS is a mute point. You are correct about the supported hardware.
There are many _professional_ studio devices that are supported by BeOS, but not by Linux/Windows.
Sorry, what? I'm as big a BeOS fan as you'll ever see, but I don't think there is a single piece of hardware anywhere that is supported by BeOS but Linux/Windows. BeOS simply doesn't have enough marketshare to justify Be-specific hardware.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I Agree
All bow to RMS, the God of GPL...
Think for yourself!
It seems they're making progress - see the status page, updated on Oct 30.
But you're right, I'd also like to know how Sun's support of a Linux JDK might look a year after they announced it...
Maybe. Or maybe it's a good test to see whether or not Sun are relying on any implementation-specific bits of their JVM... Of course, without seeing the problems and analysing them properly, it's impossible to say one way or the other.
I would agree with the previous poster - Java support for Linux may well be more IBM-based than Sun-based in the future. In fact, I can see that spreading beyond just Linux... IME, IBM are the most Java-savvy company around. (Oh, and jikes is fantastic :)
Jon
I'm talking about studio control equipment, mixers and high end audio devices.
Tom Cargill , author of "C++ Programming Style", (published by Addison-Wesley, 1992) disagrees. Reading his article was enough to make me think twice
here: Exception Handling: A False Sense Of Security
Or here: Exception Handling: A False Sense Of Security
Mike Osborne (not anonymous, just lazy).
Threads can be inplemented in userspace, like Java's "green-threads", but yes, native threads are faster but not required for multithreading.
Is there some page on the be.com site where I could order a demo CD? Is the demo downloadable somewhere? I'd like to try it with my hardware...
Even if it is a great language, its dead and gone. Let it go.
Go read the VolcanoMark test suite. I'm a big FrreBSD fan, so this isn't a troll - I use it at work and at home, but there is no doubt that the performance of java on FreeBSD right now sucks hard.
that was the last thing i was waiting on for beOs. now it's going on my machine in the next couple weeks. finally. java 2 is getting there enough to make development fairly straightforward and beOs is built to handle its needs.
abrams's advice: when eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Slightly off the Java for Be topic, but this seems to be where the Be discussion is going:
/. article, actually, to have some _objective_ comparison of the two OS's. Does anyone out there have the resources...and the objectivity?
I don't have any experience working with either BeOS or Corel Linux (Caldera user, myself), but it seems to me that the two are targeting the same market. Some have said Corel's release is a dumbed-down version of Linux, and Be is "a great OS for technophobes", etc. How do the two compare? It would be a great
I've read some great reviews of the BeOS and particularly its user interface. I would be curious to see how it compares to other (maintstream and non-mainstream) OS's.
Female Prison Rape in NY
That said, Be has been dropping hints that there are going to be some announcements made at Comdex soon, so we'll see. They are certainly going to unveil more about the iPad, but there may be some versioning announcements there too. We'll have to wait and see.
In terms of dropping $60 to $90, though, I saw it advertised today for $29.95. You can get it many places for under $40 including the BeOS Bible (which is totally worth it). For the $29.95 pricing, check out GeekNews, who posted a link in the BeOS and Java thread on their news page. I believe insight and gigabuys both have Be with the bible for under $50.
Even if you buy now, all of the upgrades so far have been cheap. R3 to R4 cost me $25, and R4 to R4.5 was free (full edition with CD and everything, just shipped for free without you having to request it to any registered R4 user). (Obviously downloadable releases like R3.1, R3.2, R4.5.1, and R4.5.2 were all free.)
I'm not agaiinst exceptions per se, in fact Java has a nice implementation. The point is really that in the C++ world, all these mechanism were being glommed onto a language that allready had some fundamental problems, and all this had to be fillterred through standards committee so the whole thing began to take on a kind of kitchen sink approach. THere are just so many rules expections to rules, etc... that the whole thing has IMO become a complete cluster, um.. bomb. Interestingly, as a bit of historical trivia, I think a fair number of the Be engineers had been involved with the Taligent effort, and they saw that that project was basically destroyed by overzealous use of all the extensions and the same kind of kitchen sink approach. They had built this huge sophisticated framework, and when they finally managed to get much of it together, the thing would hardly run. This whole expereince encouraged people to make it lean and mean. I wish I had the orignal quote with me, but if anyone's interested I'll try to track it down. -Lodro [NLI]
I don't know about you, but I came to my own conclusions regarding copyright long before I even had my first computer. Later, when I discovered RMS, I was amazed to find someone whose ideas correspond directly to my own.
This is irrelevant to the discussion, however. We are not arguing about morals, you are just playing with semantics. Proprietary is when something is being treated like property. Standard pay-licenses are most certainly proprietary, even if you pay for them, you only have extremely limited rights to use them, the authors maintain full ownership over the software, and in turn, the user.
Public domain software, on the other hand, is still proprietary, in that it is being treated like property. The owner merely gives it up to the public. This way, anybody can come along and claim it, make a change, slap a copyright on, and it is just as bad as an unfavorable license on the other hand. A GPL-like license is the only kind that is truly free and non-proprietary. Licensing software under the GPL is akin to releasing a slave under the condition that he may never be a slave again. If the software is under a BSD license or is public domain, it is only non-proprietary until someone else claims it. GPL uses the copyright powers granted by the government to ensure that a particular piece of software will never fall under a tyranical ownership, by keeping the ownership with the creator, BUT WITH THE CONTRACT THAT THIS OWNERSHIP WILL NEVER BE EXERTED SAVE TO PROTECT THE SOFTWARE FROM FUTURE OWNERSHIP.
The GPL is a very complex issue, and there surely are a great many people who don't understand it, yet are proponents anyway. Your comments, however, deeply offend those of us who truly understand and believe in the ideals of freedom.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix