My favourite easter egg was this: We had a tester who complained about "ok" buttons. She used to complain that you'd get a dialog mentioning some error had occured and a button saying "ok", but of course, you weren't okay, you were pissed off!
So... I made a dialog that came up with the error text and a button that read "bugger!" But! Knowing that this would get me in trouble, I coded it so that the button would revert to saying "ok" within a couple of seconds, and that it would never repeat the behaviour in a single session. that way, when the tester went to show someone else, the button would be polite and not repeat the behaviour. I also coded in a check for the IP address of the tester's machine so it wouldn't have that behaviour on anyone else's machine.
Oh, that was fun!
I also hid the code simply by placing it mainly on one line and well past the 120 character mark. None of the other coders could find it even when they wen't looking for it (a simple deception, but sometimes the simple things work)
You've got me quite wrong. I'm a proponent of Open Source, I choose free and open whenever I can. I even petitioned Sun (as pointless as my one voice may be) to open source Java.
The "bee in my bonnet" isn't the efficacy of free software - I'm totaly on board the band wagon there. My problem is the slashbot denegration of Java and or Sun because they don't do things just the way the Linux community wants.
Under your moronic logic, if I create a new OS, and Java doesn't run on it (which obviously it wont since I've just created it) then Java is non portable. But that's clearly bullshit - C wont run on the OS either... until I port a C compiler for the OS.
The same goes for _any_ OS - the lack of a JVM for that OS no more makes Java non portable than the lack of a C compiler makes C non portable.
Vanilla C (no guis or bells and whistles) solves all our portablilty issues between OS's if we want console apps only and OBVIOUSLY if someone ports a C compiler to each platform we're interessed in. In exactly the same manner, Java solves all our portability issues (including GUI, networking, OpenGL, Database accessing, etc... etc...) between platforms so long as someone has ported a JVM.
The two situations are perfectly analagous.
If the guardians of an OS choose not to port a C compiler to it for religious reasons, that doesn't make C non portable.
The original post was "Wasn't Java supposed to solve this problem? I was under the impression that you could run Java apps on any platform (albeit slowly) without worrying about compatability?"
That was met by the usual/. sarcasm about Java. Forgive me if I'm just a little sick of it - my post probably sounded a little snippy because of that.
My response was to that - Java *does* solve the issue of running everywhere. And the comment about the Linux flavour of 'free' is quite true. Java is free in many senses - it costs nothing and the source code is available. That's not the sense of 'free' that Linux distros care about, and that's their choice, but it doesn't make my post incorrect.
You make it sound as if they are making a choice. How about, "the linux crowd seldom uses it because the only full implementation is licensed in such a way that they cannot ship it with Linux so it has to be an additional download?"
Yeah, but that is exactly a choice that distros make. RH distributes their own proprietary s/w with Linux. They don't dissapear in a puff of logic. I realise that because of the beleifs of the Debian distro, they can't distribute a JVM but again, it ain't Sun stopping them, it's their own choice to adhere to a certain set of restrictions in their distro. What's more, Sun doesn't stop them crafting their very own JVM an releasing that with their distro, again, it's not Sun's fault that they don't.
The fact that there isn't a (good) FOSS JVM is sad, but not proof that it's impossible for anyone to implement one. IBM managed okay, and there are several FOSS JVMs, just not very good quality ones.
That's regretable, but it's hardly Sun's fault.
You utterly failed to see the point of the Sun classes - they are GLUE code. Go read up what GLUE CODE means. Saying that Java is non portable because of the Sun classes is like saying OpenGL and DirectX are both non portable because they need a driver.
And WTF does Zend Studio have to do with anything? You found a crap application so Java sucks??? Jesus wept. I found Windows 98 so you can't write secure apps in C. Great argument.
This may be an issue of what you expect 'portability' to be about. I expect it to mean that my apps run across platforms without code changes. I don't expect that it means "look really cool on all platforms and take advantage of all the cool platform quirks."
If you want to make an app take advantage of system features on every target platform, then obviously you WILL have to code for that for every platform because that's a task that by definition is non portable. Probably a better solution is to do like the old "brushed-metal-look" Quicktime viewer and have a graphic for your interface because that will port more or less exactly the same and look cool (and potentially be skinnable). All very neat - but that's a good example of the issues with "style portability". The QTime viewer was very pretty, but it broke all the Windows style guidelines by not having "ok" buttons for prefs dialogs. Apple didn't seem to care about respecting the Windows l&f and Windows users didn't get up in arms about it either.
Would you say that c or c++ wasn't portable because QT's GUI was more appropriate to Macs, not Win32, where I ran it? I don't think so. Hence, I'm still claiming this is not a portability issue if GUIs don't look just the way you like them on someone's Java app. If they care about L&F they have a lot of options - both AWT and SWT utilise native widgets in Java, Swing doesn't. Although, there is a Swing to SWT bridge which runs SWT as if it were Swing. So, if being very Macish is a design goal, it's achievable in Java, it's just that obviously for a lot of people thats not a design goal - just like Apple's QT viewer didn't make respecting the Windows L&F a design goal. Blame the designers, not the language.
The fact that some free JVMs arent very good doesn't mean that Java is not portable. A crap free C compiler doesn't prove that C isn't portable, it proves that the compiler is crap.
I've written VERY complex Java programs (GUI, Networking, Database access) and had them run perfectly on Win32, Max, Solaris and Linux. Can't comment on the other OSs since I haven't used them, but the operating systems I mentioned 99% of the computing world, so I call your post bullshit or FUD, take your choice.
Yeah, I see the point about shipping with Linux distros - that's a fair point. I actually emailed Sun with my personal plea to open source Java for precisely that reason. It doesn't matter to *me* but clearly it's an issue for FOSS. For the same reason, I hope that Harmony does well for Apache.
nobody uses java (not just the linux crowd) because java is broken -- sun ensures it stays that way. java bytecode portability is a myth -- too much shit breaks on the different VMs.
Ladies and gentlemen... I give you... the Slashbot bigot in his natural environment!
That post is so full of tinfoil-hat FUD that its not worth a serious reply. It would be funny if it weren't for the fact that this kind of clueless crap is so indicative of the ill-informed reactionary bullshit that passes for a clue on Slashdot. I swear, Slashdot is getting stupider with every passing year.
I've seen too many horror scenarios with developers tinkering for weeks getting a java application to work, only to find out that it runs out of the box on another platform..
IMO, People who disagree with this usually haven't tried much platform porting with Java.
I have had a lot of experience with Java across platforms. I wrote a GUI for a very extensive Oracle database which was developed in Java on Linux and deployed without hitch (and over several generations over many years) on Win32, Linux and Solaris.
I also recently wrote a Java / OpenGL / networking application which I developed on Win32 in Java and rolled it out without hitch on Mac and Win32.
I've been doing this kind of development for about eight years now and never once had the kind of "horror scenarios" that you describe. In fact, in my professional career (two decades now) I've never met another developer who has had "horror scenarios" with Java. The only time I hear these stories is on Slashdot. I'm sure that's just, like, completely coincidental thou.
um proof of concept? Have you ever tried using gjc?
Yes, I have.
Don't talk to me until you have. I was attempting to get Zend Studio (the only way to get code profiling in stack traces in php) working and guess what gjc couldn't get me anywhere. In order to even get the damn thing installed I had to install the sun java jre.
Ok, for a start, JVM != GCJ. An ahead of time compiler is not a JVM. Secondly, the fact that GCJ isn't complete yet doesn't mean fuck all - other than that their project could use more helpers. That's like me saying that some half arsed compiler I found doesn't compile stdio in C, so C isn't portable. That's a stupid argument.
Perhaps the "spec" is open but guess what all the classes that sun wrote and everyone uses sure aren't.
The source code for the Sun classes is in a file called Src.zip at the base directory of the JDK installation. Additionally, people aren't supposed to use the Sun classes, they're not part of the spec, they're glue between Java and the OS. Each Java implementation needs to write its own glue code.
I wasted a lot of time at University using java before I switched to a school that taught everything c/c++ based.
I've been coding C for two decades, C++ for about 12 years and Java for about 8. I'm glad your schooling helped you to know everything.
Please don't lie about the supposed portability of java. The facts tend to tell more than the theory.
I see. Decades of industry experience writing actual Java code (which all ported quite perfectly well, thank you - developing on Linux, deploying on Windows and developing on Windows and deploying and Win32 and Mac) doesn't mean anything, but what you learned at school is just the best Only Way To Go? Listen up: you need to know as many tools as you can. C, C++, Java are all good - ditto Lisp, Delphi / Pascal, C#,.NET, Python etc... (all tools I have actual industry experience with) They all scratch different itches, they're all good stuff in their own way. Do me a favour and don't go around telling people that this sucks or that sucks until you have more experience than what your teacher said.
Apache is producing their own JVM? You do realize tomcat (the apache java servlet container) doesn't really work without sun java, right?
Um... it's pretty difficult for them to get it to run on Harmony before they write it, yeah?
Finally, I don't use java every experience is infuriating. Unfortunately the attitude of don't use it if you don't like it is the way that trolls try to claim it's portable. Guess what, if it were portable I COULD use it.
Yeah right. Did your teacher give you that opinion too?
If you are trying to write code to target a specific look & feel on mac then obviously that code is going to be non portable. If I use Java to write a Win32 console application (which I have done) I don't then go and complain that Java is non portable because the code doesn't run on Macs!
Only generic Java code can be portable. It should be obvious that writing to a specific interface on a specfic platform is not going to be portable.
Java also runs on Macs. Hell, there's even Java for Amigas and OS2, but don't let any FACTs get in the way of your FUD.
And since Windows, Macs, Linux, Solaris covers about 99% of the computing in the world, that's not exactly non-portable.
And ANYONE can produce a JVM - the spec is open for anyone to create. Sun don't have to do anything to allow that (you did notice that Apache are producing a FOSS JVM, didn't you?)
If you don't like Java, don't use it, but quit lying about it.
What part of "no legal impediments" don't you understand? As the Apache people themselves mentioned - there are no license issues that prevent them implementing Java. Oh, but they probably don't know what they're talking about, some/. drone of course knows better than one of the biggest FOSS software development groups on the net.
Well done - the tin foil hat obviously makes you smarter than everyone at Apache!
Hint: Sun owns the spec, that doesn't prevent you IMPLEMENTING the spec - those are two different things.
...which is all perfectly natural and what one would expect in any situation where a standard is multiply instantiated. No need for conspiracy theories at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm.... someone needs the ability to spot subtle humour.
"uh... want extra sweat with that?"
That was one of the most insightful comments I have ever seen about M$, not just on /. (which might be damning with faint praise :o) but anywhere.
Good work.
Hehe.
My favourite easter egg was this: We had a tester who complained about "ok" buttons. She used to complain that you'd get a dialog mentioning some error had occured and a button saying "ok", but of course, you weren't okay, you were pissed off!
So... I made a dialog that came up with the error text and a button that read "bugger!" But! Knowing that this would get me in trouble, I coded it so that the button would revert to saying "ok" within a couple of seconds, and that it would never repeat the behaviour in a single session. that way, when the tester went to show someone else, the button would be polite and not repeat the behaviour. I also coded in a check for the IP address of the tester's machine so it wouldn't have that behaviour on anyone else's machine.
Oh, that was fun!
I also hid the code simply by placing it mainly on one line and well past the 120 character mark. None of the other coders could find it even when they wen't looking for it (a simple deception, but sometimes the simple things work)
The tester nailed me for it, but it was worth it!
You've got me quite wrong. I'm a proponent of Open Source, I choose free and open whenever I can. I even petitioned Sun (as pointless as my one voice may be) to open source Java.
The "bee in my bonnet" isn't the efficacy of free software - I'm totaly on board the band wagon there. My problem is the slashbot denegration of Java and or Sun because they don't do things just the way the Linux community wants.
Under your moronic logic, if I create a new OS, and Java doesn't run on it (which obviously it wont since I've just created it) then Java is non portable. But that's clearly bullshit - C wont run on the OS either... until I port a C compiler for the OS.
The same goes for _any_ OS - the lack of a JVM for that OS no more makes Java non portable than the lack of a C compiler makes C non portable.
Vanilla C (no guis or bells and whistles) solves all our portablilty issues between OS's if we want console apps only and OBVIOUSLY if someone ports a C compiler to each platform we're interessed in. In exactly the same manner, Java solves all our portability issues (including GUI, networking, OpenGL, Database accessing, etc... etc...) between platforms so long as someone has ported a JVM.
The two situations are perfectly analagous.
If the guardians of an OS choose not to port a C compiler to it for religious reasons, that doesn't make C non portable.
That was met by the usual /. sarcasm about Java. Forgive me if I'm just a little sick of it - my post probably sounded a little snippy because of that.
My response was to that - Java *does* solve the issue of running everywhere. And the comment about the Linux flavour of 'free' is quite true. Java is free in many senses - it costs nothing and the source code is available. That's not the sense of 'free' that Linux distros care about, and that's their choice, but it doesn't make my post incorrect.
You make it sound as if they are making a choice. How about, "the linux crowd seldom uses it because the only full implementation is licensed in such a way that they cannot ship it with Linux so it has to be an additional download?"
Yeah, but that is exactly a choice that distros make. RH distributes their own proprietary s/w with Linux. They don't dissapear in a puff of logic. I realise that because of the beleifs of the Debian distro, they can't distribute a JVM but again, it ain't Sun stopping them, it's their own choice to adhere to a certain set of restrictions in their distro. What's more, Sun doesn't stop them crafting their very own JVM an releasing that with their distro, again, it's not Sun's fault that they don't.
The fact that there isn't a (good) FOSS JVM is sad, but not proof that it's impossible for anyone to implement one. IBM managed okay, and there are several FOSS JVMs, just not very good quality ones.
That's regretable, but it's hardly Sun's fault.
You utterly failed to see the point of the Sun classes - they are GLUE code. Go read up what GLUE CODE means. Saying that Java is non portable because of the Sun classes is like saying OpenGL and DirectX are both non portable because they need a driver.
And WTF does Zend Studio have to do with anything? You found a crap application so Java sucks??? Jesus wept. I found Windows 98 so you can't write secure apps in C. Great argument.
I *have* tried it. Had none of the issues you mentioned.
Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris.
This may be an issue of what you expect 'portability' to be about. I expect it to mean that my apps run across platforms without code changes. I don't expect that it means "look really cool on all platforms and take advantage of all the cool platform quirks."
If you want to make an app take advantage of system features on every target platform, then obviously you WILL have to code for that for every platform because that's a task that by definition is non portable. Probably a better solution is to do like the old "brushed-metal-look" Quicktime viewer and have a graphic for your interface because that will port more or less exactly the same and look cool (and potentially be skinnable). All very neat - but that's a good example of the issues with "style portability". The QTime viewer was very pretty, but it broke all the Windows style guidelines by not having "ok" buttons for prefs dialogs. Apple didn't seem to care about respecting the Windows l&f and Windows users didn't get up in arms about it either.
Would you say that c or c++ wasn't portable because QT's GUI was more appropriate to Macs, not Win32, where I ran it? I don't think so. Hence, I'm still claiming this is not a portability issue if GUIs don't look just the way you like them on someone's Java app. If they care about L&F they have a lot of options - both AWT and SWT utilise native widgets in Java, Swing doesn't. Although, there is a Swing to SWT bridge which runs SWT as if it were Swing. So, if being very Macish is a design goal, it's achievable in Java, it's just that obviously for a lot of people thats not a design goal - just like Apple's QT viewer didn't make respecting the Windows L&F a design goal. Blame the designers, not the language.
The fact that some free JVMs arent very good doesn't mean that Java is not portable. A crap free C compiler doesn't prove that C isn't portable, it proves that the compiler is crap.
I've written VERY complex Java programs (GUI, Networking, Database access) and had them run perfectly on Win32, Max, Solaris and Linux. Can't comment on the other OSs since I haven't used them, but the operating systems I mentioned 99% of the computing world, so I call your post bullshit or FUD, take your choice.
Yeah, I see the point about shipping with Linux distros - that's a fair point. I actually emailed Sun with my personal plea to open source Java for precisely that reason. It doesn't matter to *me* but clearly it's an issue for FOSS. For the same reason, I hope that Harmony does well for Apache.
Ladies and gentlemen... I give you... the Slashbot bigot in his natural environment!
That post is so full of tinfoil-hat FUD that its not worth a serious reply. It would be funny if it weren't for the fact that this kind of clueless crap is so indicative of the ill-informed reactionary bullshit that passes for a clue on Slashdot. I swear, Slashdot is getting stupider with every passing year.
I have had a lot of experience with Java across platforms. I wrote a GUI for a very extensive Oracle database which was developed in Java on Linux and deployed without hitch (and over several generations over many years) on Win32, Linux and Solaris.
I also recently wrote a Java / OpenGL / networking application which I developed on Win32 in Java and rolled it out without hitch on Mac and Win32.
I've been doing this kind of development for about eight years now and never once had the kind of "horror scenarios" that you describe. In fact, in my professional career (two decades now) I've never met another developer who has had "horror scenarios" with Java. The only time I hear these stories is on Slashdot. I'm sure that's just, like, completely coincidental thou.
Yes, I have.
Don't talk to me until you have. I was attempting to get Zend Studio (the only way to get code profiling in stack traces in php) working and guess what gjc couldn't get me anywhere. In order to even get the damn thing installed I had to install the sun java jre.
Ok, for a start, JVM != GCJ. An ahead of time compiler is not a JVM. Secondly, the fact that GCJ isn't complete yet doesn't mean fuck all - other than that their project could use more helpers. That's like me saying that some half arsed compiler I found doesn't compile stdio in C, so C isn't portable. That's a stupid argument.
Perhaps the "spec" is open but guess what all the classes that sun wrote and everyone uses sure aren't.
The source code for the Sun classes is in a file called Src.zip at the base directory of the JDK installation. Additionally, people aren't supposed to use the Sun classes, they're not part of the spec, they're glue between Java and the OS. Each Java implementation needs to write its own glue code.
I wasted a lot of time at University using java before I switched to a school that taught everything c/c++ based.
I've been coding C for two decades, C++ for about 12 years and Java for about 8. I'm glad your schooling helped you to know everything.
Please don't lie about the supposed portability of java. The facts tend to tell more than the theory.
I see. Decades of industry experience writing actual Java code (which all ported quite perfectly well, thank you - developing on Linux, deploying on Windows and developing on Windows and deploying and Win32 and Mac) doesn't mean anything, but what you learned at school is just the best Only Way To Go? Listen up: you need to know as many tools as you can. C, C++, Java are all good - ditto Lisp, Delphi / Pascal, C#, .NET, Python etc... (all tools I have actual industry experience with) They all scratch different itches, they're all good stuff in their own way. Do me a favour and don't go around telling people that this sucks or that sucks until you have more experience than what your teacher said.
Apache is producing their own JVM? You do realize tomcat (the apache java servlet container) doesn't really work without sun java, right?
Um... it's pretty difficult for them to get it to run on Harmony before they write it, yeah?
Finally, I don't use java every experience is infuriating. Unfortunately the attitude of don't use it if you don't like it is the way that trolls try to claim it's portable. Guess what, if it were portable I COULD use it.
Yeah right. Did your teacher give you that opinion too?
If you are trying to write code to target a specific look & feel on mac then obviously that code is going to be non portable. If I use Java to write a Win32 console application (which I have done) I don't then go and complain that Java is non portable because the code doesn't run on Macs!
Only generic Java code can be portable. It should be obvious that writing to a specific interface on a specfic platform is not going to be portable.
Java also runs on Macs. Hell, there's even Java for Amigas and OS2, but don't let any FACTs get in the way of your FUD.
And since Windows, Macs, Linux, Solaris covers about 99% of the computing in the world, that's not exactly non-portable.
And ANYONE can produce a JVM - the spec is open for anyone to create. Sun don't have to do anything to allow that (you did notice that Apache are producing a FOSS JVM, didn't you?)
If you don't like Java, don't use it, but quit lying about it.
That's NOT a portability issue, that's a look and feel issue. That DOESN'T negate write-once, run-anywhere.
As someone who has developed many cross platform GUI apps in java, I can tell you that my experience has been quite the opposite.
I have NEVER had platform specific bugs, and I've always had write-once-run-anywhere
Java DOES solve that problem. The linux crowd by and large won't use it because it's not quite their flavour of 'free'.
Only if Sun had said they were going to roll out major new architectural changes on Solaris using Java, then reneged when it was time to deliver.
*That* would be an actually comparable circumstance.
What part of "no legal impediments" don't you understand? As the Apache people themselves mentioned - there are no license issues that prevent them implementing Java. Oh, but they probably don't know what they're talking about, some /. drone of course knows better than one of the biggest FOSS software development groups on the net.
Well done - the tin foil hat obviously makes you smarter than everyone at Apache!
Hint: Sun owns the spec, that doesn't prevent you IMPLEMENTING the spec - those are two different things.
...which is all perfectly natural and what one would expect in any situation where a standard is multiply instantiated. No need for conspiracy theories at all.