What happened to sun & java?
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From: no.top.post on 4 Jul 2010 14:37 Some time back I read that 'sun was being sold'. Previously I read that java was one of the most used languages. And from the launch of java, till recently, there were several versions, which was annoying, since whenever I wanted to test a java-based tool, it needed the latest java version which I didn't have. So I was waiting for java to stabilise. Of course, we know that Micro$loth made efforts to crush/fork java. Has java got a future? ==TIA.
From: David W. Hodgins on 4 Jul 2010 16:16 On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:37:21 -0400, <no.top.post(a)gmail.com> wrote: > So I was waiting for java to stabilise. > Of course, we know that Micro$loth made efforts to crush/fork java. > Has java got a future? Don't know about java itself, but VirtualBox, which had previously been purchased by Sun, now has the Oracle brand on it, and has had several improvements released, since the purchase. So far, from my point of view, it looks ok. Regards, Dave Hodgins -- Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email. (nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)
From: Robert Heller on 4 Jul 2010 17:11 At Sun, 4 Jul 2010 18:37:21 +0000 (UTC) no.top.post(a)gmail.com wrote: > > Some time back I read that 'sun was being sold'. > Previously I read that java was one of the most used languages. > And from the launch of java, till recently, there were several versions, > which was annoying, since whenever I wanted to test a java-based tool, it > needed the latest java version which I didn't have. > > So I was waiting for java to stabilise. > Of course, we know that Micro$loth made efforts to crush/fork java. > Has java got a future? 1) Sun Microsystems was sold to Oracle. 2) The owner of Oracle hates Micro$loth at least as much as the original owner(s) of Sun Microsystems. This means that Open Office will likely continue to be maintained by the new ownership. 3) Sun Microsystems has been supporting MySQL. What the new ownership with do with MySQL is unknown, since MySQL (on some level) 'competes' with Oracle. 4) Java has on some level 'escaped' from Sun Microsystems's control. Sun Microsystems still has a trademark for 'Java' and provides the 'official' JRE/JDK, but there are open source replacements for Sun's JRE/JDK. As a side note: C# / .NET are Micro$loths 'replacements' for Java and the JRE/JDK (C# is a kind of embrace-and-extend fork of Java). In *theory* C# is just like Java: compile once, run anywhere [you have a run-time environment]. '.NET' is the M$ Run Time environment for C#. And there is something called Mono, which is a Linux run-time environment that will run .NET (C#) applications. There isn't (AFAIK) a Linux-based C# compiler / development kit. One can develop a C#/.NET application (under MS-Windows) and then run it (using Mono) under Linux, but I don't think anyone really bothers to run C# programs anywhere by under MS-Windows. C# is effectively (in practice) as platform-specific as VB. Or Visual C++. I *expect* that Oracle will continue to support Java, if nothing more than as a level of 'F***-you' to M$. If Oracle drops Java, there is the Open Source JRE/JDK. AFAIK, the Java websites hosted at Sun are up and running, so at least it is business as usual. It is also possible that IBM might be interested in taking over Java if Oracle decided they really didn't want it (I believe IBM has an interest in things like JSP). There might be other players with the funding and interest around as well. I don't think if Oracle drops Java, Java will suddenly 'die' -- between the Open Source JRE/JDK and various computer companies, *someone* will likely take over as the 'official' host of the official JRE/JDK. *I* personally know of a couple a *Java* applications (that in fact use the *Sun* JRE) that can only be run under MS-Windows. Not that there any technical reasons why the *Java* code itself won't run under Linux (or MacOSX or Solaris or ...), just that there are external infrastructure things going on that test for MS-Windows being present. In one case the providers of the code would simply freak out if we simply copied the .jar files to a Linux machine and fired it up, in the other case it is a matter of how things are (stupidly) coded in an embedded web server (in a 'smart' heating system) -- the web pages include JavaScript that do a specific test for IE (it bombs if one uses FF on a MS-Windows box) and then downloads the JRE<mumble>.exe self-installer and runs that to install Java. So although Java is supposed to be compile once, run anywhere, as often as not, it really is not used that way and is *effectively* just as platform-dependent as *compiled* C or C++ code (eg binary libraries or executables). Sun had a great idea, but failed (in various ways) to get really working mostly because of dumb licensing in the early days -- they really should have simply published the language spec and provided an Open Source JRE/JDK. Java would have matured and would be in a much stronger position than it is today. > > ==TIA. > > -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows heller(a)deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
From: Bit Twister on 4 Jul 2010 17:13 On Sun, 4 Jul 2010 18:37:21 +0000 (UTC), no.top.post(a)gmail.com wrote: > Some time back I read that 'sun was being sold'. > Previously I read that java was one of the most used languages. > And from the launch of java, till recently, there were several versions, > which was annoying, since whenever I wanted to test a java-based tool, it > needed the latest java version which I didn't have. > > So I was waiting for java to stabilise. Most of the updates were to fix security problems, bug fixes and of course the occasional new feature. It is not going to stabilize. Put the uninstall/install commands in a script and doing updates become painless. Need some bash scripting help: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.htm Using ls and tail you would not even have to supply downloaded package name. Using "autoexpect and expect", you can automate answering the installer questions. Quick untested install_jre kludge follows: #!/bin/bash # find latest downloaded jre plugin _dl_dir=/downloads _pkg_fn=$(ls $_dl_dir/jre*-i*.bin | grep -v x64 | sort | tail -1) mkdir -p /usr/java cd /usr/java install_jre.exp $_pkg_fn # rebuild slackware's locate database /etc/cron.daily/slocate #* get latest plugin file name _plugin_fn=$(locate /usr/java/jre | grep libnpjp2.so | tail -1) # install plugin into system wide plugin directory cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ ln -s $_plugin_fn #******** end install_jre ********************** And for the expect install script ($ cat install_jre.exp): #!/usr/bin/expect -f # # This Expect script was generated by autoexpect on Mon May 19 16:03:28 2008 # Expect and autoexpect were both written by Don Libes, NIST. # # Note that autoexpect does not guarantee a working script. It # necessarily has to guess about certain things. Two reasons a script # might fail are: # # 1) timing - A surprising number of programs (rn, ksh, zsh, telnet, # etc.) and devices discard or ignore keystrokes that arrive "too # quickly" after prompts. If you find your new script hanging up at # one spot, try adding a short sleep just before the previous send. # Setting "force_conservative" to 1 (see below) makes Expect do this # automatically - pausing briefly before sending each character. This # pacifies every program I know of. The -c flag makes the script do # this in the first place. The -C flag allows you to define a # character to toggle this mode off and on. set force_conservative 0 ;# set to 1 to force conservative mode even if ;# script wasn't run conservatively originally if {$force_conservative} { set send_slow {1 .1} proc send {ignore arg} { sleep .1 exp_send -s -- $arg } } # # 2) differing output - Some programs produce different output each time # they run. The "date" command is an obvious example. Another is # ftp, if it produces throughput statistics at the end of a file # transfer. If this causes a problem, delete these patterns or replace # them with wildcards. An alternative is to use the -p flag (for # "prompt") which makes Expect only look for the last line of output # (i.e., the prompt). The -P flag allows you to define a character to # toggle this mode off and on. # # Read the man page for more info. # # -Don set arg1 [lindex $argv 0] set timeout -1 set done 1 spawn $env(SHELL) match_max 100000 send -- "'$arg1'\r" expect { -re "--More--" { send -- " " exp_continue } -re "yes or no" { sleep .8 send -- "yes\r" } } set timeout 120 expect "Done.\r" #*********************** end install_jre.exp *********************
From: Aragorn on 4 Jul 2010 17:44
On Sunday 04 July 2010 20:37 in comp.os.linux.misc, somebody identifying as no.top.post(a)gmail.com wrote... > Some time back I read that 'sun was being sold'. Yes, Sun Microsystems was sold to Oracle a short while ago. > Previously I read that java was one of the most used languages. Hmm... It's machine-independent, and that may be why it's got a fair amount of success. Java compiles to bytecode, which gets executed in a so-called Java Virtual Machine, or as Sun used to call it, a Java Runtime Environment. This makes Java extremely portable, but also noticeably slower than other languages. > And from the launch of java, till recently, there were several > versions, which was annoying, since whenever I wanted to test a > java-based tool, it needed the latest java version which I didn't > have. I've always relied on the Java Runtime Engine version supplied by Sun Microsystems and I can't say that I've ever run into any problems because of that. > So I was waiting for java to stabilise. > Of course, we know that Micro$loth made efforts to crush/fork java. Microsoft's Java was a typical Microsoft product. In other words, it was not compatible with the standards. ;-) > Has java got a future? It is still being actively used today, and the KDE 4.x desktop was conceived to deal with Java objects, among others. I don't think that Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems is going to change anything, but of course, I could always be wrong. ;-) -- *Aragorn* (registered GNU/Linux user #223157) |