I'm not a contributor too, but I'm a (quite experienced) java developer. I just want to subscribe everything Elias wrote on this mail, I completely agree.
Thanks, Alex On Thu, 2004-03-11 at 20:04, Elias Martenson wrote: > tor 2004-03-11 klockan 18.44 skrev Mark Howard: > > Dear Java Developers, > > > > I am writing to you on behalf of the java-gnome project for advice > > regarding a major change we are currently considering. I apologise if > > this is off topic for this mailing list but we really need input and you > > are the most knowledgeable open source java developers; it may also > > help determine whether we will be using your projects in the future. > > Sorry for cross posting - we think members of each list are likely to > > have different opinions on this topic and want to hear them all. > > > > The big question is: should we switch to CNI? > > I'm not a contributor (yet?), and I'm currently merely playing around > with Java-GNOME. However, I like it very much. > I am what could be considered an expert Java programmer. This is, > however, not the place to publish ones resumé. I do have 7 years of Java > development experience. > > Reading peoples suggestions calling for CNI makes me very frightened. > I'll try to explain why: > > In the current environment, Sun controls Java. I am not going to go into > whether this is good or not, but this is the way it is. Sun releases a > new version of java every 18 months or so, and every time they do there > are huge improvements. With 1.4 we got the IO channels, giving us > multiplexed IO and memory mapped files. 1.5 gives us the largest set of > improvements to Java we have ever seen, including generics, covariant > return types, shared VM's, etc... GCJ and CLASSPATH has to play the > catchup game all the time, and I don't think I can even use the 1.4 IO > channels in it yet. > > Even if you don't use the new features yourself, what are you going to > do if your JDBC driver uses some new features? Don't forget that one of > the great strengths of Java is it's great open source community where > you can find pretty much every component you'd ever want freely > downloadable. Going CNI-only would severely limit the number of 3'rd > party component you'd be able to integrate. > > The fact that Java is heavily dynamic (sandboxed execution, etc...) is > an enormous advantage, and I fail to see how an experienced Java > developer who uses these things could ever even consider turning the > back on everything that is Java, just to gain a little perceived > performance. > > Speaking of performance advantage, has anyone even done any benchmarking > to decide how much of a performance difference we're talking about here? > > Since Java is dynamic, I can, at runtime, detect whether Java-GNOME is > available, and select a Java-GNOME or a Swing-based user interface at > runtime. This makes it possible to ship an app that is both native > GNOME, and completely cross-platform (naturally, the practicality of > this depends heavily on the type of application). This app can still use > the same features available to all application running on the Java > platform. > > Another thing: with Linux making more and more inroads into the > enterprise, things like JMX become increasingly important. How would you > go about hooking a GCJ-compiled application into a JMX container? My > guess it would be difficult at beast, if not completely impossible. > That's just one of many examples. > > In summary, I don't think many of the pro-CNI people really use Java to > its fullest extent. I certainly want all the 1.5 features _and_ > Java-GNOME. If Java-GNOME went CNI-only I myself would probably go back > to Swing. > > Regards > > Elias Mårtenson > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
