KDE should strive for better java support to gain more developers.

Sun Apr 27 16:13:36 BST 2008

There isn't any real problem installing sun java on linux and then running 
java apps from kde. It used to be that they looked a bit yuck but not any 
more.

My biggest beef in that direction is Konqueror. Obviously the best browser 
available and it uses an obscure java that just can't keep up. There is no 
obvious ways of updating it either. Also failing to update Konq means many 
people finish up running 3 or 4 browsers. This spoils the KDE experience.

I'm on 3.5.7 64bit now folks and wondering about a couple of things. Has kmail 
got a bug. A mail didn't get to some one when the address was put into the CC 
field. I looked at the source of  another and the name was there but not the 
actual email address.

Also K Beagle. Thought that was neat to start off with but got sick to death 
of my disc banging about. I'd stuck 8gig of old data on my desktop. Does it 
crawl for ever? I put up with it for 2 or more days. It's an interesting 
area. 1st time I used find file on suse 9.? it took ages as an index was 
built. There after it was very quick. Along came suse 10 and finds always 
took a while. Now we have Beagle. Me wonders if it's being done at the right 
level and really aught to be a part of Linux a la windoze.

Suse 10.3 is interesting too. I have some avi's kicking about. Following 
installation they played. Following a few soft ware updates of other things 
they stopped playing - no codecs.

John

On Sunday 27 April 2008 14:17:46 Peter Qusec wrote:
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
>
> > Datum: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:22:05 +0200
> > Von: mitch <mitch074 at gmail.com>
> > An: kde at mail.kde.org
> > Betreff: Re: [kde] KDE should strive for better java support to gain more
> > developers.
> >
> > Corrected proposal: the KDE project should very well document how to
> > access their applications with Java
> >
> > Lack of pointers and need for garbage collection go hand in hand: in
> > C/C++, you clean up after yourself. You don't clean up, you get buried
> > under crap. Java (and .Net/Mono C#) get away with garbage collection
> > because 1- the virtual machine they run in has a small memory capacity,
> >
> > and 2- being virtual machines in nature, if they crash they don't bring
> > other applications down with them.
> > The price of this automatic memory management is incredible slowness
>
> That might have been the case in the past, but that is certainly not true
> any more. Automatic memory management can even be more efficient than
> manual memory management because the VM can clean larger chunks of memory
> at a time which leads to less fragmentation. From my personal experience I
> know that java is certainly not slow. In my group we are working on some
> large scale applications that keep gigabyte of data in main memory and that
> works just fine.
>
> > and
> > difficulty of integration with the rest of the system;
>
> I don't know about that, never tried it ;-)
>
> > Sun tried for a
> > Java OS for a long while, without success due to the humongous overhead
> > entailed by such a system, and its relative lack of stability.
> > Please note that GNOME already uses Mono for some apps (Tomboy, Beagle);
> > browse the Intarweb for Tomboy and Beagle troubles: CPU hogging, memory
> > use, crashes, etc. for the simple reason that while programming apps in
> > VMs is easier than doing C on a real machine, programming the VM is
> > another bucket of nails all in itself.
>
> Well, I think that its unfair to infer from problems in Mono that Java will
> the same problems. While I don't know much about Mono I can't imagine that
> Mono is even nearly as mature as Java.
>
> > Current compilers, automatic checks and CPU extensions like the NX bit
> > are able to point out a lot of potential leaks and type corruptions: if
> > you program without paying attention to your compiler output, yes, C/C++
> > is trouble; if you program cleanly, it blows Java's socks off.
>
> The problem is, as a c++ you need to direct much of your attention to these
> problems instead of on the problem you are actually trying to solve with
> your program. In my opinion developer time is the most important resource
> in a software project much more so than memory or CPU usage.
>
> > And, deal breaker, Java isn't fully licensed under the GPL - so it can't
> > be distributed with KDE.
>
> Java is open source except for the sound engine and the SNMP code and Sun
> has promised to make that open sorce by the end of the year.
>
> Also, my main point is that KDE should provide a straight forward way for
> Java developers to contribute to KDE. I believe that there are quite a few
> Java developers out there who would like to contribute to KDE but for whom
> its just not worth the hassle to switch to c++.
>
> Peter
>
> > End of story.
> >
> > Mitch
> >
> > Peter Qusec a écrit :
> > > Proposal: The kde project could get access to a huge pool of developers
> >
> > by integrating java into kde and allowing java applications to become
> > part of the kde distribution.
> >
> > > According to the TIOBE Programming Community Index
> >
> > (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html) java
> > has about twice the mindshare as c++.
> >
> > > One reason for that is that java is in many ways far more sophisticated
> >
> > than c++. Features like garbage collection, avoidance of pointers,
> > automatic refactoring, not having to duplicate class signatures in header
> > files, easier handling of threads and many more, allow java developers to
> > completely avoid a large array of bugs that c++ developers frequently
> > make (or at least that I did). In my experience I would guess that a java
> > developer is at least twice as effective as a c++ developer meaning (s)he
> > can implement at least twice the functionality in the same time as a c++
> > developer can.
> >
> > > So far the ugliest part that I've encountered in java is swing, but
> > > that
> >
> > should be no problem since it could be replaced by jambi.
> >
> > > One important obstacle for java so far was that it wasn't open source
> >
> > but sun has changed that during the last year.
> >
> > > Therefore I would welcome a better support for java in kde because that
> >
> > would allow me to contribute the kde project.
> >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Peter
> >
> > ___________________________________________________
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