Re: Ruby App Distribution

On 06/12/2007, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Michal Suchanek wrote:
However, the one-click-jar is far from portable. It uses Sun
proprietary solution which runs "everywhere" (read: on the platforms
for which they bothered to make a binary). It runs on Windows, at
least the recent NT based. On OS X but it's usually a bit behind when
new version is out, especially for people that do not have the newest
OS X version as well. On Linux it runs on x86 and x86_64. It also runs
on Solaris, and probably HP-UX. There is some ancient and incomplete
port to ppc-linux by IBM, probably as a result of support for their
something360.

OS X is one version behind, and will probably have a full Java 6 release
soon. Java 6 versions exist for Linux 32/64, Solaris, and Windows. And
there are at least two alternative Java 5 VMs for Linux, Solaris, and
Windows...often many more. There's dozens of Java implementations, and
Java 7 source is GPL and rapidly being ported to platforms that don't
have up-to-date JVMs (the BSDs, OS X, and more).

If you did not require Swing there are alternative VMs that are free
(and free to compile on anything) but then you would be back to
distributing binary extensions because you would need something like
AWT which is not part of the Java standard library. Also these free
alternative VMs do not have complete standard library. As far as I
understand the issue the Java documentation license does not allow
implementing a library complying with the documentation which is the
primary reason why efforts at implementing complete alternative VMs
did not get very far.

AWT is part of the standard library. And Sun's JVM has been free for

Free if you happen to have the right platform ..

years, and now Free in Java 7. You are wrong about any documentation
licenses...I'm not sure what you even mean by that. And as I mentioned

The Java 5 documentation used to have very onerous license. Have you
ever read it? Maybe the newer ones are better. I heard that Java 7
will be GPL but we are not there yet.

before, there's dozens of JVM implementations. I'm not sure what more
you're looking for here.

Where is a complete Java 5 implementation other than Sun JVM? With the
GUI stuff and all? Everywhere I always see "Sun JRE required". Sure
the situation would be different for server stuff or other
applications where the fancy GUI is not required.


Then there is that "write once run everywhere" thing with which Sun
tries to push Java. If I have never heard that I would probably not
get so much irritated whenever I hear about Java portability.

Java software is *NO MORE* portable than C software. Given the
proprietary nature of the VM it is actually *LESS* portable. It has
all the common portability issues plus it won't run on platforms for
which there is no JVM, ever.

C code would not run on platforms where there's no C compiler...but even
worse, a given app won't run unless all libraries it uses have versions
for that platform as well. There's certainly a "debug everywhere"
component to Java apps, but once you compile them they're basically
runnable on any Java implementation. C apps, not so much.

But you're still thinking of JRuby in terms of Java here. JRuby is not
Java. JRuby is Ruby on the JVM. The JVM exists in dozens of forms, free,
proprietary, embedded, and on big iron. With the exception of some of
the smaller embedded profiles and some of the incomplete free impls,
JRuby allows Ruby to run on any of them...faster than Ruby 1.8.6, and
with all the "good bits" of the Java platform available. Don't think of
JRuby in terms of Java.

When we are talking about Swing frameworks it is something Java, and
probably even Sun JVM specific. How can you abstract Java out then?


At least the Java software you meet in practice is swamped with
compatibility problems. Most Java software requires specific minor
version of the JVM, and with this one click approach you can hardly
install several versions of the JVM. Yes, the JDK tools have the
option to compile for older runtimes. I have yet to see this working.
When java 1.5 came out, and our CMS software developer upgraded,
everybody had to upgrade their runtime. He said he is compiling with
the compatibility switch but it just did not work. Maybe it's just the
Java crowd being mostly incompetent. I don't know.

I think you're just misinformed, or getting your information from bad
sources. It's not anywhere near this difficult...no more difficult than
apps that target a specific C library version. Except in this case, you
know that one version numbers guarantees you a specific version of every
core API you're going to use, from database access to GUIs.

Specifically with libc some common systems allow to install several
libc version, and the right is picked for running the application.
However, Java application for different version of JVM just breaks.



What's worse, I have seen a banking application that requires a
specific patchlevel version (yes, specific -pn suffix). This same
application also works only in IE, how portable. Even for applications
that try, I have seen subtle input event handling differences between
Windows and Linux, enough to break stuff. And an application that
would not have sound on Linux - not sure if it simply did not work or
it caused so much trouble they decided to turn it off.

The patchlevel thing sounds like they probably hit a bug in that impl of
the JVM and needed an updated version. That happens to any software.

The IE thing is a web/UI design issue completely unrelated to Java.

Sound on Linux has been a traditionally hard thing to get working for
any application, so Java's certainly not alone here either. And the
Linux situation has improved for all apps. You're going on really old
information.

This is the impression that gradually built as I got into contact with
Java applications over a few years. Although some experience is quite
old I still do not see any improvement.


With these version and platform constraints you may need a quite large
vmware stack if you want to run a number of Java applications :->

Ask anyone who's actually run a lot of Java applications recently, and
you'll get a completely different story. You're either getting bad
information or only looking for bad information.

Yes, if you do not need too many, and are careful about upgrading the
JVM (ie never upgrade it until you get an application that does not
work anymore) you should be usually fine. But if you dust off an older
application for managing some piece of hardware that's just getting
out of service you may need a dedicated box for it :)


And again, please don't think of JRuby in terms of Java.

hmm, anyway, thanks for bringing ruby even to such a hostile
environment for the benefit of those stuck in there ;-)

It's not just for those stuck on Java, it's for those who want a fast
Ruby 1.8 implementation plus a whole lot of other bells and whistles.

Yes, I would trust it for something like web server. But I would yet
have to see a portable GUI application in Java.

Thanks

Michal

.

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