Re: [www-vrml] vrml 2 vrml communications

["George Birbilis" <birbilis@kagi.com>]

> are you trying to say that Java is not a good cross-platform solution ?
> I have been using
> java for this very purpose for years (linux, solaris and windows) so far
> it has worked very well for me.

of course Java is a cross-platform option as .NET is. None of them is a
"solution" though, still lots of miles to cover.

my own opinion is that unfortunately with Java you still need to debug your
stuff everywhere, cause of bad original spec'ing of the threading behaviour
(with Java1.3+ this has become a bit better) and cause of the AWT which is
an "abstract" windowing toolkit (so your app GUI looks and behaves
differently on each platform - Swing solved that a bit, but it's a bit slow
in many areas, still has lots of bugs [see bugparade at java.sun.com] and
has poor integration with native facilities like hardware acceleration,
ActiveX controls etc.)

the other thing is having to convert all your code to Java since too few
compilers for other languages into java bytecode exist. Else one has to use
glue JNI code which is way too ugly and cumbersome to create and debug. Bind
that with poor integration with the OS and hardware facilities for graphics
etc. and you see it's not yet for desktop apps. Waiting for Sun Java 1.5
though which integrates more with the OS (on Windows and Linux it even
supports tray-icon apps now :o) and the MS-Sun agreement on more
interoperability (hope this isn't just for webservices, but for Sun Java on
Windows to interoperate some more with COM/ActiveX as MSJava transparently
did)

Anyway I never liked the Esperando approach of Sun with Java (have to
convert all your algorithm implementations to Java) although I like it as a
language (but I can use it in .NET since J# is a fine Java language compiler
to .NET IL)

plus, Java is doing JIT compilation and caching of code into memory, not to
disk, thus redoing it every time which is bad for non-server apps that don't
run all the time but which are closed and rerun very often. For server apps
its fine and the hotspot engine's JIT even does progressive optimization of
the features that are used the most (but this is only useful for apps that
run for days/months on a server, not for minutes/hours on a desktop)

one has to select a tool based on the given situation and requirements, plus
on their existing investments and future growth plans

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George Birbilis <birbilis@kagi.com> [Microsoft MVP J#]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ QuickTime VCL and ActiveX controls (for PowerPoint/VB/Delphi etc.)
+ Plugs VCL and ActiveX controls (InterProcess/Internet communication)
+ TransFormations, VB6 forms to ASP.net WebForms convertion
http://www.kagi.com/birbilis
+ Robotics
http://www.mech.upatras.gr/~robgroup
........................................................................

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