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It runs everywhere!It runs everywhere!Posted Aug 21, 2012 15:01 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: It runs everywhere! by fb Parent article: Kamp: A Generation Lost in the Bazaar It is not just that Java did not solve every deployment problem; in fact Java has created additional deployment problems on every platform it runs on, which are just a handful. To name just a few issues: download a gigantic runtime, deploy a specific version of the JVM, deploy associated libraries (which may or may not conflict with those in the JRE), reserve a lot of memory for it (often more than the JVM provides by default) and make the whole thing run in a sensible way for end users without having to type an arcane command. A configuration nightmare. Compare with Python: a small runtime, standard library locations in the system, a simple way to run scripts, runs truly everywhere. As to runtime errors, you are right about C/C++, but there is a reason why people put up with them. And Java is not without issues. I don't know if you have ever been in jar hell: looking for an error which manifests only on the web server, caused (supposedly) by a specific version of one the libraries installed, but you have no way to find out whether it was embedded in the JRE, loaded from the classpath, from the library path, or embedded in the .war file. (Normally you assume it is using the .jar in the .war, and only after a lot of head-scratching you work up from there.) For development you need not only a way to manage all of the above, but also an alien build system (Ant, alien even to the JDK) and a way to manage dependencies (Maven), and then you have a lot of random packages not integrated with anything else -- not even with those already in the system. No wonder the only way to do sane development with Java is from within Eclipse, which provides a lot of the missing pieces -- but good luck trying to package and run that code elsewhere.
Makes autotools look like something easy. At least you run a standard set of commands:
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It runs everywhere! Posted Aug 21, 2012 15:19 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>download a gigantic runtime, deploy a specific version of the JVM
That's not true. JVM is incredibly backwards-compatible, up to the point it becomes excessively so. That means you simply need a recent enough version of JVM.
>make the whole thing run in a sensible way for end users without having to type an arcane command. A configuration nightmare.
But it's the same problem with Python, you have to package a Python app separately for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
Three answers in one Posted Aug 21, 2012 16:23 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] But it's the same problem with PythonNot really. Python runs source code files directly, without compilation, so you can just git clone a repo and run it (double click on Windows): no need to package. If you want to package software, Python includes Distutils, which make installing software a breeze. Finally, Python has the official repo PyPI, and a tool called pip to download third party libraries. All that as part of Python itself, as officially supported tools. Hard to beat.
Three answers in one Posted Aug 21, 2012 22:52 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Try to beat Java WebStart. I simply give you a link and it downloads and starts application (with all its dependencies).
Now try that with Python. On Windows.
Go on, do it. You'll have to install Python first, or you won't be able to run anything. After you've installed it you might notice that clicking on a script results in an ugly console window (even though you might have a GUI app), so you need some sort of runner.
Three answers in one Posted Aug 21, 2012 23:16 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] But to use WebStart you need to install the JRE first. How is it different than installing Python, except that Python is much smaller and available for many more platforms (and pre-installed on Mac OS X and most Linuxen)? Once installed I can beat your single link with a single command:pip install package. I can dictate it to aunt Tilly over the phone.
I don't know much about WebStart, but I have not seen it used for anything remotely serious. For packaging, distributing, installing and using software on a regular basis, and for basic configuration management, Python is great; I don't know the steps needed to package something using WebStart though.
Three answers in one Posted Aug 22, 2012 2:42 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>But to use WebStart you need to install the JRE first.
Go to http://java.com and download it. Big deal.
>Once installed I can beat your single link with a single command: pip install package. I can dictate it to aunt Tilly over the phone.
- Pip? Is it a character from the Great Expectations? Do you want me to reread this awful novel? How dare you!
Once you say "command line" you are WAY outside the realm of acceptable for end-user apps. WAAAAAAY too far.
> I don't know much about WebStart, but I have not seen it used for anything remotely serious. For packaging, distributing, installing and using software on a regular basis, and for basic configuration management, Python is great; I don't know the steps needed to package something using WebStart though.
Java has a package management system, it's called Maven. It's somewhat similar to pip/setuptools except that it works at _build_ _time_. And as a result you can generate Java WebStart packages, self-installing executables, etc.
The greatest problem with Java really is its 'heavy' JVM. Sun missed the opportunity to make it lightweight, alas.
Apache's role in all of this Posted Aug 22, 2012 10:13 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] So, both WebStart and Python require the user to download it before using it. Unsurprisingly. From there Python is more geared to professional users, for which I am grateful (since amateurs are not going to use WebStart or pip anyway).Maven is not in Java, it is an outside package. Which brings us to another one of Java's treats: the big ecosystem of Apache software. But wait, why is such a big corpus of code necessary at all? To provide for Java deficiencies, which means the 50MB+ JRE monstrosity is not even enough to have a decent set of collections. Each useful third-party package you find out there is likely to depend on a few Apache libraries, meaning that you will be soon managing tens of .jar files. To bring this into perspective, there are 39 Apache Commons projects, which are supposed to provide foundation libraries. Which is why Maven is needed. Whew! Apache code is maintained by the ASF foundation which is at odds with Oracle. I guess that the worst problem here is that Java is controlled by Oracle, a hostile corporation. Compare with Python, Perl, C or even JavaScript (which seems to be in the hands of a handful of browser vendors, but at least they cooperate).
Apache's role in all of this Posted Aug 22, 2012 15:38 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>So, both WebStart and Python require the user to download it before using it. Unsurprisingly. From there Python is more geared to professional users, for which I am grateful (since amateurs are not going to use WebStart or pip anyway).
Actually, it is possible to install Java using browsers' automatic plugin detection.
>To provide for Java deficiencies, which means the 50MB+ JRE monstrosity is not even enough to have a decent set of collections.
Please, stop repeating nonsense. Commons-collections is a dead project, it hadn't been necessary for a loooooooong time. Sun JVM in fact has one of the best collection libraries, including parallel and non-blocking collections which you'd be hard-pressed to find in other languages.
You also might actually browse the list of apache-commons libraries. About a half of them are either thin wrappers over several other libraries and/or long-dead projects.
Apache's role in all of this Posted Aug 22, 2012 16:12 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I was not repeating anything, it is just my own recollection. If the situation has improved nowadays, good for them!
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