From: Jan-Wijbrand K. <jw...@n-...> - 2008-09-02 08:19:30
|
(I sent this message to the list yesterday, but I never saw it get through. I hope this will not be a dup) Hello, Recently there's been a question on the developers mailinglist whether there's still any interest in J "as in the general purpose text and code editor" (maybe it might've been a good idea to have sent that question to the armedbear-j-users list too?). Anyway, I have the feeling J-as-in-the-editor isn't really used anymore by anyone. Or is it? Noone showed any particular interest in J, right? I happend to be a long time user of J (I think I started using J in 2000, maybe even 1999). During that period, I sent a few minor patches, mostly related to the Python-mode (software developement in Python is what I do for a living). Since the latest official release (was it 2004, maybe 2005?) there hasn't been any serious development on J anymore if I'm not mistaken. I have a bit of a sentimental feeling about this: J has really grown on me in all these years (especially the XML mode with it oh-so easy way of inserting XML elements, and the quick hack in the Python-mode to enable so-called "doctest mode"), but I also think any codebase without active maintenance or userbase is bound to render obsolete. So, basically, is J dead? Are there any users still out there? Or have people migrated away - like I'm currently doing, dusting of my .emacs file? Although my Java-skills are rusty to say the least, maybe I could chip a little maintenance-time when there're more people to collaborate with. If not, then let me take this opportunity to say a sincere and whole hearted "Thank You Peter" for the having developed J, an editor that deserves to have had a much, much bigger audience. Kind regards, jw -- Jan-Wijbrand Kolman jw...@n-... |
From: Ludovico M. <lu...@qi...> - 2008-09-02 08:26:04
|
Jan-Wijbrand Kolman wrote: > > So, basically, is J dead? Are there any users still out there? Or have > people migrated away - like I'm currently doing, dusting of my .emacs > file? Although my Java-skills are rusty to say the least, maybe I could > chip a little maintenance-time when there're more people to collaborate > with. I use J as my primary editor, for Python/XML/HTML/CSS work and general editing fo text files. In fact, I often think I should start learning Java so that when the time comes I'll be able to maintain J, at least for my personal use. I cannot think of using anything else to edit files. > If not, then let me take this opportunity to say a sincere and whole > hearted "Thank You Peter" for the having developed J, an editor that > deserves to have had a much, much bigger audience. And yes, Peter thanks *a lot* from me too of course. It's a shame J is not widely known and used. In fact, we could probably team up and do some evangelizing, a web site with user-friendly docs, screencasts, and all the works. L. |
From: David M. <dav...@gm...> - 2008-09-02 18:02:22
|
I was never a hard core J user, but I played around a little with it back in 2004. I thought I'd contribute my thoughts and impressions, in case anyone is interested: I became aware of J because, as an emacs user and Java programmer, I had come to the conclusion that emacs was failing to evolve due to being weighed down by its own legacy code base; that there would be a lot of value in creating a successor to emacs completely from the ground up; and that the JVM would be an ideal platform for this successor. Naturally this led me to J. I liked the minimalist approach to usability, which was obviously inspired by emacs. And the design itself seemed clean and extensible. One thing I didn't like was the lack of line-wrapping capability; I even expressed an interest in adding this functionality, but I ended up not being able to spare the time. Unfortunately, by this time the quality of Java IDE's had surpassed the capabilities of general purpose text editors, and I do mostly Java development, so I ended up not ever using J extensively; in fact I sort of forgot about it. Nevertheless I think J's approach to editor design is good. It would be nice if the project could regain some momentum, or at least serve as the conceptual basis for a similar project. If I were to develop my own text editor, I might or might not use the JVM, but even if I didn't, I would use J for design inspiration. One major criticism: "J" is a terrible name, because it's not search-engine-friendly. I wouldn't be surprised if this were a major reason for the project's lack of momentum. In my opinion any evangelism effort should start with a name change. -Dave On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 1:26 AM, Ludovico Magnocavallo <lu...@qi...> wrote: > Jan-Wijbrand Kolman wrote: >> >> So, basically, is J dead? Are there any users still out there? Or have >> people migrated away - like I'm currently doing, dusting of my .emacs >> file? Although my Java-skills are rusty to say the least, maybe I could >> chip a little maintenance-time when there're more people to collaborate >> with. > > I use J as my primary editor, for Python/XML/HTML/CSS work and general > editing fo text files. In fact, I often think I should start learning > Java so that when the time comes I'll be able to maintain J, at least > for my personal use. I cannot think of using anything else to edit files. > >> If not, then let me take this opportunity to say a sincere and whole >> hearted "Thank You Peter" for the having developed J, an editor that >> deserves to have had a much, much bigger audience. > > And yes, Peter thanks *a lot* from me too of course. It's a shame J is > not widely known and used. In fact, we could probably team up and do > some evangelizing, a web site with user-friendly docs, screencasts, and > all the works. > > L. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > _______________________________________________ > armedbear-j-users mailing list > arm...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/armedbear-j-users > |
From: Jan-Wijbrand K. <jw...@n-...> - 2008-09-02 20:21:13
|
Hi, I was pleasantly suprised by the quick responses to my post. I got two on-list replies and one off-list reply. That, so far, makes up for a known userbase of four people. Usually inquiries like hit on only the top of the iceberg, but I'm not so sure in this particular case. Anyway, I see a couple of ways things can go from here on: 1) Everything stays as it is. J will see hardly any updates, and the people that chose to use J are basically on their own in keeping J running for themselves. 2) Someone steps up as "the maintainer for J" like someone did for the ABCL implementation. At least the effort for keeping J's codebase compatible with whatever the most common Java versions are can then be shared. Maybe there's even some patches lying around that can be applied and released. 3) A group of people want to give J a second life and starts actively maintaining, possibly even developing, the code base (I know I have some user-interface related ideas still for J), tries to reach out to new users, does some marketing etc. Actually, I don't see 3) happening without 2). Similarly, 2) can only happen if there're enough people in 1). Do you think that, with the four of use, it might be worthwhile to start sharing some efforts in keeping J running? Like testing J on various Java versions and platforms (I tried compiling it today on a fresh Ubuntu install, and it didn't work - I still need to find out why and report the findings). Kind regards, jw -- Jan-Wijbrand Kolman jw...@n-... |
From: Marcin T. <mm...@ze...> - 2008-09-02 23:27:26
|
What does it need in the way of maintenance? On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Jan-Wijbrand Kolman <jw...@n-...> wrote: > Hi, > > > I was pleasantly suprised by the quick responses to my post. I got two > on-list replies and one off-list reply. That, so far, makes up for a > known userbase of four people. > > Usually inquiries like hit on only the top of the iceberg, but I'm not > so sure in this particular case. > > Anyway, I see a couple of ways things can go from here on: > > 1) Everything stays as it is. J will see hardly any updates, and the > people that chose to use J are basically on their own in keeping J > running for themselves. > > 2) Someone steps up as "the maintainer for J" like someone did for the > ABCL implementation. At least the effort for keeping J's codebase > compatible with whatever the most common Java versions are can then be > shared. Maybe there's even some patches lying around that can be applied > and released. > > 3) A group of people want to give J a second life and starts actively > maintaining, possibly even developing, the code base (I know I have some > user-interface related ideas still for J), tries to reach out to new > users, does some marketing etc. > > Actually, I don't see 3) happening without 2). Similarly, 2) can only > happen if there're enough people in 1). > > Do you think that, with the four of use, it might be worthwhile to start > sharing some efforts in keeping J running? Like testing J on various > Java versions and platforms (I tried compiling it today on a fresh > Ubuntu install, and it didn't work - I still need to find out why and > report the findings). > > > Kind regards, > jw > > -- > Jan-Wijbrand Kolman > jw...@n-... > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's > challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great > prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > _______________________________________________ > armedbear-j-devel mailing list > arm...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/armedbear-j-devel > |
From: David M. <dav...@gm...> - 2008-09-03 00:07:00
|
Regarding what it needs for maintenance, at a minimum it doesn't build out-of-the-box using latest versions of Java. At least, I downloaded the source and tried to build via ant, using JDK 1.6, and was unsuccessful. Regarding the 3 options, I think there's a fourth, which is to fork and reimplement. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the existing code base, but a lot of time has passed, and there may be some interesting language options that weren't available 5 years ago. Having said that, I'm afraid I can't really be involved at this time, much as this would normally interest me. I'm effectively working two jobs these days, so I simply don't have the cycles to spare. - Dave On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 4:27 PM, Marcin Tustin <mm...@ze...> wrote: > What does it need in the way of maintenance? > > On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Jan-Wijbrand Kolman <jw...@n-...> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> >> I was pleasantly suprised by the quick responses to my post. I got two >> on-list replies and one off-list reply. That, so far, makes up for a >> known userbase of four people. >> >> Usually inquiries like hit on only the top of the iceberg, but I'm not >> so sure in this particular case. >> >> Anyway, I see a couple of ways things can go from here on: >> >> 1) Everything stays as it is. J will see hardly any updates, and the >> people that chose to use J are basically on their own in keeping J >> running for themselves. >> >> 2) Someone steps up as "the maintainer for J" like someone did for the >> ABCL implementation. At least the effort for keeping J's codebase >> compatible with whatever the most common Java versions are can then be >> shared. Maybe there's even some patches lying around that can be applied >> and released. >> >> 3) A group of people want to give J a second life and starts actively >> maintaining, possibly even developing, the code base (I know I have some >> user-interface related ideas still for J), tries to reach out to new >> users, does some marketing etc. >> >> Actually, I don't see 3) happening without 2). Similarly, 2) can only >> happen if there're enough people in 1). >> >> Do you think that, with the four of use, it might be worthwhile to start >> sharing some efforts in keeping J running? Like testing J on various >> Java versions and platforms (I tried compiling it today on a fresh >> Ubuntu install, and it didn't work - I still need to find out why and >> report the findings). >> >> >> Kind regards, >> jw >> >> -- >> Jan-Wijbrand Kolman >> jw...@n-... >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's >> challenge >> Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great >> prizes >> Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the >> world >> http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ >> _______________________________________________ >> armedbear-j-devel mailing list >> arm...@li... >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/armedbear-j-devel > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great > prizes > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ > _______________________________________________ > armedbear-j-users mailing list > arm...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/armedbear-j-users > > |
From: Jan-Wijbrand K. <jw...@n-...> - 2008-09-03 07:34:53
|
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 4:27 PM, Marcin Tustin <mm...@ze...> wrote: >> What does it need in the way of maintenance? On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 17:07:09 -0700, "David Martin" <dav...@gm...> wrote: > Regarding what it needs for maintenance, at a minimum it doesn't build > out-of-the-box using latest versions of Java. At least, I downloaded > the source and tried to build via ant, using JDK 1.6, and was > unsuccessful. Exactly. Newer Java versions have seen the light of the day since the latest offical release and I couldn't get J compiled yesteryday on a clean Ubuntu where I installed sun-java6-jdk and did a ./configure; make; make install. Compilation using sun-java5-jdk appeared to succeed, but then J wouldn't start, crashing with some stackoverflow error. Anyway, IMHO, codebases in active use need maintenance. > Regarding the 3 options, I think there's a fourth, which is to fork > and reimplement. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong > with the existing code base, but a lot of time has passed, and there > may be some interesting language options that weren't available 5 > years ago. > > Having said that, I'm afraid I can't really be involved at this time, > much as this would normally interest me. I'm effectively working two > jobs these days, so I simply don't have the cycles to spare. I quickly thought about such a fourth option as well, however being involved a couple community driven open-source projects I know one thing: you have to start simple and with a low ambition levels to get anything done. It is just too easy to find yourself tangled in long and interesting discussions about how thing *could* be or *should* be without getting some actual code out. For me the first low-ambition step would be: get J compiled and running again on a fresh Ubuntu install. This is something I can realistically speaking try to do. Let's share these eepxeriences on the mailinglist and see if this can get any ball (however small or big the ball actually is) rolling. Thanks for you replies!! regards, jw -- Jan-Wijbrand Kolman jw...@n-... |
From: Jan-Wijbrand K. <jw...@n-...> - 2008-09-03 07:47:11
|
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 09:31:07 +0200, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote: > On 9/3/08, Marcin Tustin <mm...@ze...> wrote: >> What does it need in the way of maintenance? > > Well, when I look at the bug/feature request lists, people have taken > the time to write patches for functionality they were missing (a C# > mode, for example). > > Next to that: software does not only need maintenance, but when > maintenance is done, it also needs releases. Some people think you do > not, but version numbers are a great way of doing your marketing. > (Yes, even OSS projects need to work on their marketing: do you have > any idea how many OSS editors there are - and hence need to compete > with?) > > So, this is about making sure users sending mails actually get their > messages answered; making sure fixes get released in publicly visible > releases; taking time to reward people who write fixes by applying > those fixes; etc. Exactly! > I've accepted maintenance, but am only interested in the Common Lisp > part. This means that anybody who wants to chip in to maintain J is > greatly welcome. Possibly, we can even split up the project since that > would do justice (in terms of visibility) to both components. Ofcourse > J depends on ABCL, but if we do the split correctly, it could still be > done in a non-intrusive way. I think splitting the code bases would indeed do justice to both projects *and* would make the scope of development and maintenance much more clear to the outside world. Being somehwat interested in *helping* maintaining J, I would not dare claim I can maintain J. My Java skills in developement and making releases is very very outdated. But I'd like to learn and help. Let's start out by sharing experiences on the mailinglist again! kind regards, jw |
From: Ville V. <vil...@gm...> - 2008-09-03 10:30:54
|
On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:41 AM, Eric Marsden <eri...@fr...> wrote: > In my opinion, separating the code bases would be a mistake. I agree. It's highly doubtful (at least to me) that J would survive such a split. I suggest that people wait a little while before doing any drastic reorganization. I have for some time been toying with the idea of looking at J. My personal interest is much more geared towards abcl, but it's possible that I may have time to look at J bugs/requests. I have to say that I've never used J, so don't get too excited yet. :) I also unfortunately have very limited amount of time to spend for either abcl or J. I have however done some patches for abcl already, so I wouldn't rule out the possiblility of finding time to do the same for J. -VJV- |