RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Java-Gnome is cool but it's a Bad Thing.

[Daniel H. <dhe...@wo...>]

Ed Symanzik wrote:
> - I write Java so my applications will be portable.  Gnome is
>   not portable.

Sure it is. It's portable across many different flavors of Unix
and Linux and *BSD.

I write applications using Java as the language because Java
is a very clean and elegant language to use. I personally 
find it a hindrance that Java's "cross-platform" nature has
made it slower than it has to be in certain situations (which
is why GCJ looks kinda cool...).

> - Microsoft did the same thing, tying Java to Windows calls,
>   and they got their hand slapped.  It was bad then and it's
>   bad now.

Er. Not true. It is not against the Sun vendor licensing to
bind Java to any native interface -- that's why JNI exists.

What M$ did was alter and/or omit core API functionality from
the java class libraries that they were bound by licensing 
agreement to include (ie not include Swing).

FYI, Apple has produced a JNI interface to Aqua, its super-
sleak UI that runs on top of OS-X. It is bundled with their
OS-X distribution of Java, along with Swing.

There's nothing wrong with extending Java for your own benefit,
or the benefit of your neighbors.

> Perhaps I don't understand but it seems to me this should be
> done as UIManager.setLookAndFeel("org.gnome.GnomeLookAndFeel")
> or perhaps by rewriting awk/swing to use gnome.

If that is what you want (a Swing PLAF that adheres to gtk),
then check out:

http://gtkswing.sourceforge.net/

But if what you want is a UI that doesn't suck (ie Swing),
and that will allow you to write fairly zippy user apps
in Java that run on any gnome-compliant machine, this looks
like a good beginning.

Thx,
-daniel
--
Daniel Hedrick,
Software Engineer
dhe...@wo...
"Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once."