Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Clemens E. <Lin...@we...>]

Hi again!

>Which language in the mid-term for OO programming: Java, Python, C++ ?
>Is there any reason to keep using so many very close languages instead
>of focusing on theorical problems related to OO programming?
>(meta-objects protocols, automatic components assembling etc.). I'd be
>happy to know what Ximian developpers think about the OO language
>question, as they're making very good apps based on C/Gtk and Bonobo.
>Java is a cool language but I'm wondering sometimes if these guys are
>not going to produce a new LGPL Java-like language. I believe Java
>should now be released in true open-source, so that designers and
>developers from all companies could focus on a cooperative effort,
>without developing so many language-gateways (of course diversity is
>very important but here it looks like there is no real conceptual
>difference between Java, C++, Python, etc., or is there?).
>
Yes, this is probably a problem with openSource. But its nice for the 
developers. Each developer has his favourite language, and wants to 
develop with it. This is not so good for users (Look in /usr/lib :-( )
Yeah, there are some OpenSource Java-vm's. The most popular one is kaffe 
www.kaffe.org , but it isnt fully java2-compatible (Althought my fancy 
code runs on it). The biggest problem is that swing isnt supported at 
all . Java-GTK is supported, JIT  is not the fastest.
The second one is gcj. Its a native java-frontend to the famous gcc. It 
compiles java-code to natve binaries, wich are about 2x faster than 
interpreted code (First run of a loop) but much slower compared to code 
in jit (the loop looped some iterations). This is, because gcj does all 
heap-allocations with the os, not with its own memory-managemens (like sun).
The most importat project is the GNU-Classpath-Project. It tries to make 
a clean-room (without sun-code) Implementation of sun`s classes that can 
be used by all the GPLd VMs.

The biggest problem of those opensource-solutions is, that SWING isnt 
supported at all. Thats why I'm using Java-GTK. Of cource, its hard to 
port existing code to such opensource-vm's, but any code developed on an 
Opensource-vm should also run under the Sun-Vm. I developed my 
wine-configurator with those opensource-tools and I used the 
JDK1.2.2-Apidoks from sun. Except from the swing-packages I didn't miss 
any class or method.

> 
>
>One last remark: Gnu/Linux is still missing the game in the games
>software area; it's obvious that encouraging the development of games on
>Linux could help creating collectively advanced high-level generic
>OO-APIs for open-source graphical environnements ("intelligent" games as
>far as possible of course). 
>
Yeah, and I think that will never come. Too many people think that their 
stuff is the best (Look at java-gtk, it isn't very common and some 
people use it althought the user will have o compile libs...)
Trolltechs QT is very near to such a game of the games, but it stands 
under GPL and if you want to code a commercial app, you'll have to pay 
royalities. GTK's C interface is really terrible, and you'll need much 
libs to do all the stuff which is included in QT.

But I think this should be discussed in a development-forum.

cu Linuxhippy

>
>Regards 
>
>Almo 
>
>
>
>
>
>Le lun 15/07/2002 à 16:54, Jeffrey Morgan a écrit : 
>  
>
>>>Is there a possible synergy between Java/Gnome and IBM-SWT library
>>>(eclipse.org)? What's Java-Gnome position (technically and
>>>strategically) regarding IBM-SWT/JFace, which seems to run well on
>>>Gnome2.0 ? 
>>>      
>>>
>>There is a lot of synergy between these projects.  In fact, I am
>>currently working on the SWT project at the same time as working
>>on java-gnome.  There are a few problems with SWT that are being 
>>addressed.  They are:
>>
>>* SWT uses the GTK 1.x tree and list widgets (SWT team is working on this)
>>* SWT uses the GTK 1.x text widget (I am working on this)
>>* SWT/GTK does not have a consistent approach for NLS (SWT team is working
>>  on this)
>>* SWT relies on being able to utilize z-order.  GTK doesn't support z-order.
>>  The fix that was put in place is probably contributing to poor
>>performance.
>>  (This is an issue that I intend to bring up at this week's GNOME Summit)
>>* The SWT and GTK model for Composite/Child (SWT) and Container/Child (GTK)
>>  are very different.  As a result, SWT/GTK was forced to introduce hacks
>>  to handle widget sizing and positioning.  This is contributing to the poor
>>  performance.  (I also hope to bring this up at the GNOME Summit)
>>* SWT doesn't have close to full coverage of the APIs that are provided by
>>  GTK.  SWT also doesn't provide any coverage for the GNOME APIs. (See my
>>  proposed solution below)
>>
>>I intended to wait until my next release to put a proposal out to the
>>community but since you have touch on this topic I think I will do it now.
>>SWT will continue to mature at a rate that is much faster than java-gnome
>>due to the fact that IBM/OTI has full-time resources working on it.
>>Also, due to the fact that SWT runs natively on several platforms it will
>>gather much greater industry support.  At a low level, the way SWT is
>>accessing
>>the native peers is superior to the approach taken by java-gnome.  It would 
>>appear that SWT would be an ideal choice for somebody wanting to write a 
>>java application that will run on GTK.  You would also have the added
>>ability 
>>to support Motif, Win32, OSX Carbon, and other platforms.
>>
>>The primary problem with SWT is that it is not currently intended to be
>>a complete/robust GUI framework.  Not all widgets supported on the host
>>operating systems are supported on SWT.  Also, although JFace does provide
>>some higher-level facilities it is primary focused on providing a framework
>>for the eclipse platform.  At the same time, java-gnome attempts to map
>>directly to the underlying APIs provided by GTK and GNOME.  This makes
>>the java-gnome class library huge and very complex to use. A higher-level 
>>object-oriented API is needed in order to make java-gnome really viable.
>>
>>My proposal is for a new project (or a significant morph of java-gnome).
>>This new project would use SWT as it's foundation and would address the 
>>above mentioned issues.  This new project would not only focus on GTK.  
>>It would also provide support for Motif and Win32 (possibly others).  
>>Perhaps over time some of the code produced by this new project could 
>>be incorporated into SWT and some of it would stay independent of SWT.  
>>
>>A proposed task list to start the project follows:
>>
>>1) Identify lead developer for each of the platforms:
>>   GTK - Jeff Morgan
>>   Motif - ??
>>   Win32 - ??
>>
>>2) Define the new API and create an object model to be presented to the
>>   community:
>>   -I have spent a lot of time this year studying various GUI frameworks
>>(QT, 
>>    GTK, Motif, MFC).  I would like to begin a discussion with the
>>developers 
>>    on this new project to decide what functions should be included in this
>>    new GUI framework.  Perhaps it would be a combination of the best
>>features 
>>    of several of the mentioned frameworks.  The result of this discussion 
>>    would be an object model and a plan for development.  These artifacts
>>    would then be presented to the community at large for comments and 
>>    suggestions.
>>3) Once the design and plan are finalized create begin the effort.
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Do you know what Sun strategy is regarding Java integration into Gnome
>>>(Solaris will use Gnome as Desktop Environnement, but then which
>>>language will Sun recommend to build GUIs - as far as Swing 
>>>is obviously
>>>not fast enough to build advanced smooth GUIs ?
>>>      
>>>
>>Sun would have to answer this question.  At one time there was
>>much discussion about providing GTK peers for AWT.  I don't know
>>where this discussion went.
>>
>>
>>I would be very interested in hearing from the users of java-gnome
>>about the proposal put forth above.  Although it is a significant
>>departure from the current direction of this project I would be
>>interested in your views if it is the correct direction.
>>
>>-Jeff
>>    
>>
>
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