[clug] Why isn't Java popular on the Linux Desktop? [SEC=PERSONAL]

[Francis James Whittle]

Sorry Alex, hit the wrong button (normally I use the reply-to-list keyboard shortcut but it seems to have stopped working to email that's CC'd to the list)

On Wed, 2009-07-15 at 09:43 +1000, Alex Satrapa wrote:
> I thought half the rationalisation of the Java security model was that  
> you had to preallocate the resources so that the VM could stop  
> programs going rogue? At which point, what's the purpose of  
> preallocation if you don't try to sponge it all up at VM startup? This  
> part of the Java complaints in this thread has sounded to me a lot  
> like complaining that seatbelts don't let you move around the car.
> 
> Alex
> 

Well there's a difference between seatbelts that don't let you move
around the car and a car filled with hardening foam so that every
conceivable movement of the human body is suppressed, including.  While
I can't claim to be a pre-allocation expert (I've done it in m68k
assembly), I think that the people who are arguing this are complaining
that this feels to them like the latter.

That said, for web applications that are deployed through the browser
rather than being a conscious decision to install by a system
administrator, having a pre-allocated VM size isn't such a bad idea.
This is really the sort of program that Java was originally aimed at.
It's also a really good model for mobile and other embedded devices
where space is very limited.

But you might notice that very little of OpenOffice.org is written in
Java (it basically comes down to macros ), and hey, the company that
started and controlled THAT cross-platform desktop application even
changed their stock market doohickey to JAVA.  Maybe the pre-allocation
model just isn't for desktop applications?  I tried searching for
information on why OpenOffice.org isn't written in Java and all I found
was some amateur programmers trying to say that it's because Java is
slow, which was true ten years ago.  Azureus works well enough...
(although those SWT tabs are pure ick)

Another topic is about whether developing in Java is future-proof, since
Oracle's acquisition of Sun.  In the worst case scenario (which hey, if
you're going to talk about it with ECMA-334 and ECMA-335) there's a
rational possibility that we're going to end up, again, with a
commercial Java and a free Java, because Oracle's not a big fan of free
software;  This will ultimately confuse your clients and make a hassle
for the developer.  Of course, that's just pessimistic speculation.