Re: Native Java (was Re: Learning Cocoa ..).
Re: Native Java (was Re: Learning Cocoa ..).
- Subject: Re: Native Java (was Re: Learning Cocoa ..).
- From: tyler <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 18:01:51 -0700
On Tuesday, July 17, 2001, at 05:34 PM, Clark S. Cox III wrote:
On Monday, July 16, 2001, at 09:37 , Tyler LaGrange wrote:
Brilliant! You took the words right out of my mouth. I had marked
Andre's message as the one message in this thread that made me mad
enough to want to respond to - and then I got to this one - which beat
me to it.
<SNIP>
Honestly - ObjC isn't that tough to learn - and there really are some
good points (I absolutely hate the memory management stuff though -
blech). But Java just seems so much more logical to stick with - for
myself and many others out there. It's not cause we can't learn ObjC -
or that we feel like old NeXT programmers when we see it - but because
it is easier for us. I'd probably even learn SmallTalk or Lisp or
something if it was the only interface in to OSX.
I would have no problem recommending that someone use Java for
Cocoa apps, if it weren't for the larger memory footprint, and slowdown
caused by the VM. Unless we get a Java that is compiled directly to
machine code (not Java byte code), this difference will never go away.
Take any Cocoa app written in Java, and re-write it in Obj-C, and you
will get a faster, smaller, and less-resource intensive app.
YES! Java compiled to native machine code -- THAT is what I want to see
happen. I'd love to program Java for desktop applications, but I don't
need the byte code cross-platform benefits. I advocated an installer
that verifies the byte code and compiles it to native machine code to
Metrowerks years ago, but nothing came of it.
I totally agree with Clark that the slowdown of the VM make java
generally unsuitable for desktop applications in most cases today. I
don't know about you, but I've yet to use a computer that was Truly so
fast that I never wished it would hurry up already.
I don't think my (or your) users will appreciate that wehad an easier
time coding the thing when they are faced with the slow functionality of
it. But if we could have java at full speed (native machine code), THEN
we'd have something!
Now I've always wondered if there were runtime issues that would make
this impossible, or if it was just a choice that sun had made and that
no one with the skill and time had taken the time to write the
appropriate compiler/linker pieces...
tyler