Re: I know code, but not the logistics of JAVA, can anyone help?
googlegroups@paul13.com wrote:
....
I have a few questions...
1) I thought that I would use JAVA so that I could give the program to
any student and they could run it on their computer regardless if it is
a mac or PC. My students won't be running any other systems. Now I am
hearing that a stand alone program will only run if JAVA is installed.
I thought that all PC's and macs came with the ability to run JAVA
programs. Is this wrong?
Yes.
1) Windows OS's were being distributed with no Java.
for a time during the Sun/MS legal wranglings, Sun
actually got a court order to stop MS distributing the
MS JVM, and MS refused (or perhaps was also
prevented - I'm a bit hazy on the history) from
distributing the Sun Java Plug-In.
2) It is almost standard for distributors to provide
the Java plug-in along with the basic OS these days,
but it is not universal.
2) Why would someone want to do this in JAVA 1.5 as opposed to JAVA 2.
Is there an advantage/disadvantage?
'Java 2' AFAIR was effectively Java 1.2+.
Swing was available in both versions.
The real advantage of 1.5 is possibly a few
more (and improved) UI elements, but then,
it sounds that your simple program could
largely by written in Java 1.1.
Java 1.5 provides 'generics', but that provides
nothing of direct interest to the end user, it
simply means that development can be quicker.
3) I have had some people tell me that this should be an applet as
opposed to a stand alone program or application.
They are idiots. Ignore them.
..Will this make it
easier to have the code run on any computer?
No.
..Will this help it look
nicer?
No. In fact, it is far easier to make a stand alone
application look nicer, since they are easier to
resize, and don't have the (unnecessary) browser
GUI (the menus, buttons, address bar) wrapped
around them.
..I am not sure what is what here.
4) is there anything else I should know about JAVA and have a program
such as this written in JAVA?
JAVA is generally spelt Java. It is not an acronym,
and please don't SHOUT at us.
5) what is the difference between a "console", "window", "GUI" and
....umm. I was about to google 'definintion ...' when I realised
you could do that just as easily as me..
"swing" program?
...But in Java - the AWT component toolkit was
available from Java 1.1+, the other component
toolkit is Swing, introduced in Java 1.2.
(Note: Follow-ups set to c.l.j.help only)
HTH
Andrew T.