Re: Microsoft .NET?
"M.J. Dance" <mjdance@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5QtOg.4938$oj5.1912928@news.siol.net...
Arne Vajh??j wrote:
M.J. Dance wrote:
So use Mono \intersection .NET or development. It takes an extra effort,
but...
Si .NET is portable if one tests that it works on all
.NET platforms.
By that definition all languages are portable.
What makes Java special is the strictness by which
compliance is defines.
I agree. I wasn't aiming for that strictness, though. That's why I said
"For all practical purposes".
And if you want to be really strict, let me explain something. In order
for some (100% pure) Java applications to work (really work in a long
term, not just compile and plausibly run for a minute or two), one has to
fine tune not only a JVM, but also an underlying OS. And this fine tuning
effectively changes with every new version (even minor and/or micro) of
JVM as well as OS.
Bottom line is that all that really remains of that (in)famous
write-once-run-everywhere(anywhere) buzz-phrase, is that "it compiles". At
best.
Well, if you want to be extra super strict, no application can ever be
guaranteed to work for more than a minute or two, if we allow for the OS to
change in unexpected ways which don't guarantee backwards compatibility.
If we make "normal" assumptions about the computing environment (a
meteor won't fall out of the sky and strike the computer, we don't try to
hotswap from one JVM to another incompatible JVM, etc.) I don't see why a
Java program shouldn't be able to run for longer than 2 minutes (nor a C# or
C program for that matter).
I've got a few Java applications which, IMHO, "work", and have been
working for longer than 2 minutes, and I didn't finetune the JVM or the
underlying OS (unless installing the JVM itself is considered a form of
finetuning the OS): Azureus, Eclipse, jEdit, etc.
- Oliver