Java problem

[Les Mikesell]

Lamar Owen wrote:

>> This isn't something you have to guess about.  There is a compatibility
>> test.
> 
> Have you run any tests against icedtea?  Which specific ones failed?  Were 
> bugs filed in bugzilla about them?

No, I don't see the point of replacing something that works with 
something not already proven to be better.

>> There are different versions with different tests.  Sun is the authority
>> on this unless that have given that up recently.  The fact that this
>> isn't clear shows just how badly the fake versions have damaged the name.
> 
> We here have had Java compatibility problems with this app since before gcj, 
> icedtea, or other FOSS solutions were available.  The most notorious, of 
> course, was Microsoft's java, which didn't work at all. 

So you do understand the damage that shipping incompatible versions 
causes...

> We learned that we 
> had to specify a particular JRE, and we provide information about this issue 
> during our training workshops.  This is just the applet; the servlet is even 
> more version-sensitive (we are doing telescope control using custom hardware; 
> JRE/JDK upgrades are very touchy, even inside a major JDK version).

Even Sun could have done a better job with versioning the code and 
providing backwards compatibility.

>> That's a different - and solvable - issue.  If a replacement shell did
>> something different internally, like removing quotes before expanding
>> wildcards you'd get the kind of damage that an incompatible java
>> interpreter can do.
> 
> Ever try a real Korn shell on different platforms? 

I used it on AT&T sysvr4, but only with Bourne-compatible syntax since I 
didn't expect it to be available everywhere.

> Specifically, ever tried 
> it on an Apollo DomainOS 10 or later system? 

No - again I don't see the point of using something incompatible...

> You'd hate that system; 
> depending upon the setting of an environment variable, you had different 
> shells, different sets of programs, and different behaviors (SysV, BSD, or 
> Aegis).
> 
> But that's a different story.

Did any of the settings fail with Bourne-compatible syntax?  I've always 
used perl for the things I didn't expect /bin/sh to handle portably with 
Bourne shell syntax.  Other than command line editing, the ksh 
extensions weren't compelling enough to give up portability.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com