Hi.

IMO this is something the MorphOS Dev Team (now I'm writing it myself, sorry guys, but it sounds like the holy grail :) should have a look at. I will have, too, if it's something I can help.

http://jamiga2.blogspot.de/2017/05/signs-of-life-or-something.html

It seems that this is still being worked on.
I can not stress enough that having Java Runtime on Amiga/MorphOS would be a huge thing.

Not only would it open up for a number of nice applications.
But also for up-to-date development tools and languages.
Also, it for certain would attract a number of developers to Amiga.


Manfred


[ Edited by asrael22 25.08.2017 - 17:45 ]

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very cool project!

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Why?

So that they can use an undermaintained port of something they already have now only on obsolete HW?

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Because there are potentially a lot of developers out there that have had an Amiga.
But the stretch from JDK to C is too large.

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You could then as well ask: why the heck are we using this crap? Let's move on to our powerful Mac and Intel PCs.
Certainly it must be well maintained.

[ Edited by asrael22 25.08.2017 - 19:58 ]

@asrael22
Full Ack: A serious OS needs a JVM.

@Kronos
Imagine MorphOS without PowerSDL, eh?

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How large would the team of programmers need to be to maintain something like Java runtime for MorphOS (assuming that team members could only work on it a few hours each week)?

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I think not more or less than maintaining something like OpenOffice.
But compared to OpenOffice JVM would open a whole new world.

From those 80+ hardware platforms we remove 20 and we're there.
Na, I don't know. But it seems to me that more effort has been invested in hardware support than software.


Manfred

[ Edited by asrael22 26.08.2017 - 08:51 ]

@polluks

PowerSDL is nice, but I'm not sure I would miss it that much.

@asrael22

In order to interesting MorphOS needs to be different JAVA for me is just a part/sympton of the bloat that effects the major platforms (not as pure evil as Flash but still).

There is plenty of SW that I would like to see ported to MorphOS can't think of anything on that list needing JAVA.

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You are mixing things up. JVM and Flash are completely different things.
If you like it or not. MorphOS has a problem. Lack of a) developers and b) new software

Well, I can name a few JVM based applications, only a few.

Office:
- joeffice: http://www.joeffice.com/

Bible study:
- BibleDesktop: https://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/
- Alkitab: http://www.kiyut.com/products/alkitab/

Databases and management tools:
- H2: http://www.h2database.com/html/main.html
- Derby: https://db.apache.org/derby/
- DbVisualizer: https://www.dbvis.com
- tons more

House automation:
- openHAB: http://www.openhab.org

Editors:
- JEdit:

Development tools:
- Everything from JetBrains: https://www.jetbrains.com
- Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.org
- NetBeans: https://netbeans.org
- Gradle: https://gradle.org
- tons more

Web servers and Java-Servlet contains:
- Apache Tomcat: http://tomcat.apache.org
- Jetty: http://www.eclipse.org/jetty/

It would also open up for a number of really cool programming languages:
- Scala: http://www.scala-lang.org
- Kotlin: http://kotlinlang.org
- Ceilon: https://ceylon-lang.org

Having Java would open up for a ton of Web-development frameworks where applications could be developed and hosted on MorphOS.
I'll name just a few:
- Apache Wicket: https://wicket.apache.org
- Vaadin: https://vaadin.com/home
- Grails: https://grails.org

Like it or not, this stuff is what our current software world runs on, to a good part at least.

There are so many frameworks that can be used by applications developers. And also new programming paradigms, like Reactive:
- Akka: http://akka.io (to build fully concurrent applications)
- indexing: https://lucene.apache.org
- tons more.
- there is not much that is not available.

That is just the list I have in my head of stuff I'm dealing with.

I've written my Diplom on a performance comparison on Java (1.3 at the time, 15 years ago) and C++.
Believe it or not, Java is, depending on the scenario, equally fast as C++ code.
Yes, a Java application takes a bit longer to start up, because of lot of runtime stuff has to be loaded.
That, and the bloat you are talking of is something that can be controlled in my opinion, by making efficient MorphOS backend.
On my PowerBook (running macOS) I had used a lot of Java applications, some of the above list. This stuff ran reasonably fast. I'm sure the same is possible on MorphOS.

Yes, Java requires more resources. However, this is even less a problem if you guys plan a CPU architecture change (only hear-say).
What's the alternative. Where do you want to go with MorphOS? Keep unbloated but vanish?


Manfred

[ Edited by asrael22 26.08.2017 - 13:25 ]

Install all these and you'd have YALD with a funny skin....


No I don't know a solution nor am I sure there is one, just doesn't make your way any more attractive.



I have no problem with Joakim pushing his project forward at whatever speed he manages.
I have no problem with him releasing and you using those results.
I have no problem with 10234 JAVA apps released for MorphOS afterwards.

I do have a problem with the notion that resources should be diverted to that cause.
I do have a problem if JAVA being available results in decreases in quantity/quality for proper MorphOS app releases.

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Certainly not all would be perfect.
But this is something that could be looked at.

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For you.

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The question is how many resources would that actually be. I assume you guys didn't even have a look.
Java wouldn't and couldn't replace apps that are tied tightly to the OS, like sbar stuff, drivers, etc, etc.
There will always be 'native' applications. Because some people like C/C++ or other languages better. Why would it be different than on other OSes.
But it would have one huge advantage: a lot of new options.


Manfred

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Depends on how much of a moving target JAVA is these days, but Joakim started several years ago and seems still quite far from a really working product.

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I certainly didn't "have a look" as I experienced JAVA always more of a problem as a solution (hence the comparison to Flash).

As to "you guys" if you mean the MorphOS-team.... *shrug*...... I know about as much as you.

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Yes, all the visual stuff is missing AFAIK.
A new Java version is released pretty much all two years. It's not that bad if there is state that has been ported properly.

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Java is awesome. But it's not perfect.

Sorry, I thought you were part of the team. :)

Manfred

Me only being a "wanna be" programmer, I can't contribute much of anything yet, but I do know how important Java "seems" to have been on other platforms, and I can assume that having Java runtime, or JVM for MorphOS and other Amiga variants, would be a great thing for some programmers, who are used to working with it, and might allow the porting of many other software programs, that have previously been unavailable to us.

I have also read the arguments against Java, and I agree that bloat is not what we want for MorphOS, either our current PPC version, or any future version on x64 hardware. I guess it could depend on each user to decide to install Java on their system, as long as the MorphOS Dev. Team does NOT make any part of MorphOS for PPC or x64 dependent on having Java installed, or included as part of the OS.

For a while, it seemed to me that Java was going to be a requirement for all web browsers, and I think that there are some websites that won't work correctly, unless Java is available on the system running the browser visiting the site, but thankfully, my assumption was not realized, and most sites still work without having Java on our MorphOS, and other Amiga/Amiga inspired systems.

If we could have the choice to use Java and the cost in development resources was only 1, or 2 additional programmers working with the current person working on it, I think it would be worthwhile to have. I certainly don't advocate that we ask for any of the current MorphOS Dev. Team members take time away from porting MorphOS to x64, to help implement Java for MorphOS.

The problem is, and has always been, not enough programmers available, and too few programming hours left in the busy days and nights of what little programmer base we do have, and this is where Java is a double edged sword. Having it, would make programming/porting many software applications for/to MorphOS easier and quicker (assuming that all the programming tools for Java are also ported to MorphOS), but maintaining Java for MorphOS, takes programming resources away from working on other programming projects.

Alright. Let's talk about bloat, a bit.
How does the JVM work.
In contrast to C/C++ Java compiles source code into so called byte-code. This is an abstracted code which basically is platform independent. Which means the same compiled code can be run on JVMs on Linux, Mac, Windows and each system that provides a JVM.

To run this byte-code the JVM has to setup/run it's own runtime environment where this byte-code is loaded into and JIT (Just-In-Time) compiled into binary code that the CPU can execute. This JIT compiling is a certain overhead which happens once.
Which means Java is strong for longer running applications.
I don't see any bloat yet.

The memory the JVM allocates for the program to run also has to host some other things, for instance the JIT compiler and some administrative stuff like the garbage collector.
Yes, the memory that is allocated by the JVM is also managed by the JVM. Which means it cleans up resources it doesn't need anymore, etc. And, it also cleans up the structure of the heap (that's what the allocated JVM memory is called) which results in a clean heap. Resulting in that new memory allocations are fast because it tends to be unfractured. (btw: that's one area where it is a lot faster than C/C++ programs, at memory allocations.)
So, yes. If you want to call it bloat (I don't), the JVM requires probably more memory to run a program than other, 'native' environments.
But, you also gain something: the JVM manages it's own memory, makes sure that no other memory is touched in other regions of OS memory. You can call that memory protection. This would result in that it is very unlikely that a Java program will bring down the whole system. Except there is a bug in the JVM implementation.
Which means Java programs don't need memory protection in the OS.
Well, other programs can bring down the JVM. So it would be good to have for the JVM's own protection.

The only bloat there is, is that the JVM is autark in how it handles what's happening in it's own allocated memory.
And the byte-code compiled data is not as efficient as binary compiled data.
I don't think that is a big issue.

I even think the JVM could be integrated nicely in the OS for quick startup of applications, etc.
An additional benefit of Java is that is has an awesome programming API. With third-party libraries or when using other languages like Scala you have a development environment that it hard to beat in efficiency.
We can compare that as well to C/C++. Then the bloat is for sure elsewhere.
So there are different aspects of bloat.


Now, I like macOS very much and it's development environment, frameworks and API.
To be brutaly honest, would I develop a desktop application on Mac (which would be meant only for Mac) I would not use Java.
Why is that. Because I know the Cocoa API very well. And it is equally complete and awesome as the Java API.
It offers pretty much everything a developer requires. It's object-oriented, convenient and elegant. As the Java API is, too (not everywhere though).
In contrast, last year I've developed a small utility for my house automation which I'd liked MorphOS to do. But it required connecting to an HTTP server. So I've spend one week developing an HTTP client in C based on bsdsocket.library that would have taken me 30 minutes on Java or macOS.

Why do I mention that.

If you don't want to see Java on MorphOS I only see one alternative:
Choose a modern programming language for the OS (look at Swift or Rust). Create an awesome object-oriented, modern, convenient and elegant API on top of the 30 year old Amiga API if you want new developers developing software.
Otherwise you don't attract anyone.
Release MorphOS from old burdens. Make something new. That's the only way forward.


Manfred

[ Edited by asrael22 26.08.2017 - 20:34 ]

empty message. made an error in replying to my own message

[ Edited by asrael22 26.08.2017 - 20:34 ]

By the way we already have a VM built-in, it's called 68k
This is bloated, so what?

> having Java runtime, or JVM for MorphOS and other Amiga variants, [...] might
> allow the porting of many other software programs [...]. [...] Having it, would
> make [...] porting many software applications [...] to MorphOS easier and quicker

The fun in Java is that there's no porting required. The very same binaries run everywhere a sufficiently modern and complete version of Java is available.

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A bit too late but you could have used Reggae :
http://library.morph.zone/Downloading_web_resources_with_http.stream_-_basics

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Alright. So I could have saved some time on that.
To be honest, I have probably even looked at Reggae. But I've seen "stream", "Reggae" and I thought: streaming, I don't do streaming. I make a request. Together with "Reggae" I thought: this is probably a multimedia streaming framework. Not what I need, I just need a HTTP client.


Manfred

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Only if said program in Java doesn't use the JNI framework for using external functions/objects...(Not a problem of the Java language per se, but that doesn't help me if the program doesn't work as intended (or at all) as it's missing those external parts).

Oh, and I've seen programs that don't use the java.io class for creating a file path too - means I still have to do extra work to make it run on another platform (e.g. correcting paths to additional files).

That said, I just wanted to point out, that with enough "engery and motivation" (or stupidity) you can fuck up any language. 8)


Bye HAK

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Ding ding ding..and there it is.

I tried to set time aside programming here and there on MorphOS but there's always stuff that throws me off. MUI is one. Stuff that takes me too long to understand or languages (IDE's) not fully functional so I go back to what is fun to me: welding and building cars. Thats my out. I USED to relax and my out was programming now, not so much.

Lack of developers = lack of software.
Lack of an IDE that is easier (not for noobs, but one that works, is functional) to learn = lack of developers
Rinse, repeat.

Thats another reason why I appreciate MorphOS developers. They actually do this stuff because they have a passion for it. Something I lost a few years back. Again, thank you MorphOS Dev Team for this wonderful OS!!


-Alex

[ Edited by TheMagicM 28.08.2017 - 07:48 ]

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The MorphOS development team should not develop the software. But develop MorphOS (including the API and tools) so that others can develop the software.
However I see a stillstand there for round about 25 years regarding API and tools.


Manfred

[ Edited by asrael22 28.08.2017 - 15:54 ]

Always pushing the wrong button, sorry.

[ Edited by asrael22 28.08.2017 - 15:54 ]

I'd honestly prefer to add C# support rather than Java. Still, I'm afraid there isn't the manpower to add and maintain another language. 3.10 will add support for a different language though.