portability, java and Apple

Philippe Marschall philippe.marschall at gmail.com
Thu Jan 26 21:33:33 UTC 2006


2006/1/26, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>:
>
> On 26-Jan-06, at 12:47 PM, Jason Rogers wrote:
>
> > On 1/26/06, Philippe Marschall <philippe.marschall at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> 2006/1/26, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>:
> >>> Spotted a note on wired.com about the powerPC-intel transition;
> >>> "Java-based applications compiled for PowerPC chips are broken, such
> >>> as file-sharing client LimeWire; and so are any appli..."
> >>> Um, pardon me but wasn't java supposed to be portable? Yes, I
> >>> understand that this is at least partly to do with the JNI nonsense
> >>> but really - does no one ever learn?
> >>
> >> So they need to be recompiled like squeak plugins?
> >
> > touché
> Wrong. The plugins are provided with the Squeak application and your
> end-user application is a portable image. JNI is a deliberate with-
> malice-aforethough binding of an *application* to a particular OS/cpu.
>
> Yes, you can be that stupid with Squeak if you want. You can make an
> image that uses FFI in such a way that it can only work on one
> platform. With a tiny bit more thought you can abstract that an make
> an image that uses the right FFI for each platform, or even handles a
> platform without an FFI capability. I expect that with thought you
> could do the same in java but the that much thinking would probably
> lead you to not do it in java anyway.

Please have a look the `Squeak and bluetooth' thread.



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