[Coco] Linux RBF filesystem support

[Steven Hirsch]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, Boisy Pitre wrote:

> I have been considering taking ToolShed into a new direction: rewriting it in 
> Java.  Right now the pain of having to cross compile and juggle different 
> versions for different platforms is a headache.  Porting ToolShed to Java 
> would eliminate this (though this would break FUSE support).  Perhaps just 
> porting tools like rma/rlink to Java would be a start.  I have already 
> started a from-scratch write of RMA in Java.

Oh, my god no...  Please do not do that.  My feelings about Java are even 
less benevolent than Chuck's are relative to Linux :-).  Seriously, at 
work (developing design-automation software) we refer to Java as "..write 
once, debug everywhere) due to the fact that our average box requires 
between 4 and 5 complete JVM installs to support all the "portable" 
applications that "just run anywhere".

There's the tool that only works on IBM Java 1.4, not Sun 1.4 mind you, 
just IBMs release.  There's another that requires an ancient 1.3 JVM and 
won't bloody run on anything newer.  And on, and on.

Then, there's the inevitable situation where, when the throughput of your 
workstation grinds down to a halt, you discover one of the Java binaries 
off in the background using 100% of the CPU doing Lord-Knows-What and 
requiring a SIGKILL to correct.  The threaded model always sounds good on 
paper, but it can be pathologically complex to assure correctness and 
avoid deadlocks and race conditions.

I've done a reasonably large amount of cross-platform coding in my day and 
find that with contemporary ANSI compliant compilers, C and C++ are at 
least as portable as Java applications if you stay away from questionable 
constructs.  More so, if you take into account that the language is not a 
moving target.

Even with GUI environments there are now reasonable cross-platform choices 
(Qt, anyone?).

If you cannot be disuaded from this move, would you at least ensure that 
the final CVS repository for the C based version is up-to-date with your 
sandbox and that it stays available?

Steve


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