PlayOnLinux 5 To Switch From Being Written In Python To Using Java

[Veske]

I fully support this decision. A perfect way to finally be able to contribute to some nice open source project now. Code looks fine currently, will have to see what they will decide to use for REST tough.

[qparis]

(Patience, my friend)

Switching to Java for more portability? Uh.... what? Every platform that supports wine supports python, and python takes much less maintenance than Java. Just about every linux distro (and probably freeBSD too)

It's not about Python, it's about librairies. In general case, they are not portable.

comes with some version of python pre-installed, but not Java.

Java is standalone and in all repositories

Mac also comes with python pre-installe, but I'm not sure about java.

True. But Java is still standalone and can be bundled

Also, if some of this is still using python, then they're effectively making this less portable since it now requires both python and java installed. This seems like a pretty bad idea to me.

False. Please read about jython.

But whatever - I don't use PlayOnLinux and never have.

In that case, why would you care?

He talks about SonarQube but I am not sure that he is aware that the license for advanced features ranges in the 10k$

He* does not want to have all advanced feature ranges. The simple feature will be enough for the moment.

Playonlinux is a tiny project and thousand of possible dependencies are no advantage

Tiny project = Tiny risk. (And also, people tend to underestimate the amount of work and the stuff that are behind the script interpretor)

They kept trying to justify using Java in their announcement, but it sounds like it will be a mess and they only did it simply because they wanted to rewrite POL.

Yah, you can cry about having a dedicated team with people that are giving so much effort for some ungrateful people. I've always been working on that project on my spare time since I'm fifteen and hopefully I've met more challenging and encouraging people.

[hubick]

Playonlinux is a tiny project and thousand of possible dependencies are no advantage, things like garbage collection inspires lazy quick and dirty solutions and is de-facto slower than a proper designed implementation. More than that all the java applications i know do have a slow interface (Using Matlab is a pain!). Perhaps there are reasons to love java i cannot understand but pol will not benefit from all this. . .

Garbage collection or some form of memory management isn't "quick and dirty", it's freeing the programmer from manual error-prone memory drudge work, and is the hallmark of any modern language. You can cry for the glory days of coding in Assembly all you want, the world has moved on and is better for it. And Java regularly benchmarks within a breath of C++ now, so unless you are doing high-performance computing on a massive scale, it's fast enough. Android is all Java, and my phone runs fine despite it's tiny CPU, so if Java is slow for you, maybe it's time to trade in that 386 and stop your whining to hold back the entirety of industry progress.

[Remdul]

Oh come on. I'll be the first to admit I love C/C++ over anything. But I've used Java recently (after not touching it in a decade), and it really isn't as bad as it once was. It really has some things going for it. Performance is fine, and trivial to deploy. And of course it is used in plenty places for mission critical [etc etc blurb]. Use it if it fits the job.

It sounds just like the folks complaining about VB being 'slow', even though in reality VB used the exact same compiler as VC++ (C2.EXE), it was a lie all along (although VB has plenty of other shortcomings).

Someone once said something bad about something, and folks still believe that the outdated knowledge still applies today. Where's the logic in that? It doesn't hurt to be open to accept a changing reality, you know...

[RoninDusette]

The only thing I have seen has been opinion on why Java sucks, but not a single technical explanation as to why (that is correct and not outdated, at least). It really seems like people just flat out dislike Java, but most cannot even articulate why...

[qparis]

I fully support this decision. A perfect way to finally be able to contribute to some nice open source project now. Code looks fine currently, will have to see what they will decide to use for REST tough.

Jackson!

[schmidtbag]

It's not about Python, it's about librairies. In general case, they are not portable.

Yes, they are. I've developed things in python involving things like openGL, serial connections, bluetooth, Qt, networking, multi-threaded processing, etc and it worked across i386, x86_64, armhf, and armel. These libraries were readily available on all of these platforms across varying distributions.

True. But Java is still standalone and can be bundled

Python can also be bundled. But considering linux is so python-friendly, why would you bundle anything?

False. Please read about jython.

I'm aware of jython, and I don't see what that has to do with anything. It's still a separate dependency of POL. In other words, as long as POL uses python scripts, whether you use jython, cpython, pypy, or whatever, you still have to install an interpreter. The point of me bringing that up is if they're focusing on portability, requiring java AND a python interpreter is less portable than just having a python interpreter.

In that case, why would you care?

Just because I don't use it, it doesn't mean I don't feel frustrated by the stupidity of the decision.

Yah, you can cry about having a dedicated team with people that are giving so much effort for some ungrateful people. I've always been working on that project on my spare time since I'm fifteen and hopefully I've met more challenging and encouraging people.

Gratitude is to be earned. When you do things without consulting the community/consumer, you're not improving your rep. A lot of people involved in open source tend to forget that if you're not developing something with the consultation of the community, you're developing it for yourself. So, if you're developing for yourself, no matter how much you think you've got a great idea, you're not going to get support unless you effectively prove it. This is why there's so much hate for things like systemd.
In the case of POL, switching to Java for the reasons mentioned is a poor choice. Not everyone installs Java, it's somewhat bloated, and it breaks easily after updates (thanks to Oracle). Java is a great language for it's own purposes, but for something like POL, it's the wrong choice.

[qparis]

Yes, they are. I've developed things in python involving things like openGL, serial connections, bluetooth, Qt, networking, multi-threaded processing, etc and it worked across i386, x86_64, armhf, and armel. These libraries were readily available on all of these platforms across varying distributions.

Python can also be bundled. But considering linux is so python-friendly, why would you bundle anything?

Are we talking about Python 2, Python 3?
(Just for my personal curisiosity, can you send me the link of these projects?)
Python Libraries are written in C, they need to be recompiled for every system and it can sometimes, not work. An example of such a dependency we are using is GPG. python-gnupg requires a gpg executable.

I'm aware of jython, and I don't see what that has to do with anything. It's still a separate dependency of POL. In other words, as long as POL uses python scripts, whether you use jython, cpython, pypy, or whatever, you still have to install an interpreter. The point of me bringing that up is if they're focusing on portability, requiring java AND a python interpreter is less portable than just having a python interpreter.

In what langage do you think Jython is written? As long as you have a Java runtime, Jython will work, so nope, it won't be less portable. Also, heard about jar dependencies?

Just because I don't use it, it doesn't mean I don't feel frustrated by the stupidity of the decision.

Fair enough

Gratitude is to be earned. When you do things without consulting the community/consumer, you're not improving your rep.

Not consulting the community would have be not writing any kind of news and not risking to post something on Phoronix. This is different. I think that we are quite transparent.

A lot of people involved in open source tend to forget that if you're not developing something with the consultation of the community, you're developing it for yourself. So, if you're developing for yourself, no matter how much you think you've got a great idea, you're not going to get support unless you effectively prove it. This is why there's so much hate for things like systemd.

In that case, you would be suprised to learn that we have currently more people interested to contribute to the project than ever.

In the case of POL, switching to Java for the reasons mentioned is a poor choice. Not everyone installs Java, it's somewhat bloated, and it breaks easily after updates

Give precise example please.

[RoninDusette]

Gratitude is to be earned. When you do things without consulting the community/consumer, you're not improving your rep.

There was actually a post in the POL forums before it really even got really rolling along, and after sorting through the hate spam about Java, no one brought a reasonable case against it.

https://www.playonlinux.com/en/topic-13046-PlayOnLinux_5.html

So, the community was polled, and as a whole, more people just had complaints with no actual technical reasons against it.

There are a lot of things besides Java that many people don't install, so using the fact that Java would be a dependency is a moot point, as many, many other programs require things that are not on most distros by default.

As for Java breaking; I use Java for the IDEs that I work with, and I never, ever have a problem with updates or anything breaking. Maybe it's just me, but can you provide some proof of those statements?

[qparis]

There was actually a post in the POL forums before it really even got really rolling along, and after sorting through the hate spam about Java, no one brought a reasonable case against it.

https://www.playonlinux.com/en/topic...OnLinux_5.html

So, the community was polled, and as a whole, more people just had complaints with no actual technical reasons against it.

True, and I think this is normal to ask the members of the website before asking anybody else.