🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <4f90uk$eic@usenet2.interramp.com>, visualware@interramp.com 
>says...
>->In article <mac.318.3115D621@zeus.hsrc.ac.za>, mac@zeus.hsrc.ac.za says...
>->>
>->>Since I can never get into Sun's Java site, perhaps someone could clarify 
>->what 
>->>Java is.. 
>->The most pure hype since...Windoze 4.0.
>->I doubt that Sun's site will have a history of Java:  a language
>->in search of a use.
>->John
>

There is plenty of good info on Java on the sun home page.

let me ramble few and not probably precise things about Java from 
top of my head: (mostly from reading different articles around over lunch)

Java It has similar syntax to C++, but considered to be have avoided some
of C++ weaknesses, Java has GC. there is a white paper on the sun site
that lists all theses things. 

There is what is called a Java applet, and there is what is 
called a Java application.

A Java applet is downloaded from the server to the client when you use
the Java-aware browser, and click on an area on the screen that 
causes the download to start, the client then tells the server to 
download the applet code, the applet is a stream of what is called 
Java byte code (J-code) , the browser reads this byte code stream 
and interpret it on the fly , and execute it. a Java
applet has more restrictions to it for security reasons, an applet for 
example can not access files on the client machine, and it executes 
entirly inside a virtual machine on the client, there is also some 
encoding that can be somehow inserted to the byte stream by the server
(sort of server-validation-signature) so that the browser can make sure
this is a legal Java byte code to protect against forign viruse 
inserted in the applet.

Some people are doing work to also be able to compile the byte code
on the fly to make it more efficient, (compiled code runs faster
than interpreted code) this means once the applet is downloaded to 
the client, as the browser is iterpreting J-code, a backgorund
run time compilation of the code can be in progress (compile in memeory
on the fly), since the code need to be compiled once, and then the 
compiled code can be used over and over by the browser (such as
hot-Java browser) on the client side, resulting in faster execution
of the applet.

There is also some work on C++ compilers that will allow Java code to 
be inserted right in the source code of C++, resulting in the ability 
to mix Java and C++ togother !  

Java applications however are compiled code, Just like C++ applications,
using a Java compiler, Java application can access the
external environment, such as files, etc..., 

The interest in Java is becuase it is platform independent, 
supposed to be ideal for client/server applications.

So, there seem to be lots of work into how Java can be used to
build client/server system, how to intergate it into data base
systems on the server, and stuff like that.


Nasser