On Thursday 03 January 2008, Les Mikesell wrote: > I'd just like some truth-in-advertising here. Don't call it java until > it is - and realize it is just as damaging as if would be if someone > replaced your /bin/sh with an incompatible replacement. LOL. Having a moderately complex (2.9MB .war) java applet/servlet combo in production here, I laugh at this. Sun's Java isn't even compatible with itself! (JRE 1.4 -> 1.5 broke our app; 1.5->1.6 broke our app; etc) So, Les, just what is 'java'? Which version? Hrmph, I've seen numerous Java apps and applets that work fine on a 1.4 JRE (I even have one app, quite old, that requires a 1.3 JRE) and will not even start with 1.5, much less 1.6 or 1.7. So, again, what IS 'Java' and how does one measure compatibility? Oh, and just because you have a 'compatible' /bin/sh doesn't mean your shell scripts will run. Shell script compatibility depends upon having the same set of shell library commands available; this can vary even between one Fedora 8 install and another one. So /bin/sh compatibility is a strawman, as 100% shell script compatibility doesn't exist (just try to run an old .shar that needs uudecode on a modern Linux). -- Lamar Owen Chief Information Officer Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute 1 PARI Drive Rosman, NC 28772 (828)862-5554 www.pari.edu
