Java problem

[Lamar Owen]

On Thursday 03 January 2008, Les Mikesell wrote:
> This isn't something you have to guess about.  There is a compatibility
> test.

Have you run any tests against icedtea?  Which specific ones failed?  Were 
bugs filed in bugzilla about them?

> There are different versions with different tests.  Sun is the authority
> on this unless that have given that up recently.  The fact that this
> isn't clear shows just how badly the fake versions have damaged the name.

We here have had Java compatibility problems with this app since before gcj, 
icedtea, or other FOSS solutions were available.  The most notorious, of 
course, was Microsoft's java, which didn't work at all.  We learned that we 
had to specify a particular JRE, and we provide information about this issue 
during our training workshops.  This is just the applet; the servlet is even 
more version-sensitive (we are doing telescope control using custom hardware; 
JRE/JDK upgrades are very touchy, even inside a major JDK version).

> That's a different - and solvable - issue.  If a replacement shell did
> something different internally, like removing quotes before expanding
> wildcards you'd get the kind of damage that an incompatible java
> interpreter can do.

Ever try a real Korn shell on different platforms?  Specifically, ever tried 
it on an Apollo DomainOS 10 or later system?  You'd hate that system; 
depending upon the setting of an environment variable, you had different 
shells, different sets of programs, and different behaviors (SysV, BSD, or 
Aegis).

But that's a different story.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Chief Information Officer
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu