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Re: J-link for beginners?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg27852] Re: J-link for beginners?
  • From: tgayley at wolfram.com (Todd Gayley)
  • Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 04:29:57 -0500 (EST)
  • Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
  • References: <98ko1i$poj@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

On 13 Mar 2001 04:08:02 -0500, Gianluca Gorni <gorni at dimi.uniud.it> wrote:

>
>Hello!
>
>I got the impression that to use J-link you need to
>be a serious Java programmer. Is it so?
>
>Is anyone working on a tutorial or book to teach
>Java-novice Mathematica users what to do with J-link?
>
>           Gianluca Gorni

Gianluca,

It depends what you want to do with J/Link. For a whole class of uses (calling Java from
Mathematica), you do not need to know Java at all, because you won't be writing any Java.
Of course, you still need to be able to read the API documentation for the Java classes
you are interested in using from Mathematica.

When writing Java programs that call Mathematica, naturally you need to know Java. The
J/Link API is pretty straightforward to use, however, and a Java beginner could get going
quickly. You can write simple Java programs that do sophisticated things with Mathematica
(take a look at the example programs in the JLink/Examples/Part2 directory). If you want
to write complex Java programs, then you need to have an appropriate level of Java
expertise.

The J/Link User Guide is extensive, but it isn't specifically oriented toward Java
beginners. It will probably grow into a book at some point, and then it might have room
for a section directed toward newcomers to Java. But there are already scores of
general-purpose Java books for beginners.


--Todd Gayley
Wolfram Research


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