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Why use Java in Mathematica?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg78191] Why use Java in Mathematica?
• From: "厉正吉" <zhengji.li at gmail.com>
• Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:04:38 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <a6e65e8d0706220205m63dc9817id956db71bd8457c3@mail.gmail.com>

Dear all,

I have tried V6.0, and find that whenever kernel starts, JavaLink is
loaded. By inspecting javaw.exe's running status, it can be found that
Java is started for PacletManager.

Even disallow Mathematica to access Internet, PacletManager is loaded
at start up as usual. I find that the loading of PacletManager is coded
into mainload.mx, so it seems difficult to get rid of PacletManager.
Since I do not need PacletManager currently, so I modified
PacletManager.m to create the PacletManager` contex only and do
nothing else. Then Java is no longer loaded at start up of kernel.

Personally, I hate Java:
1. JRE uses two much memory, and >50MB for PacletManager
2. for personal taste.

Personally, I think that JavaLink is great feature to show that
Mathematica is open, and can interact with other programming
languages. But it is not a good thing to make JavaLink a required
component to Mathematica. (Some functions need Java)

The reason for using Java in Mathematica is only for Internet access.
And remind that some other scientific computing software (such as
..... as you know) even use Java for building their user
interface! Mathematica is immaculate in most part of the kernel and
user interface. But still, I wonder why using Java, as a required
component?

I suppose that WRI just want to make the codes related to Internet
access cross-platform. WRI has already made both the frontend and
kernel cross-platform, why not implement Internet accessing functions
on different platform NATIVELY?

All in all, I am afraid that one day, Mathematica will use Java to
build their interface, for cross-platform. If this happened, I would
say that Java had done great harm to the whole software industry.

BTW, Borland CLX library, WxWidges (WxWindows) are all cross-platform
libraries on source code level and we can build native executable for
different platforms from the same source code.

--
Li Zhengji
-------------------------------------------------------------
If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Why use Java in Mathematica?
    • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>