At 03:03 PM 2/13/01 -0500, W. Wesley Groleau x4923 wrote:
> >1. Not break any security features in
validated JVMs
>
> Understood. Not at all clear. That's why
"eventually" it would need to
> all be written in Ada.
I'm not talking about the security features designed into Ada such as
type
safety, modularity, and readability. I'm talking about the
security
features the Java guys thought of ahead of time (or discovered the
hard
way and fixed) such as no access to local files, no tricking the JVM
into
replacing any of its own classes--oops, I forgot that one's not
fixed
yet. :-)
AH. Now I get the point. Sorry to be so slow on the
uptake. :)
> >2. Not lose the ability to have it
validated as a "compliant" JVM.
>
> Can't answer this one. My suspicion is "politics"
will be the biggest
> obstacle here.
Probably. But does the spec say, "here is the list of features
and any
so-called JVM capable of doing more is non-compliant" ?
Well, in spite of "open source", I believe Sun is still in
control of what the "ubiquitous" JVM or JVM-like processes will
be. (Several have raised this point in different ways throughout
this discussion.) Unless there has been a big change in that
organization, Sun has consistently shown their colors to be
"anti-Ada", etc.
I remember hearing that HP was producing a JVM
but not calling it a JVM
because allegedly certification would prevent certain features they
thought were necessary for their target customers.
The bad news here is that, although they were decidedly in the "Ada
camp" early on, about 10 years ago HP made a significant corporate
shift into the C++ camp. Notice that, prior to that time, HP
Printers were without question the highest quality printers available for
desktops. In recent years their quality has decidedly gone down
hill, and primarily due to sucky software. I wonder if there is
a connection? :)
The REALLY sad news is that, based on their past success, HP had built up
a rather light weight support organization. Now that their stuff
sucks big time, it is virtually impossible to get ANY support out of
them.
But then . . . this is another story.
sro
S. Ron Oliver, semi-retired professor of Computer Science and Computer
Engineering.
www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sroliver
caress Corporation is proud to be the U.S. representative for Top
Graph'X, developers of high quality software components, using Ada.
For more information, check out
www.topgraphx.com.
Tired of sucky software! ? Check out
www.caressCorp.com
and follow the links to software sucks and The Oliver Academy.