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Re: larger issue (Re: Linux install misses Tk)



Disclaimer: I admit to being a Java snob (for strategic reasons though).

Bharat,

I do not question AT ALL your decision at the time, I think it was the right
one. My question is, is it *possible* to port pilotmgr to Java, and what
would it entail? Is pilotmgr modular enough?

Are the following packages sufficient to deal with the lower level issues?

http://www.sc-systems.com/serPort.html ... serial port package
http://www.oroinc.com/downloads ... Perl regular expression support
and maybe
http://www.metamata.com/JavaCC ... lexer/parser generator (I found grammars
to be more maintainable than code, not sure about performance in this
application)

After answering the feasibility question I think one should look down the
road and take a guesstimate where Java might be 3-6 months from now. The
status quo is quite irrelevant. If the resulting product can perform the
same functionality, and is easy to extend and to maintain (also for Perl
fans), then a port may be worth the effort and provide a good learning
experience.

Thanks,

Thomas

P.S.: I have nothing against Perl or Tcl/Tk. I used them myself on previous
projects. I used FORTRAN, BASIC, 6502 and 8086 Assembler, C, PL/1, Modula 2,
C++, shell scripts, AWK, lex, yacc as well (no COBOL though)  ... they are
all wonderful languages in one way or the other. I just decided enough is
enough. One language should be enough for most applications. Given Sun's
(and its licensees') major push for Java and the two tiered strategy
(language and JVM) I believe I won't have to use anything else for quite
some time to come. Why not take advantage of it?

Bharat Mediratta wrote:

> But I digress.  In the beginning the decision was simple.  Java was
> an immature language (1.1 had just been released and 1.1.1 was about 3
> weeks away).  There was no serial port support, no calendar support,
> the language was changing very rapidly, the JVMs were all very buggy
> and there was no binding for pilot-link.
>
> Now, in retrospect, I'm still pretty happy that I wrote it in Perl.
> I don't even want to THINK how hard it would have been to write the
> SyncCM module in Java.  The complexity of the data processing involved
> in developing that conduit (which, of course, I had to port from
> the old CM format to the new CDE format) would have been horrendous
> to write in Java.  Perl with its fast regular expression, runtime
> binding, runtime evaluation model was way easier.  If I had written it
> in Java, it would have taken at least a few months longer for me to
> develop it (and I may have just given up from frustration).
>
> The issue that people are reporting with dependencies is really
> pretty minor.  What't fault here is that the documentation on
> installing PilotManager is not up to snuff.  It needs to be updated
> with a matrix to explain how to download and install the various
> pieces necessary to make it all work.  I'm not saying that this isn't
> a problem (because it's been a thorn in my side all along) but it
> doesn't justify the (rather large) effort of porting the whole thing
> to Java where we'll have a host of Java related issues (speed,
> stability, native compatability with CDE, etc).
>
> The beautiful thing about PilotManager is that each and every user
> has the entire source code.  Take this as an opportunity to stretch
> your mind and learn a little Perl, then contribute to the project.
> Who knows, you may even find that you like Perl just a little bit.
> Now that I'm not really working on it anymore, you can be reasonably
> certain that Alan can't keep the whole thing going by himself.  However
> if everybody with a bright idea contributes some diffs, maybe we can
> make this a true collaboration that will exceed the sum of its parts.
>
> -Bharat
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pilotmgr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:owner-pilotmgr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Platibus
> > Sent: Thursday, January 15, 1998 9:42 AM
> > To: Martin Lohner
> > Cc: Marco Kooyman - Desktop Support Engineer - ENS BeNeLux;
> > pilotmgr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: larger issue (Re: Linux install misses Tk)
> >
> >
> > Half a year ago I asked Bharat why he hadn't written Pilotmanager in
> > Java. The main
> > reason was the support for the serial port. I haven't looked at the
> > pilotmanager
> > sources in a while, but given the problems people report with with
> > software package
> > dependencies (Tcl, Perl, CDE), wouldn't it be worth to take a deep
> > breath and port
> > the whole thing to Java? That would settle it once and for all. Just
> > a thought. I'd
> > be willing to contribute, but I don't know Perl that well.
> >
> > Thomas
> >
> > Martin Lohner wrote:
> >
> > > Marco,
> > >
> > > > Could it be you are not running perl 5.00401?
> > >
> > > As you say, Redhat 5.0 comes with perl 5.00401, and that's what I
> > am running.
> > >
> > > Ok, I will check things out a bit more.
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help. --Martin
> > >
> > > > The package is compiled with perl5.00401.
> > > >
> > > > What you should to is try to make a link in
> > > > pilotmgr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.00401 to whatever version of perl
> you are
> > > > running.
> > > >
> > > > For example:
> > > >
> > > > pilotmgr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003 -> 5.00401
> > > >
> > > > If you run "perl PilotManager" it might show you need to link
> > perl to another
> > > > version on your local system.
> > > >
> > > > Running redhat you can query to the rpm database as well to see,
> what your
> > > > perl version is. Redhat 5.0 (latest release) includes 5.00401.
> > > >
> > > > Kind regards,
> > > >
> > > > Marco.
> > >
> > >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > ***********************************************************
> > > *             This is a public mailing list!              *
> > > * Please do not publish Sun proprietary information here! *
> > > *        -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -         *
> > > *             http://www.moshpit.org/pilotmgr             *
> > > ***********************************************************
> >
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ***********************************************************
> *             This is a public mailing list!              *
> * Please do not publish Sun proprietary information here! *
> *        -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -         *
> *             http://www.moshpit.org/pilotmgr             *
> ***********************************************************


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