Re: emc really needs a copyleft cad/cam package

[Anne Ogborn <anniepoo-at-netmagic.net>]

Matt Shaver wrote:
> 
> "Terry L. Ridder" wrote:
> > take note matt did not mention java.
> > no java. repeat after me, no java.
> > <big grin>
> 
> I almost DID mention it, but thought better of it. I have a long history
> of learning a programming language and then writing only one program in
> that language (ALGOL, 123 Macro, Java). I'm reading a book on C++ now, I
> hope to get a little more use out of that... I had three basic problems
> with Java:
> 
> 1. It ran sloooow!

I've not had that experience. It does consume more resources than a compiled language,
but I haven't found it to be significant. In every application where I've had a choice
of C++ or Java, I've selected Java.
I believe you may have been working with early releases. They did run slowly.
I too have learned languages and then written little in them. The only things I've written
in for the last 3 years have been assembler and Java.


> 
> 2. The AWT (Abysmal Windowing Toolkit) was pretty sad. As an example, I
> had to create a whole new button object by extending the canvas class
> because the standard button only had a "button pressed" event, and I
> needed both "button down" and "button up" to use it for a jog button on
> my prototype cnc GUI.

This restriction was removed in Java 1.1 - this is old history. Java's "write once, run everywhere"
does make user interfaces that often seem rougher than tools that are native to a platform.
That's been my experience with other cross platform tools as well.
Java is slowly getting better about this.

> 
> 3. "Write once, run everywhere" didn't work all that well, I did a lot
> of fooling and fiddling to make it work in both IE and Netscape. In
> fact, Tcl/Tk is much more platform independent than Java (IMHO).

Yes, the browser support for the applets is an abysmal joke - I make a nice living knowing
the ins and outs of making it work.
I can't see how that's relevant. I doubt any of us are contemplating writing any
applets in this project.