Re: Java and Ada ISO standardization

Re: Java and Ada ISO standardization

[Marc Wachowitz]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> Can someone clarify what is going on the ISO Java standardization effort.
> I assumed the effort was to standardize the language, which of course has
> nothing at all to do with standardizing the JVM, which is an (almost)
> orthogonal issue.

Excerpt from URL: http://java.sun.com/pr/1997/nov/pr971117.qna.html

  "[...]
   Q: Which Java technologies will Sun submit through this process and
   when?
   
   A: It is premature for us to outline a timetable for our submission.
   We have stated in our responses to the comments of the JTC1 National
   Bodies that we will submit the specifications for the Java platform
   because this is what is needed to support Write Once Run Anywhere. The
   specifications for the Java Virtual Machine, the Java Language, and
   the core Java class libraries together comprise the Java Platform
   specification.
   [...]"

Further information can be found on Sun's web server (they have an entry
to a local search engine at the bottom of many pages, including this one).

-- Marc Wachowitz <mw@ipx2.rz.uni-mannheim.de>
   who hopes that the JVM will become much more independent from the
   language, both wrt. available facilities and wrt. its specification,
   and serve as a practical (portable, efficient and convenient) target
   for many high-level languages, providing e.g. garbage collection,
   threads, reflection and dynamic loading.

Java and Ada ISO standardization

[Markus Kuhn]

Considering that Ada95 is already an ISO standard, and Java is on
the way of becoming one: Is there some coordination going on between
the Ada and Java standards communities?

For instance: Since there are now Ada compilers that produce Java
bytecode available, is someone taking care of whether the needs of
Ada compilers and debuggers are taken into account when the JVM
is being standardized?

In case the Java GUI interface (AWT) gets ISO standardized, it would
be very cool to standardize at the same time an Ada binding to it.
Java and Ada are in many ways similar languages with comparable
capabilities, i.e. APIs for both languages would look similar anyway.
I think it would be a very good idea if the Java and Ada
standardization is closely coordinated and APIs for things like
GUIs are defined for both to allow code frequent reusage =>
cost savings.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Re: Java and Ada ISO standardization

[Robert Dewar]

Markus said

<<Considering that Ada95 is already an ISO standard, and Java is on
the way of becoming one: Is there some coordination going on between
the Ada and Java standards communities?

For instance: Since there are now Ada compilers that produce Java
bytecode available, is someone taking care of whether the needs of
Ada compilers and debuggers are taken into account when the JVM
is being standardized?
>>

Can someone clarify what is going on the ISO Java standardization effort.
I assumed the effort was to standardize the language, which of course has
nothing at all to do with standardizing the JVM, which is an (almost)
orthogonal issue.

Yes, other languages may have an interest in JVM standardization, but I
don't see any reason for coordinating the language standards themselves.

Re: Java and Ada ISO standardization

[Tucker Taft]

Markus Kuhn (Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:

: ...
: For instance: Since there are now Ada compilers that produce Java
: bytecode available, is someone taking care of whether the needs of
: Ada compilers and debuggers are taken into account when the JVM
: is being standardized?

We are very interested in providing input to the JVM standardization
effort, and have informed various folks at Sun to that effect.  
However, Sun's idea of an "open" standardization process is that they 
produce the draft standard, and then let you send them e-mail comments, and 
then they produce the final standard.  There is no indication of which
comments were considered, and no serious interaction with the various
interested parties.  Allowing Sun to be the submitter of the
Java-related standards was a big mistake, IMHO.

: ...
: Markus

: -- 
: Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
: email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA

Re: Java and Ada ISO standardization

[Charles Hixson]

Considering that the alternative was Microsoft fragmenting the standard
definition, well...
It might not be all that one could hope for, but I feel that it would be
rash to characterise it as a mistake.

Tucker Taft wrote:
> 
> Markus Kuhn (Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> 
> : ...
> : For instance: Since there are now Ada compilers that produce Java
> : bytecode available, is someone taking care of whether the needs of
> : Ada compilers and debuggers are taken into account when the JVM
> : is being standardized?
> 
> We are very interested in providing input to the JVM standardization
> effort, and have informed various folks at Sun to that effect.
> However, Sun's idea of an "open" standardization process is that they
> produce the draft standard, and then let you send them e-mail comments, and
> then they produce the final standard.  There is no indication of which
> comments were considered, and no serious interaction with the various
> interested parties.  Allowing Sun to be the submitter of the
> Java-related standards was a big mistake, IMHO.
> 
> : ...
> : Markus
> 
> : --
> : Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
> : email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
> 
> --
> -Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
> Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA

-- 
Charles Hixson	charleshixson@earthling.net
(510) 464-7733	or chixso@mtc.dst.ca.us