21 Sep
1998
21 Sep
'98
4:10 p.m.
At 07:21 PM 21-09-98 -0500, Doug Yowza wrote:
Excellent idea! That's part of the reason to
choose Java :-) Sun's Java
compiler is written in Java, and generates code for the Java virtual
machine. Most of the Java runtime environment is also written in Java,
except for the machine-level glue which is written in a combo of C and
assembler.
I guess the only difference is that BCPL is significantly smaller and
simpler. I doubt that I could move Java to a new environment within a week,
whereas I'd be confident that anyone with some simple programming skills
could move BCPL, even with the limited documentation that exists.
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
21 Sep
21 Sep
4:41 p.m.
On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Huw Davies wrote:
I guess the only difference is that BCPL is
significantly smaller and
simpler. I doubt that I could move Java to a new environment within a week,
whereas I'd be confident that anyone with some simple programming skills
could move BCPL, even with the limited documentation that exists.
That's true, but it's also part of the reason that Sun defined several
levels of Java runtime. I haven't kept track of the latest haps, but last
I checked they had "personal" and "embedded" Java which basically
defined
subsets of the run-time environment that both facilitate porting effort
and minimize footprint.
But for something like a desktop environment to run pretty GUI simulators,
you'd want to port the GUI glue. You don't have that "problem" with
other
languages simply because they didn't define a GUI abstraction.
In any case, nailing down a common simulation runtime environment would
just be one of the hurdles. It'd also be nice to define, for example, a
software bus so that simulator writers could easily share CPU and
peripheral implementations. From experience, I can tell you that writing
a good 386 simulation, for example, is tough, and I wouldn't wish that
particular wheel-reinvention upon anybody I liked :-)
-- Doug
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