Articles, notes and random thoughts on Software Development and Technology
A user can today run multiple processes each one in it’s own running VM instance, but this substantially duplicates loading of reseources, libraries, and does not effectively use resources on the host machine.
The prototype from the Sun lab allows multiple Java apps to be executed concurrently within the same VM, each process sharing resources with each other, where possible, and controlled by the VM itself.
NASA have built a suite of applications using the Eclipse Rich Client platform for the Mars Rover programme.
Also of interest is that for the same programme they are using Hibernate with PostgreSQL.
Sony’s upcoming new entry into the handheld gaming market is coming this week, the PSP.
Aiming at the older 20’s to 30’s age range, the new gadget is a multimedia combination of game platform, digital music player, and handheld video player. This is also possibly giving an indication of where Sony will be heading with soon to come Playstation 3, which rumour has it will be released in 2 versions – possibly a pure game platform, and also possibly as a home media server edition.
James Gosling and Graham Hamiliton introduced modifications to the Java platform’s licensing structure and terms on Wednesday. The main change is the introduction of the JRL, Java Research License which is geared to supporting contributions to the Java language from the community. It’s still not open source as Sun is still in control, but it’s opening the door for some flexibility at least.
I personally don’t think that Sun should release Java as open source – to do so would introduce the possibility of the language branching in many different directions. Although initially this may seem like a good idea to encourage innovation, at the same time you would end up with a platform with many incompatibilities, and the great benefits of Java (write once, run anywhere) would be gone.