[brailleblaster] Re: Why Java
- From: "John J. Boyer" <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:57:01 -0500
BrailleBlaster is intended as a desktop application. There is no reason
why it couldn't be used on a tablet. It would not be suitable for small
devices, such as phones, because these could not accommmodate the GUI
which is part of its design and a large part of its appeal. How would
you fit usable braille and print windows on a small screen?
The core libraries of BrailleBlaster are already in C. liblouis and
liblouisutdml will be the braille engine of BrailleBlaster and they can
be used without it via the file2brl command-line interface. They are the
engine; BrailleBlaster is the rest of the car.
Java was picked because of SWT, which has native C libraries that
support the UI requirements of different platforms. wxwidgets is
problematical. I have heard that it really works only for Windows. Java
provides wuicker software development and indeed a great number of
libraries that do things like display MathML.
Microsoft doesn['t provide C at the installation of its operating
systems. With Apple, you have to install the Developer tools to get C. I
think both decided that maintaining their own Java runtimes just wasn't
worth it, because there are so many third-party JREs already available.
I may be wrong on some of this, but I'm hoping we will see some messages
from More Java experts and from other decision-makers.
Yuemei said she is experienced mostly in C and Visual Basic. She did
mention Swing, but not that she had used it a lot. I think straight SWT
is the way to go.
John
On Thu, Nov 04, 2010 at 05:45:02PM -0500, qubit wrote:
> Perhaps because there are java libraries available that are tempting to use
> as a base? As for Apple and Microsoft, the java runtime is not being
> supported by them any longer, but third parties may still develop such
> support to be distributed with java programs.
> Any other things I have missed?
> --le
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alex Jurgensen
> To: Brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 2:25 PM
> Subject: [brailleblaster] Why Java
>
>
> Hi All,
>
>
> I mention this now, at the relative beginning of the project, so as to
> avoid unnecessary work.
>
>
> Why are we using Java and not writing most of the code in C, with a true,
> native UI on top, such as WX-Widgets for C. Because the code would not need
> to be exicuted in a virtual machine, we would avoid many of the slowdowns
> associated with Java.
>
>
> We must also think about embeded devices, where the overhead of Java is
> either too much for hte battery to tolleratte acceptably or there is no Java
> Virtual Machine available.
>
>
> Furthermore, both Microsoft and Apple have dropped support for Java within
> their Operating Systems, it doesn't seem to make sense to continue coding in
> Java because we may one day soon need to rewrite all of our code to aadapt to
> a whole new class of machines that don't have Java Available.
>
>
> I feel that if we write the core of our code into C libraries, we should be
> able to bring about new UI's, such as a Cocoatouch UI for IOS devices, OR an
> QT UI for Nokea and Intel's new project.
>
>
> Just my two cents.
>
>
> Regards,
> Alex,
>
>
>
>
> Alex Jurgensen,
> VoiceOver Trainer,
> ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org
>
--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities
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