Message #14

From: David Vanderschel <DvdS@Austin.RR.com>
Subject: Fwd: java port
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 19:49:08 -0000

Date: Tue Apr 23, 2002 4:40 am

— In MC4D@yahoogroups.com, Don Hatch <hatch@h…> wrote:
> D_Funny007 wrote:
>
> > I started a new 3^4 not
> > long after I finished my first 4^3 and I can consistantly do one
in
> > about 3 days now. I personally think that the program should be
best
> > left in C++.
>
> for any particular reason?
> i don’t think there’s much future in the c++ version. maintaining
multiple
> versions is a big pain, and i find myself 4 times as productive and
happy
> programming in java.

Also if it is an applet, besides being portable,
I expect the amount of exposure will increase enormously–
there’s a huge difference in people’s
willingness/ability to download and install an app
versus just going to a web site and have it run.
Not just convenience, it’s also less security risk for them
(they don’t have to worry about us including trojan horses
or machine-crashing code, assuming they trust Java).

By the way, my java port is now linked from my home page:
http://www.hadron.org/~hatch/
It’s a hack-and-slash port of the Linux version
(part of it anyway– no macros, log files, gui, 3d rotations, …)
that I did in a weekend or so.
As Daniel mentioned in a previous
message, I was a spaz and lost the source code when I left a previous
job :-(
Actually, I don’t consider it a great loss– with each quick and
dirty port,
we accumulate more cruft that is impossible to understand and
maintain.
I’m hoping for more of an overhaul when it is done "for real".

Anyway, it gives an idea of the speed we can expect–
though not as fast as the C++ versions, it is (suprisingly to me)
fast enough to be quite usable (and much more so on Windows than on
Linux).
So I’d agree with Daniel’s recommendation– port to Java and don’t
look back.
There would be no point in maintaining any other version after that,
and stuff like the awful gui portability layer can just go away
(I didn’t do a very good job of it to begin with,
if I do say so myself :-))

Also, y’all were mentioning java3d– though we can’t use it in a web
applet,
if you really like the API (I’ve never used it)
it might make sense to implement
a subset of it, as much as the app needs.
This might also be useful for other applets as well.
(Maybe someone has done this already? Though I suppose we would
want to include with each app only the minimum subset needed to run
that app,
to minimize download time.)

Don
— End forwarded message —