Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
Damian Hamill wrote:
The problem is that before you start to run your applet you have to
download and install everything that makes up the JRE including
classes, programs and dlls that your applet will never use. A better
solution would be to download and install the core JVM and the classes
your applet uses only. Everything else should be downloaded on
demand e.g.
package javax.sql.rowset;
public abstract class BaseRowSet implements Serializable, Cloneable {
public static String classSourceURL =
"http://www.mydistribution-server.com/cgi-bin/classServer.cgi";;
// nothing else defined in this stub class. }
The class loader finds a class with only the classSourceURL field and
uses the URL in the field to download the real class passing the fully
qualified class name as an argument. The class server can return a
zip file with the named class and all the classes it depends on.
If most/all of the classes were like this then the class library zip
file would be very small. The same goes for the other programs and
dlls, if they are not part of the JVM core and needed by every
applet/application that runs then make them stubs that download the
real thing when they are used the first time.
And who's going to pay for that bandwidth?
Although that is a problem it is a different problem and the answer may
arise in due course (benefactors please step forward).
When this JRE is ready for prime time how will it be distributed ?
At the moment when I embed an Applet in a web page I specify
http://java.sun.com/path... as the codebase. At some time in the future
will I be able to change that to use the Harmony JRE and if so what will
I change it to ?
This proposal isn't limited to the JRE, it can work for userland classes
as well so I would pay for the on-demand delivery of any classes that I
create in my projects.
As an Applet developer my goal is to embed my Applet in web pages and
have them run with the minimum of fuss for the end user, otherwise I may
be forced to switch to alternative technologies. If the innovation is
done here in Harmony then it may be picked up by the other JRE vendors.
BTW the other thing that needs fixing is security. Java security was
designed to stop malicious software writers from corrupting a users
machine, the rest of us pay the price for this. Right now it means I
can't do certain useful things in Applets unless the user modifies their
security policy file. Asking them to edit c:/Program
Files/Java/jre-{version}/lib/security.policy with notepad is not a
serious option. So to do certain useful things like connect to other
hosts I am forced to use JNLP. I would like to be able to ask the user
for permission (via the security manager) to do things like connect to
other hosts, disk access to a sandbox local directory etc.
regards
damian
