No. The "Java platform" is the JVM + the APIs. Both the JVM and the APIs are part of the Java Specification.
How that specification is implemented, is different for each of the implementations. I'll use the two JDKs that I've used (Sun and IBM) as examples. For most applications either one is fine. There are however some applications where you have to use Sun's JDK rather then IBM's JDK. We had an installation system at my last job where it would not work with IBM's JDK. The same code base, no changes made to it, would work just fine with Sun's JDK. Both JDK's supported version 1.5 fully. It was just how things were implemented that caused the issue to crop up. The API's will always be the same. They will have the same parameters across all the different implementations. How they handle the parameters may be different. For the most part, you do not care about that. But that depends on what you're trying to do and not do. If you want the security features that the Sun/IBM JVM has, then you certainly do not want to use the Kaffe JVM as that does't support it. But if you don't care about that and about whether you use AWT or Swing for your GUI, then maybe you can use Kaffe. Hope this helps. I would say go to the Kaffe website (http://www.kaffe.org) and the GCJ website (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ ) and have a look at some of the documentation there. Maybe that might help some more. Kaffe also has links to lots of other JVM and API implementations. On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 19:38, Diogo Sales Oliveira<[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks first of all for your help. Yet, something I don't understand. The > core Java API is always the same, no matter the implementation, right? So, > it's only a matter of specific optimizations for interpreting bytecode. Am I > right? > > Thanks in advance > > Mehul Sanghvi wrote: >> >> Yes there are alternatives. Sun's Java/JVM is one option. OpenJDK >> which is the open source version of >> Sun's JVM is another option. Since the JVM specification is public, >> anyone can build a JVM. >> IBM has one, HP has one. There is also GCC based gcj which is an >> implementation that does not use >> byte-code but compiles directly to native code. >> >> There is also Kaffe, Cacao, and JamVM. All of them are JVM >> implementations. Each one confirms to varying degrees >> of the JVM specification and hence varying degrees of the Java language. >> >> >> Hope that helps. >> >> >> >> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 16:49, Diogo Oliveira<[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> From Sun's Tutorial "The Java Technology Phenomenon": >>> >>> "(...) Every full implementation of the Java platform gives you the >>> following features (...)" >>> >>> The way I see it, Java programming language was created and is >>> maintained by Sun (although SE's OSS now I think). Can anyone explain >>> to me what they mean with "implementation of the Java platform"? Are >>> there alternatives? >>> >>> Thanks in advance. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > -- Mehul N. Sanghvi email: [email protected] Timothy Leary - "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/timothy_leary.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaprogrammingwithpassion?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
