I agree to some extent with what you say, but personally I think that  
when the core of a language like Jacl catches up with the C version  
(and it is not that far now), that progress can potentially occur  
much faster.  There are so many APIs built-in to Java that  writing  
extensions is much faster than with C development, and once written  
they are cross-platform.  For example, I have scripted access to  
Oracle databases with just a few lines of Jacl calling the JDBC  
APIs.  I probably never would have set out to write a C interface to  
Oracle (like Oratcl etc.), but doing this with Jacl was a breeze.

Bruce



On Feb 17, 2007, at 3:37 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote:

> 
> >
> > (Hi there Tcl enthusiasts and Jacl devs! This is kind of a form  
> > letter,
> > but I'm serious about getting this event together with devs from
> > multiple languages. I'd love to hear your thoughts on such an  
> > event and
> > see if you'd be interested in attending.)
> >
> > Hello all!
> >
> > I am attempting to organize an outside event for JavaOne this year
> > entitled "Dynamic Languages on the JVM: The Future". It is my  
> > intent to
> > have as many alternative (dynamic) language implementers together  
> > in the
> > same place as well as Java and JVM developers and specifiers. This  
> > would
> > be our opportunity to talk about areas that have caused us trouble,
> > features we'd like to see in Java or the JVM (or features we'd  
> > like to
> > remove) and other related topics. I really want to break down the
> > boundaries between the language implementations/implementers so we  
> > can
> > cooperatively work toward making the JVM a more dynlang-friendly  
> > platform.
> 
> 
> 
>  I think the future of dynamic languages in the JVM really depends  
>  on whether
>  non Java developers find Java based deployment of their favourite  
>  dynamic
>  language an attractive proposition.
> 
>  There are two approaches to integrating C based dynamic languages  
>  with the
>  JVM.  One is to rewrite the underlying implementation in Java  
>  instead of C
>  so that the language runs within the JVM.  The dynamic language  
>  commands
>  and syntax are interpreted into Java rather then C.  The other is Java
>  Native Interface.  The dynamic language loads a JVM into the C  
>  runtime and
>  makes calls to JAVA using JNI pointers.
> 
>  Running dynamic languages within the JVM is attractive to Java  
>  developers
>  who wish to develop hybrid or mixed language applications because  
>  it allows
>  development within a single IDE and deployment to a single runtime
>  environment.  However it has some major drawbacks.  Most of the  
>  dynamic
>  languages have a small core command set and are dependent on external
>  packages or extensions to provide the rich set of features required  
>  for
>  enteprise development.  In most cases it's only the core that has been
>  ported to Java and developers soon find that they have to make  
>  extensive
>  use of of the java class libraries to provide features that are  
>  missing
>  from the embedded version of the dynamic language.  No ldap support  
>  in JACL.
>  No smtpd support in Jython.  No Rails support in JRuby(Current  
>  version).
> 
>  That makes it difficult if not impossible to port a dynamic language
>  application written for a C runtime environment directly to a Java  
>  runtime
>  environment without an extensive rewrite.  Then there is the catch  
>  up issue.
>  New features in dynamic languages need to be back ported to Java.   
>  This is a
>  huge overhead that could cripple application development budgets.   
>  Most
>  Java programmers would rather use a native Java dynamic language like
>  Groovey rather than jump on the backport treadmill.
> 
>  Non Java developers already have a complete toolset for dynamic  
>  language
>  development and the most popular dynamic languages are certified to  
>  run on
>  most operating platforms.  So they already have write once run  
>  anywhere
>  capability.  However there is a demand for an interoperability  
>  layer between
>  dynamic languages and JAVA that allows the C based runtime call  
>  Java class
>  libraries and interact with Java applications.  This is partially  
>  satisfied
>  by the JNI interface.  The Perl inlineJava module and the Tcl tcljava
>  extension both use JNI to provide connectivity to the JVM.   
>  Historically
>  there have been runtime issues with JNI because the extension only  
>  supports
>  the specific version of the JDK it's compiled against and the  
>  location of
>  the Java runtime on the installation server is picked up from  
>  environment
>  variables.  Problems occur when either the JDK is not at a  
>  supported level
>  or environment vararibles are not set properly.  The latest version of
>  TclBlend(Tcl + tcljava) overcomes this by embedding the JVM runtime  
>  in it's
>  install directory.  It ships with it's own JVM.
> 
>  The Windows beta version is available here:
> 
>  http://www.patrickfinnegan.com/
> 
>  I suppose the holy grail for dynamic languages and Java is really  
>  reverse
>  JNI i.e a C runtime environment inside the JVM that would allow  
>  JAVA to
>  support any C based interpreted language natively without the need for
>  expensive rewrites in Java.  Java needs something conceptually  
>  similar to
>  the Common Language Runtime engine in the .NET framework that would  
>  allow
>  transparent execution of C processes under Java.  Application  
>  portability
>  across Java and C runtime environments is the best way to attract  
>  dynamic
>  language developers to Java.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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