Re: [Toad-devel] Language?

[Ben Finney]

On 03-Apr-2003, Garner, Robin wrote:
> Umm ... just because the Sun jre & jdk isn't free shouldn't mean that
> we can't write free software in java.  There are free compilers and
> jvms out there.  Just need to be careful about the APIs used.

The set of APIs available via the Sun JDK and JRE is a significant part
of what programmers think when they think of "writing foo in Java".
Especially for GUI apps, most Java programmers will shun AWT (with good
reason) and use the Swing API.

There are no free software implementations of the Swing API, and Sun's
interpretation of their license ensures there cannot be.

> I think Java would be a good choice - in fact what else is there that
> runs on Unix, Windows and Mac and has a good looking and high
> performance GUI on all ?

Without Swing, I would say that Java does not qualify as either "good
looking" nor "high performance".

However, even if Java code written only using free software APIs did
qualify as such, I don't consider "good looking GUI" or "high
performance GUI" to be goals of any priority for this project.  If it
works well, and does not impede the workflow of the users, that is
enough, no?

That said, I have no problems with people writing a GUI (or any other
program) with whatever toolkit they like, in whatever langauge they
like, using any APIs they like, to interface with TOAD's functionality.
Don't look for it to be hosted at the TOAD project, though :-)

I won't impede anyone writing Java code; I just don't see any benefit to
free software users in assisting Java to proliferate.

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