Sunday, June 25, 2006
J2SE 5.0 Name and Version Change
I love Sun's Java language.
I love the fact that they have found a way to bring it to me for free. Well, except for all those books I bought from them in the past decade and the odd CD-ROM and IDE I bought from them in the 1990s, that is.
I love the fact that Sun has contributed so much to the world of computing.
That means not just by creating Java - but writing many RFCs, a file-sharing mechanism, a procedure call mechanism, and steadily improving Unix.
What I really do not love is Sun's versioning scheme. The problem is simple.
When most people or organizations change a version number, they simply do it by incrementing a digit.
If that digit was 9, it might go back down to zero and the next digit would go up. Composite version numbers work pretty much the same way, except you can force a cary to the next version subfield up and of course reset the ones to the right of it back to zero.
Simple.
Unless you are Sun.
Then there is some weird side-effect.
Kind of like a DNA transcription error, there are mutations that occur. Sun's version number transcription RNA must be damaged.
Instead of merely incrementing the number when a new version comes out - they change the version naming scheme. The way you refer to Java every other version changes.
Worse, Sun has got a bicameral brain when it comes to versioning.
The human brain has two hemispheres - the left that is obsessed with counting, logic, and the odd joke - and the right that is obsessed with something called "the big picture" as well as context, balance, and what is really important.
Sun is a lot like that. They have the engineering half of the company, which simply starts at a number and counts upward. They have the marketing half of the company - apparently feels the need to increment words, phrases, syntax, grammar.
Do not ask me how they do the latter - I know not. I am only a simple programmer, trying to make since of The Big Picture, but alas the only tools I have are Logic & Math. These two things are completely inadequate for grasping the wondrous way's of Sun Marketing's Incredible Counting Machine.
J2SE 5.0 Name and Version Change:
Basically, what this means in English is:
In order to truly understand Sun's Java versioning/naming scheme - and believe me, I wish I was kidding but I am not - you must watch the movie named The Dark Crystal.
In that movie there was one race (think of them as Sun employees). One thousand years before the first act in the movie occurs, that one race cracked Crystal of Truth - which then became The Dark Crystal.
When happened next was strange: two races appeared. One was a race of wizards, the was - well, different. Let us just say they were strong, or at least powerful.
The two races had different powers, different ways of interacting with the world, and very different values.
One day a a boy named Jen that was of neither race found the missing shard that had been lost since the crystal broke.
He placed the missing shard back into the crystal, which once again became the Crystal of Truth. The two races merge back into one. They move on to a new plane of existence, and the world is healed as good as new.
That is how cool it would be if there was only one numbering system for Java, one numbering system for Solaris.
It is not required that technical people and marketing people have the same way of talking.
But it would be pretty wonderful if they counted the same way.
Even when the tower of Babel fell, people did not lose the ability to count the same way.
People can get past having/using different languages. What they cannot get past, is having different was of counting the same thing.
I love the fact that they have found a way to bring it to me for free. Well, except for all those books I bought from them in the past decade and the odd CD-ROM and IDE I bought from them in the 1990s, that is.
I love the fact that Sun has contributed so much to the world of computing.
That means not just by creating Java - but writing many RFCs, a file-sharing mechanism, a procedure call mechanism, and steadily improving Unix.
What I really do not love is Sun's versioning scheme. The problem is simple.
When most people or organizations change a version number, they simply do it by incrementing a digit.
If that digit was 9, it might go back down to zero and the next digit would go up. Composite version numbers work pretty much the same way, except you can force a cary to the next version subfield up and of course reset the ones to the right of it back to zero.
Simple.
Unless you are Sun.
Then there is some weird side-effect.
Kind of like a DNA transcription error, there are mutations that occur. Sun's version number transcription RNA must be damaged.
Instead of merely incrementing the number when a new version comes out - they change the version naming scheme. The way you refer to Java every other version changes.
Worse, Sun has got a bicameral brain when it comes to versioning.
The human brain has two hemispheres - the left that is obsessed with counting, logic, and the odd joke - and the right that is obsessed with something called "the big picture" as well as context, balance, and what is really important.
Sun is a lot like that. They have the engineering half of the company, which simply starts at a number and counts upward. They have the marketing half of the company - apparently feels the need to increment words, phrases, syntax, grammar.
Do not ask me how they do the latter - I know not. I am only a simple programmer, trying to make since of The Big Picture, but alas the only tools I have are Logic & Math. These two things are completely inadequate for grasping the wondrous way's of Sun Marketing's Incredible Counting Machine.
J2SE 5.0 Name and Version Change:
The upcoming feature release of J2SE is version 5.0. We have changed the version of this release from 1.5.0 to 5.0 to better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security built into J2SE. (This release is also known as "Tiger".)
Where Is Version 1.5.0 Still Used?
J2SE also keeps the version number 1.5.0 (or 1.5) in some under-the-cover
places that are visible only to developers, where the version number
is parsed by programs. In these cases, 1.5.0 refers to exactly the same
platform and products numbered 5.0. Version numbers 1.5.0 and 1.5 are used at:
java -version => (among other info, returns: java version "1.5.0")
java -fullversion => (returns: java full version "1.5.0-b64")
javac -source 1.5 => ( javac -source 5 also works)
java.version => system property
java.vm.version => system property@since 1.5=> tag values
jdk1.5.0 => installation directory
jre1.5.0 => installation directory
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0 => website (http://java.sun.com/j2se/5.0also works)
Basically, what this means in English is:
We have changed the numbering scheme for our versioning system once again, god help us all. What was once Java 1.1 became Java 2 at the time of the Great Conjunction, when our numbering systems became divided. When 1.2 was followed by 1.3, in name, it remained Java 2 and did not budge. Likewise when 1.4 came, its name still did not yield any change. However, when 1.5 came forth, the name suddenly became Java 5.
And now that we know by the power of The Quickening, that 1.6 shall soon be here - we shall change the form of the name again, to sew further confusion in our enemies and strengthen our customary allies.
In order to truly understand Sun's Java versioning/naming scheme - and believe me, I wish I was kidding but I am not - you must watch the movie named The Dark Crystal.
In that movie there was one race (think of them as Sun employees). One thousand years before the first act in the movie occurs, that one race cracked Crystal of Truth - which then became The Dark Crystal.
When happened next was strange: two races appeared. One was a race of wizards, the was - well, different. Let us just say they were strong, or at least powerful.
The two races had different powers, different ways of interacting with the world, and very different values.
One day a a boy named Jen that was of neither race found the missing shard that had been lost since the crystal broke.
He placed the missing shard back into the crystal, which once again became the Crystal of Truth. The two races merge back into one. They move on to a new plane of existence, and the world is healed as good as new.
That is how cool it would be if there was only one numbering system for Java, one numbering system for Solaris.
It is not required that technical people and marketing people have the same way of talking.
But it would be pretty wonderful if they counted the same way.
Even when the tower of Babel fell, people did not lose the ability to count the same way.
People can get past having/using different languages. What they cannot get past, is having different was of counting the same thing.
