Beanshell status

Engines, Libraries and Tools Tools Discussion
#1

Hi,

does anybody know how’s the status of Beanshell (www.beanshell.org) ? The mailing lists are somewhat “quiet”. Is it sill live and kicking?

In case you use another “modern” scripting system (like Python or such): how does Beanshell compare to it? For example, is there some typical task you can do easily with Pyhton but it take ages to achieve it with Beanshell? (I’ve to add I know Java but not Python.)
Just asking for your experience.

Even more: what are your experiences when it comes to integrate such a scripting system into your Java application? Because Beanshell is Java it should be very easy. Does it function well under full loaded applications/games? Any problems? And so on. :slight_smile: Thanks.

#2

In the thread “Which script-engine for a full game?” Nonnus29 mentioned Beanshell.

In the former thread “Scripting language embedding in Java” Blahblah mentioned that he intends to use Beanshell for a coming project. If I read his recent articles right, this project indeed uses Beanshell today. :slight_smile:

Do you two guys have made good experiences with Beanshell?

#3

You’d be better off asking some of the hundreds (thousands?) of apps that have used BSH for many years, as we’ve only used it for a a short time. IIRC there are links from the bsh website. If not, jedit.org is well-known for using bsh for almost everything - you can even use bsh expressions in the search-and-replace dialog box IIRC.

My only bad experience has been when using an app that came with bsh bundled in it’s download, and it bundled an old version that conflicted with the one I had already installed in my VM. The VM-installed version took priority, and the app wouldn’t run because some of the API had changed between versions. That was really more of a problem with a badly packaged app, but there’s a lot out there like that, probably because they pre-date the VM extensions system.

The last time I tried to contact the BSH author I got no response. I agree it looks “dead”, but:

[] the current version is more than good enough you could happily live without them ever releasing a newer version
[] hiustorically there’s been a very long time between releases
[*] given the incredibly widespread usage I’m sure it’s not dead, just the author’s quietly working away on it / busy with other things. If it were to die, I’m sure it would get snapped up and re-born pretty quickly (e.g. given that many apps depend upon it!)

#4

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 04:45:53PM -0500, David Fogel wrote:

I’m interested in getting a better understanding of the current status
and future roadmap of the BeanShell project. Both the website and the

Hi David,

The BeanShell project has been in a bit of a lull since the 2.0 beta release a
few months ago. You are correct that the project does tend to block on me and
that is something I hope to finally address this year.

Let me tell you what’s up at the moment.

I am currently participating and representing BeanShell in the expert group
for JSR-223, the javax.script API for the Java Community Process. That is
going well and is very interesting. I have also submitted a proposal for a
BeanShell talk at this year’s JavaOne conference. If that gets picked up I
hope I can get many of you to attend. Finally, I am fishing around a proposal
for a BeanShell book, which I’d like to do soon.

I am getting feedback on the 2.0 beta and hope to have a final release by this
summer… certainly if we have a JavaOne talk.

To try to correct the blockage problem and allow for more neat stuff to appear
faster I have been considering creating a “sandbox” version of BeanShell and
giving a wide group of developers access to commit to it in CVS… There we
could try out new stuff and see how it goes.

I am not sure if my emphasis on keeping BeanShell small and up to some
arbitrary measure of tidiness has been the best thing for it. I hope to gauge
interest from the JCP and the BeanShell community this year and find the best
path to keep BeanShell growing.

Of course everything will remain open and hopefully keep improving.

I think given our track record (BeanShell has been around since 1997) we can
say for certain that BeanShell is here to stay… It’s just a matter of how
fast we can improve it in the future.

#5

Thanks Blahblah for the good answer and also for the quote of the author’s message.

[quote]jedit.org is well-known for using bsh for almost everything - you can even use bsh expressions in the search-and-replace dialog box IIRC.
[/quote]
How true - Jedit uses it. That’s a nice program.

[quote]My only bad experience has been when using an app that came with bsh bundled in it’s download, and it bundled an old version that conflicted with the one I had already installed in my VM. The VM-installed version took priority, and the app wouldn’t run because some of the API had changed between versions.
[/quote]
Oh yes, that’s the same if you install Xith3d or Jogl in your JVM and download apps which bundle newer versions of them: conflict with your installed “old” version (or the other way round).
Possible to avoid.

OK, so Beanshell is a bit sleeping but live and kicking. Very good news. Thanks again.