Hi,
I just heard something very interesting from a colleague. That by using Visual J++ you can have access to gdc or even directx (as a hack). Is this true?
Yes, it supports DirectX via M$'s JDirect stuff. Now, go shoot him for suggesting that people use non-compatible VM and IDE that have been discontinued by their manufacturer.
Actually, considering how saturated the java developer market is getting, tell him and all your friends to start using J++. ;D
Or just break their computers.
[quote]Yes, it supports DirectX via M$'s JDirect stuff. Now, go shoot him for suggesting that people use non-compatible VM and IDE that have been discontinued by their manufacturer.
[/quote]
“Suggesting”? Hey, no one suggested nothing buddy, I just wanted to confirm a simple fact here.
Not everyone’s in holy war you know…
Anyway, thanks for your reply and take it easy.
Sorry, supposed to be some deadpan humor. Seriously tho, J++ and MSVM are both dead products. All using them will accomplish is pain and anguish while you receive derision from other Java programmers. If you really want to tie yourself to windows by using DirectX, just write JNI bindings. It’s no more difficult than the C++ wrappers people have written.
I suggest not to use J++. 
1.) The chance is very high that it has got as many compiler bugs as Visual C++ version 6.x has got. (*)
2.) It’s officially dead.
3.) It doesn’t produce Java compatible bytecode with its default compiler switches (Visual C++ doesn’t produce standard ISO C++ neither).
4.) It’s from Microsoft who does hate Java (that’s no “holy war”, that’s a simple fact). It’s like asking a vegetarian for supplying meat and then wondering why the steak he sold you actually is Tofu. 
5.) Calling DirectX from within Java is using the wrong tool for the wrong purpose.
Did I forget anything?
(*) With newest bug fix packs applied, oh well, in new speech this is being called “service packs”. Very “funny” really when your puplisher calls you that in level 101 your full price game crashes and you figure out it’s due to a compiler bug.
Now, if you are interested in using something like J++, you should really look into C#. I know I am going to be flamed to hell for saying this, but it’s pretty nice. They seemed to do things right with C#, taking the best from many worlds. Not to mention native DirectX 9 support.
Indeed it is quite nice, not quite sure about their serialisation stuff. This idea of adding language constructs to define the XML representation of a class seem to be breaking the MVC type pattern to me…
C# is looking quite sweet in quite alot of place. Give MS developers time tho, they’ll #%%! it up soon enough
Kev
If you’re a Javalobby member there’s a 16 page study by Osvaldo Doederlein on .NET’s alleged language neutrality. The Acrobat document is being called “One Runtime to Bind Them All” and can be found here: http://www.javalobby.org:80/members/index.jsp
A very short summary of it maybe could be: .NET copied many of Java’s best ideas, but without platform independency in practice. (Software patents? IP? Oh well.)
PS: I’ve used to use the C# inventor’s previous baby named Object Pascal, better known as Delphi.
I use C# for a lot of work stuff and it is very nice and easy to use. Closely tied to VS.net for a lot of stuff, but after having to do years of ASP in VBScript being able to do ASPX and use a real language for it is fantastic.
Breakfast: As you do C# and aspx I’m a little interested, do your work stuff include a “mvc” approach or are you using code-behind “default” behaviour (i.e. the view tightly coupled with the controller)?
Just interested to query someone actually using .NET, for a change, about this
Thanx in advace - just curious!
Kind of a bit of a combination really - my current aim is to do the least amount of work I can for the maximum reusefulness and quick development. It is very quick indeed to use the default behaviour so I usually end up doing that when I’m building pages (it is also a bit easier for our designers to work with) but as I have done quite a bit of JSP work in the past I tend to design the overall site architecture from an MVC point of view anyway, which ends up creating a mish-mash of both. Which doesn’t bother me in the least as long as it is a clean and efficient mish-mash and I don’t have to do too much to get it working and keep it working.
[quote]Yes, it supports DirectX via M$'s JDirect stuff. Now, go shoot him for suggesting that people use non-compatible VM and IDE that have been discontinued by their manufacturer.
[/quote]
I agree. Burn the blasphemer! ;D
[quote]Now, if you are interested in using something like J++, you should really look into C#. I know I am going to be flamed to hell for saying this, but it’s pretty nice. They seemed to do things right with C#, taking the best from many worlds. Not to mention native DirectX 9 support.
[/quote]
C# is actually pretty nice. I’ve mainly done .NET stuff with it, no game programming, but it’s nice. J# on the other hand is an abomination. The compiler is buggier with .NET and Java stuff than any other compiler I’ve used.
Purely as a language, C# seems very nice.
But I can’t find a use for it for my own stuff since I don’t want to tie myself to the microsoft world. I know about the mono project but when it comes to platform independance we already got java which is much better and matured in that.
For me personally it seems to make not much sense to switch to C# when we already got java, or to start using directX when we already got openGL/openAL and such.
And J# is just a bad joke.
OTOH, if you’re fine with creating windows-only games then I suppose there’s a lot going for C#.
I have to say the community support for java is far better in my experience. It may just be that I know where to go to find people who are experts, but I haven’t found any C# equivalent of JDC ( and it would be pretty hard to have one that wasn’t full of VB monkeys- the sooner I forget VB and all it’s kin the better) let alone somewhere like here…
I think that it is a bit short sighted to tie yourself too closely to a single vendor, even if that vendor is M$. But at the same time I appreciate the many very handy elements of C# and the general niceness of VS.net and for only 2000 quid per licence more than Netbeans or Eclipse…
Couldn’t you edit the definitions in eclipse to use C# syntax colors? And just set it to use csc to compile C# code?