Wanderings

Keith P. Graham is a Programmer, Harmonica player and Science Fiction Writer. This blog reflects these and many other areas of interest.
Search
atom.xml feed



Creative Commons License


28 May 2007

LINA - open source everywhere

The big buy-in for the Java language was write-once - run-anywhere. Java classes work on different machines. This was a good thing for CIOs that came from the big mainframe world and bought into various mini and micro computers, only to find that software had to be rewritten each time. The AS/400 was a counter attack by IBM against the PC that it spawned. The AS/400 felt and tasted like a mainframe so the CIOs of the big companies fell in love - until they discovered that the code needed to be re-written.

The upper management of companies with expensive development costs have been searching for a way to cut my salary for 35 years. The idea of write-once run anywhere is one answer they understand. The code re-use argument of Object-Oriented programming sounded good, but has never paid off. Java is a dog and seems to cost ten times as much as hardware costs as programmer savings, just to make it run.

This is an old idea. Back in the early 1970s, Nicklaus Wirth invented a programming language called Pascal based on an older language called Algol. Pascal (based on Algol) is the father of C, Java and PHP. One feature of Pascal was that it compiled into P-code, a virtual machine language. In the 1990s the idea of P-code was reinvented in Java Byte Codes.

Since Java, we have learned a lot about machine languages and now there is

Lina

Lina is a byte code/p-code engine for Linux and perhaps even Windows and Apple OS's. It is designed, not only to take care of different CPUs, but to handle different operating systems and hardware. The goal is a true write-once Run-anywhere engine. Something that Pascal and Java never achieved.

I like this because it means more work for me. Now, there will be a porting of Java that compiles to the Java Byte Code to Java apps that compile to LINA. PHP, which already compiles to an intermediate byte code, could easily compile to LINA. I hope that this appeals to the CIOs of all the major corporations, and they need people like me to implement it.

By the way, nobody seems to understand that there is no such thing as a interchangeable parts when it comes to programming. I am an artist, I am a poet, I am a mystic - at least when it comes to programs. There is no one who can replace me.

I produce art, not code.


LINA - open source everywhere

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008