Comment by simoncion
6 months ago
While "Well, just bundle in a copy of the whole-ass JRE" makes packaging Java software easier, it's still true that Java's backwards-compatibility is often really bad.
> ...sharing runtime dependencies [in C or C++] is hard...
Is it? The "foo.so foo.1.so foo.1.2.3.so" mechanism works really well, for libraries whose devs that are capable of failing to ship backwards-incompatible changes in patch versions, and ABI-breaking changes in minor versions.
> Java's backwards-compatibility is often really bad.
“Often” is a huge exaggeration. I always hear about it, but never encountered it myself in 25 years of commercial Java development. It almost feels like some people are doing weird stuff and then blame the technology.
> Is it? The "foo.so foo.1.so foo.1.2.3.so"
Is it “sharing” or having every version of runtime used by at least one app?
> I always hear about it, but never encountered it myself in 25 years of commercial Java development.
Lucky you, I guess?
> Is it “sharing” or having every version of runtime used by at least one app?
I'm not sure what you're asking here? As I'm sure you're aware, software that links against dependent libraries can choose to not care which version it links against, or link against a major, minor, or patch version, depending on how much it does care, and how careful the maintainers of the dependent software are.
So, the number of SOs you end up with depends on how picky your installed software is, and how reasonable the maintainers of the libraries they use are.
> So, the number of SOs you end up with depends on how picky your installed software is, and how reasonable the maintainers of the libraries they use are.
And that is the hard problem, because it’s people problem, not technical one, and it’s platform independent. When some Java app was requiring a specific build of JRE, it wasn’t limitation or requirement of the platform, but rather the choice of developers based on their expectations and level of trust. Windows still dominates desktop space and it’s not uncommon for C++ programs to install or require a specific version of runtime, so you eventually have lots of them installed.
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