Using Java Under Windows in DoC

• Under Linux...

  First, if you do use Linux, things are in many ways more straight-forward: I recommend using Xemacs as an editor for writing your Java source code, and then the IBM JDK which is installed on all departmental Linux machines for compiling and running java code. Xemacs comes with some nice packages for developing Java code.
  Otherwise, you may also wish to try JBuilder, which runs under Windows, Linux and Solaris.

• What about Visual J++?

  Unfortunately, the Visual J++ installation under WindowsNT in this department is broken, as I guess most of you have already figured out. However, it can be fixed; I have managed to fix it on my desktop. So: you can ask CSG to fix Visual J++ for you on any particular machine where you want to use it, such as your allocated project PC. But it could also be you favourite PC for programming in the labs.

• Does Visual J++ support RMI?

  No, VJ++ doe snot support either RMI or JNI out-of-the-box. However, this can be fixed. I have found the following patch which adds RMI capability to Visual J++:

  http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/techreqs/rmi

  This is quite straightforward to install, provided you have a working version of VJ++ on your PC and have Administrator privileges on that machine. I did this on my desktop, and it worked fine.

  What this does:

  • Allow you to compile Java programs that use RMI from Visual J++.
  • Give you a development environment for Java which is very similar to the one you are used to for C++.

  What this does not do:

  • It does not suddenly make VJ++ "understand" RMI. VJ++ will behave as if your program is a normal Java program with one single main function.
  • It does not run rmic for you. You still need to run that manually from a DOS window.
  • It will not start your RMI server when you use the VJ++ interface to run your client code. However, if you have started the server manually from a DOS window, you can start the client from VJ++, in the usual way:
    
    
    

• How can we run RMI applications?

  The Java security model means that normally, an RMI client can only invoke methods from an RMI server if
  • either, they are both running on the same host
  • or, the client is an applet which has been downloaded from the web-server on which the RMI server is running.
  This is not a real explanation, just my own rather simplistic understanding of what's going on...

  For running on the same machine...

  You would have to do something like
  
  ob3@emu% java RListImpl &
[1] 14847
Start the server
ob3@emu% appletviewer rmi.html &
[2] 14873
Start the client applet with appletviewer

  This assumes that you are running your program from Linux, where the ampersand & causes the processes to run in the background. If you were doing this under WindowsNT, you would have to run both lines in separate DOS windows. Further, this assumes that your client program is an applet which is embedded in the HTML document rmi.html . If that is not the case, you can run your client program in the usual way using java <program name>.

  How can I run a client applet in a web browser?

  As indicated above, an RMI client applet that has been downloaded into a bowser can only communicate with RMI server applications which are running on the web server from which the client was loaded. You do not currently have access to our departmental web server (www.doc.ic.ac.uk) for running server applications. So, in order to achieve the above goal you have to either

  1. Negotiate with CSG to allow you to run server applications on the departmenatl web server. Please let me know if you intend to do this.

     OR

  2. Run you own web server. This is not as hard as it sounds. In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is to get a project PC which runs Linux and then run the server on that.

  Ask me if you need help either of these.

• What are the Alternatives to Visual J++?

  1. JBuilder
     Jbuilder is quite a large IDE for Java which runs under Windows, Linux and Solaris. There are commercial versions, but this version is free. I have installed it, and it seems to work.

  2. JCreator
     Free Java Development environment for Windows.

  3. Source Navigator
     A Development Environmnent for not just Java that runs under Linux and Windows

  4. BlueJ
     Implemented in Java so runs on "any" platform.

  5. Forte for Java by Sun - the Developers of Java
     This is an IDE for Java which looks quite large and comprehensive. It runs under Windows, Linux and Solaris, and has a free version.

  Many thanks to Edward Avis for pointing me to some of these.

Olav Beckmann
Last modified: Tue Dec 10 23:58:53 GMT 2002