3 ms·

Eclipse, due to its evolution from Visual Age set of IDEs, coded in Smalltalk, also keeps a code browser view for Java that is like the Smalltalk one.

by pjmlp 9mo ago

Frolo 9mo ago
its also the only view that makes writing java tolerable
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  When the competition was the state of C and C++ compilers in 1996 for portable code, even across UNIX flavours, many improvements over that made it tolerable, people were already adopting it even with a plain interpreter, JIT only landed on version 1.3, 5 years later. Note C creators didn't kept following up on ISO, Plan 9 and Inferno lacked C++ support, and they rather came up with their Java competitor in Inferno with Limbo, and Dis eventually also supported Java.
  - anthk 8mo ago
    I still can't get java2dis (or whatever is calling) running into Inferno. Which might be interesting as I still have an old as hell Java point and click adventure game (made with a semi-infamous one in Spain from back in the day for amateur/indie games). I think it was done with Java 1.2/1.3. Current JRE/JDK's run it in a bad way (threads get borked) since Java 1.6/OpenJDK 7 I think. Now, if Inferno supported Java 1.4 or something close to the old Kaffe+Jikes it would be really nice to get legacy stuff working.
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      From the surviving documentation it appears it was based on Java 1.1.3, and called j2d, which ironically it is similar to what Java to Dex ended up being on Android. https://scispace.com/pdf/using-inferno-to-execute-java-on-small-devices-4l7v6g2sm9.pdf https://scispace.com/pdf/using-inferno-to-execute-java-on-sm... I also assume it wasn't something they cared that much about, as I could not find the original source code on the Inferno open source repo.
mananaysiempre 9mo ago
VB6 also had a COM API browser thing that was remarkably similar to a Smalltalk browser.
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  VB 6 is still the best COM experience from Microsoft, .NET went too down level, and C++ has always been clunky. I don't remember that browser though, aren't you mixing it with type library navigation tool from the Windows SDK?
  - mananaysiempre 8mo ago
    I might have been misremembering, because I thought there was a three-pane browser and this one is two-pane, but I think this is what I meant: https://files.catbox.moe/0sdvpz.png https://files.catbox.moe/0sdvpz.png (View > Object Browser or F2).
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      Ah ok! I completly forgot about that one, thanks for correcting me. I ended up doing some digging after your comment, and figure 2 is the one I remebered, yours is also there as figure 1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2000/december/visual-basic-inspect-com-components-using-the-typelib-information-object-library https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2000...

Eclipse, due to its evolution from Visual Age set of IDEs, coded in Smalltalk, also keeps a code browser view for Java that is like the Smalltalk one.

by pjmlp 9mo ago

Eclipse, due to its evolution from Visual Age set of IDEs, coded in Smalltalk, also keeps a code browser view for Java that is like the Smalltalk one.

Frolo 9mo ago

its also the only view that makes writing java tolerable

pjmlp 8mo ago
When the competition was the state of C and C++ compilers in 1996 for portable code, even across UNIX flavours, many improvements over that made it tolerable, people were already adopting it even with a plain interpreter, JIT only landed on version 1.3, 5 years later. Note C creators didn't kept following up on ISO, Plan 9 and Inferno lacked C++ support, and they rather came up with their Java competitor in Inferno with Limbo, and Dis eventually also supported Java.
- anthk 8mo ago
  I still can't get java2dis (or whatever is calling) running into Inferno. Which might be interesting as I still have an old as hell Java point and click adventure game (made with a semi-infamous one in Spain from back in the day for amateur/indie games). I think it was done with Java 1.2/1.3. Current JRE/JDK's run it in a bad way (threads get borked) since Java 1.6/OpenJDK 7 I think. Now, if Inferno supported Java 1.4 or something close to the old Kaffe+Jikes it would be really nice to get legacy stuff working.
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    From the surviving documentation it appears it was based on Java 1.1.3, and called j2d, which ironically it is similar to what Java to Dex ended up being on Android. https://scispace.com/pdf/using-inferno-to-execute-java-on-small-devices-4l7v6g2sm9.pdf https://scispace.com/pdf/using-inferno-to-execute-java-on-sm... I also assume it wasn't something they cared that much about, as I could not find the original source code on the Inferno open source repo.

mananaysiempre 9mo ago

VB6 also had a COM API browser thing that was remarkably similar to a Smalltalk browser.

pjmlp 8mo ago
VB 6 is still the best COM experience from Microsoft, .NET went too down level, and C++ has always been clunky. I don't remember that browser though, aren't you mixing it with type library navigation tool from the Windows SDK?
- mananaysiempre 8mo ago
  I might have been misremembering, because I thought there was a three-pane browser and this one is two-pane, but I think this is what I meant: https://files.catbox.moe/0sdvpz.png https://files.catbox.moe/0sdvpz.png (View > Object Browser or F2).
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    Ah ok! I completly forgot about that one, thanks for correcting me. I ended up doing some digging after your comment, and figure 2 is the one I remebered, yours is also there as figure 1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2000/december/visual-basic-inspect-com-components-using-the-typelib-information-object-library https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2000...