I hate JAVA!

[hobsey]

I'm trying to do the firmware update for the Starsense in which I needed to install Java which I uninstalled ages ago because it plays havoc with my laptop.

Now, when I try and open the update a message pops up say 'A Java Exception has occurred'

Not a good start, having problems with it even before I've got it outside.

Could someone please tell me what to do?

Many thanks.

[Chris Rowland]

Java is essential for the Celestron Firmware Manager(CFM).  It's an attempt to make the update platform agnostic to try to reduce the noise from the Mac and Linux people.

Unfortunately Java doesn't seem to be as platform agnostic as it's claimed to be.

All I can suggest is to use Windows.  I use W7 64 bits with no problems. Also use a reliable USB to serial adaptor. my favourite is the FTDI based one.

Chris

PS you didn't say what version of StarSense you have.  Trying it is another option.

C

[Dubhar]

Java its self is platform agnostic, though its a pain. Some java libraries are not agnostic though. Also java versions don't play so good. The firmware manager Chris mentions requires java 7, id double check you have that version and its up to date. It may be its not liking the arch version (32/64bit) of java you might have to try one or the other.

[hobsey]

 Also use a reliable USB to serial adaptor.

PS you didn't say what version of StarSense you have.  Trying it is another option.

I've got another cable on order just in case it was that, should be with me on wednesday. Then will give it another go.

Version, I have no idea as it landed this morning. Will I find that in the utilities like all the other celestron handsets?

It is Java version 7 I installed as I didn't have it before and was verified.

[JamesF]

"Java: write once, broken everywhere"

James

[AlexB67]

Java and hardware  not that I know much about that anyway. The best invention for scientific stuff anyway is still Fortran, yes you heard me say it  , C/C++ can do it, Fortran can do it simply and efficiently without much thought.  Nowadays I'd say with the new updated standards of OOP if you want it and pointers it is a forgotten language and much undervalued

sorry for the OT, could not help myself.

[tekkydave]

I've got another cable on order just in case it was that, should be with me on wednesday. Then will give it another go.

Version, I have no idea as it landed this morning. Will I find that in the utilities like all the other celestron handsets?

It is Java version 7 I installed as I didn't have it before and was verified.

The various component versions are all in the hand control menu under:

Hand Control --> Get Version Info.

Mine worked ok before and after the upgrade so you should be ok to use it until you manage to do the upgrade.

[JamesF]

Java and hardware  not that I know much about that anyway. The best invention for scientific stuff anyway is still Fortran, yes you heard me say it  , C/C++ can do it, Fortran can do it simply and efficiently without much thought.  Nowadays I'd say with the new updated standards of OOP if you want it and pointers it is a forgotten language and much undervalued

I still have a copy of "Effective FORTRAN 77" on my office bookshelf.  It was the recommended text when I learnt FORTRAN at uni some ten years later

James

[IanL]

I still have a copy of "Effective FORTRAN 77" on my office bookshelf.  It was the recommended text when I learnt FORTRAN at uni some ten years later

James

Attended one FORTRAN lecture and didn't bother with the rest. There were three of us in 2nd year of comp sci degree and the rest were all geology students.  When the lecturer started with 'this is a variable' the comp sci students realised it was going to be a waste of time turning up.  I just tracked down the guy who had "Effective FORTRAN 77" out from the library on 'permanent loan'; turned out he was one of my mates anyway. Read it an an afternoon and got a passing mark in the exam.  It was either that or do the COBOL course which was even more painful by all accounts.

[billhinge]

I still have a copy of "Effective FORTRAN 77" on my office bookshelf.  It was the recommended text when I learnt FORTRAN at uni some ten years later

James

Yes I did Fortran 77 at uni back in '81 - thermal conduction across a metal plate held at 4 different temperatures at each side (using a Sirius 8086)

10 years later moved to C which was great

Java which was the fashion

Now when I want to write something I use Cocoa & objective C  on the mac 

PS I hate Java too

[Martin Meredith]

Fortran 77 -- takes me back. When I was taught programming c. 1980 at Manchester U we were not allowed to actually type in our own code but had to submit it on coding sheets to the typing pool! Crazy, but a useful corrective to the suck it and see approach when the turn around time is measured in hours!

Life has always been too short to read a COBOL program let alone write one. 

Regarding Java, ever since Oracle took it over it seems they want to kill it off under the excuse of security. Ironically, as a language it has more support for proper security in all its forms than most others apart from ADA. Nowadays it seems to me it is no longer effectively portable because of the constraints it places on the user to install the almost weekly upgrades. I speak as one who has almost given up maintaining a couple of Java web apps (that have worked without problems for years) due to these issues.

Martin

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

FORTRAN 77: google "shoot yourself in the foot"

[AlexB67]

That was a rather amusing read   

I'd say the winner has to be

Java:
(***) You shoot yourself in the foot. If the bullet pauses momentarily
while midair, it's because garbage collection is being performed.

[cgarry]

With Java out of the equation, what would be the language of choice be for cross platform GUI program development?  C++ & Qt?

Cheers,

Chris

[IanL]

HTML5, CSS, Canvas and JavaScript  Not that they're any less hateful than Java (I mean who designs a language on the basis that the underlying representation of everything is a string? Nonetheless JS runs on pretty much every device and you can hack out stuff pretty quickly)

[JamesF]

HTML5, CSS, Canvas and JavaScript  Not that they're any less hateful than Java (I mean who designs a language on the basis that the underlying representation of everything is a string? Nonetheless JS runs on pretty much every device and you can hack out stuff pretty quickly)

I think we can also assume that Chris would like the application to complete before the turn of the next century

James

[Ags]

Haters! Java is the best, i love it.

[JamesF]

Haters! Java is the best, i love it.

Only when you're comparing it with Ruby

James

[JamesF]

As there have been a couple of mentions of COBOL...

Many years ago I worked at one of the major COBOL systems houses though in the eight years or so I was there I never actually did any programming in COBOL.  They were quite proud of the fact that their COBOL compiler was in fact written in COBOL.  In "shooting oneself in the foot" terms I think that's more akin to strapping a nuclear warhead to one's leg.

James

[AlexB67]

Haters! Java is the best, i love it.

Just a bit of banter, when it come down to it I down have a hate for it at all. Probably I like java cakes more than java, but people should use what they think is best for any given situation I guess.

I am not one for getting into that debate normally, when the talks start about a is better then b I usually fall asleep  when I use to do that kind of thing, but then again I was never one of those I like programming for the sake of programming types,  I only find it interesting if I have something I want create or calculate, so I guess I am not really a true coder at heart.

I can only talk about my own background where it all started, and for many years this was simply number crunching, Fortran and C were the natural choices at the time, and Java would simply not have been and never will be for core large scale computation.

Nowadays I look at it somewhat differently in the scientific type disciplines, tools like matlab and mathematica are the natural choice for many things I'd say, though some woud say they hate mathematica, it is very different in many ways compared to many of the OOP designed languages, there many ways to shoot yourself in the foot with that too,  though I realy like it once you get the hang it.  Mathematica has great connectivity with native languages like C/C++ and java if needed too .

Only when time becomes important and large scale computation is an issue I would I say resort to a native language like C/C++  or fortran 95 in science, the latter is still very common in sciences today, otherwise you are just creating a lot if hard work for yourself and spending extra time.

For every day applications requirement would be entirely different today, but in my day C was the norm for server based programming on Unix when I did quite a bit of that also in the nineties. C++ had not even begun to become mainstream,  I must be old school. Times have changed some tell me . 

[hobsey]

As the op of this topic, l would just like to say something.

It was me that was the problem, not java. I hadn't unzipped the files, oops.

Firmware now updated.

[itmo]

Java is very platform agnostic. you only get in trouble if you do something very platform specific with it. For example gui-issues where it is difficult to make the ui work the mac way on mac , windows way on windows etc. Or if you mess with libraries which have native components which are badly programmed. Compared to any other general purpose language it is top of the line in maintainability,platform agnosticism and backwards/forwards compatibility. Usually when people get "java errors" , they are the result of total incompetence on the programmers side.  

The major issues java does have is that for a language it is already quite aged, compared to more dynamic languages(, although scala fixes that problem brilliantly),it also requires people to install the java runtime, and keep it up to date. 

The upside is that the jvm JIT compiler is top of the line and every time you update your java, your old software runs faster and more efficiently.Also JVM is relatively language-agnostic and you can compile pretty much any language to jvm bytecode and get the same benefits.  

[Macavity]

"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal"? 

http://www.webcitation.org/659yh1oSh

(Ah, Memories!) 

My favourite was along the lines of:

"Real Programmers can write FORTRAN programs in *any* language?"

Always worked for me.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That was a rather amusing read   

I'd say the winner has to be

Java:

(***) You shoot yourself in the foot. If the bullet pauses momentarily

while midair, it's because garbage collection is being performed.

Forth: Foot yourself in the shoot.     Is also a nice one

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal"? 

http://www.webcitation.org/659yh1oSh

(Ah, Memories!) 

My favourite was along the lines of:

"Real Programmers can write FORTRAN programs in *any* language?"

Always worked for me.

Also known as "Real programmers don't eat quiche"