

New JDK 7 Feature: Support for Dynamically Typed Languages in the JVM - davatk
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/DynTypeLang/index.html

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dminor
Charlie Nutter of JRuby did a (very long) post about invokedynamic on his blog
awhile back: [http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/first-taste-of-
invokedynamic...](http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/first-taste-of-
invokedynamic.html)

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zmimon
Since this uses a new bytecode on the JVM I wonder how backwards compatibility
is going to be handled?

I hope we don't see a painful period where people stuck with old JDKs (Mac
users, that means you) are going to be unable to use the newest versions of
dynamic languages. Even just having to distribute separate binaries for pre-
JDK7 runtimes will be an annoyance that people in the java community have not
experienced for a long time.

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acangiano
This should be the Java equivalent of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) built
on top of the CLR.

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jongraehl
How about continuations and TCO while we're at it?

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c00p3r
What is JDK 7? Yet another marketing buzzword? Would it happen to run on
emerged ARM-based platforms? Netbooks? iPhone? Android? Symbian? Whatever?

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alexgartrell
Java Development Kit, let's you compile Java code to bytecode (As opposed to
the JRE, Java Runtime Environment, which runs it).

It's cross platform and not a marketing buzzword at all.

Have you done this before?

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c00p3r
1\. cross which platform?

2\. where I can get JRE for linux on ARM?

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bretthoerner
Please answer your questions and/or contribute code here:
<http://openjdk.java.net/>

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c00p3r
I hope Oracle will do it better. =)

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mahmud
OT:

I knew it!

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=727427>

JRuby guys quit on Oracle and went with EngineYard. Yeah, because they knew
they _only_ sponsored the JSR for dynamic languages. I too would quit my day
job if Sun was customizing the JVM to support my compiler better.

[Edit: s/ibm/oracle/]

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dminor
They were employed by Sun, not IBM, and already worked on JRuby full time. I
think this was more about integration into the Ruby community as well as
getting a good JRuby deployment option in place at EY, as well as uncertainty
over Oracle's acquisition of Sun.

Edit -- Charlie Nutter on jruby-user: "The primary reason for leaving was the
high level of uncertainty involved."

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mahmud
Good catch, but still. If they knew Sun had a JSR waiting to leave the door
that would essentially put their pet project on the map, it makes perfect
sense to go with a more cutting-edge vendor who would care for it, maybe
negotiating better pay, or even waiting another year before launching your own
support-shop.

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calambrac
I don't understand what you're getting at. Why did you emphasize "only" above?
Are you trying to imply the JRuby guys are leveraging some kind of inside
knowledge? You know this JSR's been in the works since early 2006, right?

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jherdman
Thank god for Instapaper (<http://www.instapaper.com>)! That's one long
article that will make for fine, fine nerdy subway reading.

