My 2 cents. Part of the problem is that this group is schizophrenic -
many of the people on the list are here for the Java and some (a few?)
are here just for the JavaScript. From the Java user perspective it is
easy to see this as a rant. From the JavaScript view it makes complete
sense - if you don't know Java then installation and use are obscure at
least. I think it would benefit everyone for Rhino to become more
popular - the more users the more support. From that perspective it
seems like a good thing to make it as easy as possible for JavaScript
people to install and use Rhino. I am writing a web server (WhimJs) in
JavaScript that runs on Rhino as a way to make it easy for JavaScript
users to write web server functionality. When I have some easy install
process for Mac Os X, Ubuntu and Windows I would be glad to post it if
it could make it into the doc somehow. I'm sure someone else could
document a simple Java/Rhino/Shell install and use process for the
major OS's and do a better job.
Terry
mckyj57 wrote:
I am actually an open-source software author. I use literally dozens
of open-source packages constantly. I have installed hundreds of them,
since I have used Linux as my main desktop since 1994.
But in this day and age, the hours-to-get-up-and-running model doesn't
compete well. With my package, you can theoretically look at the
README and even with no technical knowledge you can install the
program via the usual "configure; make; make test; make install" meme.
I certainly had people complaining about ease of installation when I
started, but that was 1996. After 1997 or so, my stuff could be
installed by reading the README and doing what it said.
I knew I was risking this discussion by ranting a bit. But I have now
tried a number of different Java things over the past five years. Not
a single one of them had the basic instructions to get the program
running in one place. All assumed that you know Java and that you can
find your way around jar and CLASSPATH files.
To me this is why Java has not done well as a language for developing
open-source packages. There is no culture of user-friendliness. You
might as well place a sign out -- "non-developers not welcome".
I just checked out what the main web page says, and nothing in the
overview makes it seem like it is only a library. I wanted it to do
simple interpretation of JavaScript for syntax checking and function
testing purposes. Since the Rhino overview says it is a JavaScript
interpreter, it would make sense that you could easily employ it for
that basic function. I have been able to do so, now, but it is less
than ideal in my environment, which is the Linux command shell and the
vim editor. The command invocation to do a simple pipe STDIN to
interpreter is 90 characters. (Yes, of course I can make a shell
script to implement that. But it doesn't seem right that you don't
install something in a bin.)
On Sep 8, 3:39 pm, "David Parks" <[email protected]> wrote:
Emi, many people agree throughout the open source community that more
documentation is needed on a plethora of projects. I am sure that everyone
on this list who works with this very well respected product would agree
that such documentation as you suggest would be fantastic to have.
This *is* an open project, for which a community of people come together to
develop, with tremendous thanks to the founders who spent uncountable hours
and days developing a tool that they provided free to the rest of us.
I can only suggest that if you see something lacking that you offer
something small in return for what you receive. Take some notes as you learn
and provide some documentation that will help others who come after you.
There are those people who specifically steer clear of open source software
because of similar diatribes. If all of this is a significant issue for you,
you might consider sticking closer to the fully supported commercial
software options. As they say, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch
(but personally I think open source projects like this come damn close).
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