On Fri, 1 Sep 2006, Dave Miner wrote: > Justin Zygmont wrote: >> On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, Alan DuBoff wrote: >> >>> On Thursday 31 August 2006 12:48 pm, Dave Miner wrote: >>>> You need a toolkit with which to implement a GUI. For better or worse, >>>> Java represents the richest environment for doing so on Solaris, in my >>>> opinion. It isn't a significant factor in the performance of the >>>> install, though, beyond the overhead that we have in setting it up to >>>> run on the current miniroot, which is completely a result of space >>>> limitations on the first CD combined with the architecture of the >>>> current install. >>> >>> Dave, >>> >>> I'd just like to comment that I agree for the most part. I find that a lot >>> of >>> folks tend to bash Java for performance, but it's gotten much better over >>> the >>> past few years. >>> >>> I don't know if it makes more sense over other similar technologies, >>> python >>> for instance (I look at python as being a similar technology;-), but it >>> works >>> and does a good job, IMO. It seems easier for us to extend what we have, >>> since much of it does use Java today. >>> >>> I think Java is one of the richest programming environments available >>> today, >>> there doesn't seem a good reason that it shouldn't be used. >> >> >> 400MB for the installer must be one of the tradeoffs? >> > > 400 MB of what? > > But to go back to part of Alan's mail, the current install actually only uses > Java for the GUI; everything else is in C or shell scripts. I'm doubtful > that we'll continue to use the existing SDK for the GUI in implementing the > new one, but there are many factors to be weighed in making that decision. > I've no experience with Python, for example, but I'd be open to considering > its use if it provides the capabilities we need. An interesting project for > someone might be to prototype up a Python UI that generates Jumpstart > profiles, for example.
I'm pretty sure I came across 400MB as the requirement for RAM using the GUI installer. There's no question that java is a radically awsome technology though, something must be taking up a lot of ram, I had to add an extra stick of ram:)
