> IMO, the cross-platform capabilities of java are seriously hurt by all the hoops
> that end-users have to jump through (setting up classpaths, .sh/.bat files, etc)
> just to get someone elses application to run. Admittedly, java installshield and
> the like do do a good job of setting this stuff up, but a more general (and built
> in) solution is required.
>
> [ bryce ]
According the Sun (unfortunately I do not remember URL) the 'preferred'
way to specify classpath is do not set CLASSPATH environment variable at
all (namely because it is not portable) but to use -cp and -classpath
for jre start (apparently -classspath is for 'everywhere used' packages
like Swing, probably JGL and jpython) and -cp for the application
classpath itself and other its specific packages. Anyway you will
usually have non-portable scripts to start applications... probably
concatenating command line from other environment variables not
deprecated by Sun like SWING_RELEASE_PATH :). For development (where we
need to use java instead of jre) all should be put in -classpath, I
beleive.
Just my 2cents
Pavel
