I realize that this is not the proper forum for this, but I consider this list pretty knowledgeable about java and I just toy around with it at the moment. My employer is working on an application that is deliverable on many platforms, from a standalone win32 platform to client-server versions served everywhere from NT to mulitple flavors of unix (Sun, HP, AIX, etc.) to AS400. The application is written in C and C++. One minor part of this application, for which I have become responsible, delivers a file of updated information to the users via the internet. Once a month, the administrator of the customer system would contact our web site and download the information. However the design is to do it from within our application, not from a browser (just press a button). The thought of programming this connection and the logic behind it (don't download file if already up to date, etc.) on all these platforms is a little daunting, and so tonight, it occurred to me that perhaps this part of the application - contacting the web site and ftping the file - might be doable as a java bean. Offhand, this seems like a great way to make use of the cross-platform capabilities of java. Performance is not an issue. The file is small. My questions are then, 1) are java virtual machines available on the full range of platforms mentioned above? 2) if customers do not have java installed, what runtime licensing issues are there? 3) How difficult and how possible is it to call java beans from C and C++ code on these platforms?
