Learning Java???

Although I did not sit down on Jan. 1st and write up a formal list of resolutions, there are a number of items I decided I was going to try to do differently this year. Keeping my car clutter free has, surprisingly, been easier than I thought it was going to be. Teaching myself Java, however, has proven to be quite challenging.

I have an older version of Java on my Panther OS X iBook, but I decided I had to go more "cutting edge" than that and install the Java Software Development kit on my little ASUS eeePC. There were little quirks here and there, but I finally managed to get it installed-- only to learn that the Java Runtime Environment on my ASUS eeePC is actually out of date and refuses to run programs that I compile with the SDK. I just foolishly assumed that since the computer was so new that it was likely to have the latest version of the Java Runtime Engine on it.

So, a little more work is in order to get my ultra-mobile development box up and running. This all sort of begs the question, though-- I can learn to write the ultimate Java program, but if other people don't bother to upgrade their run time environments to the same or later version of Java that I'm writing with, then they will be unable to run my programs at all. So much for "write once/run anywhere", I guess.

I know, there's a huge asterisk after that write once/run anywhere claim and the disclaimer it points to presumes that everyone is keeping up with their Java updates. I just would like to be able to create mini-apps for cell phones, and I have a hunch that it's going to be as much of a headache as getting things working on the computer platform has proven to be. For instance, if I am understanding all this correctly, I can't write any Java code with this toolset that will work with my old Panther OS X iBook. The latest JRE version for Panther OS X stops at something like 1.4.2, if I recall correctly.