Take On Java

[mattxr 9]

haha this is great news 6 years understanding Sqs then Sqf now its time to understand Java :P lmao long as the experts r excited I'm excited :P

Congrats BIS! this will be a big change! :)

[Serclaes 0]

funny is that the Cup full of Java hint in other thread wasn't taken enough seriously :)

It was. But I thought: "Naaah it can't be Java, must be some scripting language related to coffee"

Because come on, who would have guessed a full blown heavily enterprise application language would make it into a game :D

I really can't wait tho. I like and work daily with java so it couldn't be better :D

[d3lta 10]

YEAHHHHHHHHH MAN!!!!!!! Fantastic NEWS!!!

I waiting this news for ARMA3 too..

[hellfire257 3]

Java...

Oh my, where to start?

[sickboy 13]

Java...

Oh my, where to start?

At the beginning? :-p

[noubernou 77]

So this means we can load up minecraft on a mfd yes? :D

[Nielsen 10]

Holy fucknuggets!

LoL.. x2

This is straight awesome... Guess I will have to start learning Java too.

[Slapstick 10]

the engine should be be able to run code written in any programming language that can compiled for Java Virtual Machine[/Quote]

This is freaking awesome!

Everyone, forget about learning Java and learn Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org) instead. Groovy is easier to learn, easier to write, more powerful, and compiles to Java bytecode (i.e. runs in a JVM).

Hopefully the ability of the JVM to interact with resources outside of the game environment (especially the file system) will be very carefully controlled.

I'm sure the JVM will be restricted in some ways and the JVM itself has a security manager that can control what each class is allowed to do, down to the level of what other classes it is allowed to create/access.

However, these security concerns hold for any language. Lua, since its written in C is prone to buffer overrun attacks (any C program is). But there has to be a flaw to attack in the first place. So as long as BIS writes flawless code we're good to go ;-)

Arma 3 is going to build upon this technology, so if you can, Take On Java now and help us to shape it up

A friend forwarded me a link to this post and I have no clue what TOH is, in fact I had to scroll to the top of the page to see what forum I was in... but I'm off to get it ASAP as I can't wait for A3. The thought be being able to use Groovy to create little domain specific languages for Arma is making my mouth water.

[jedra 11]

This is freaking awesome!

Everyone, forget about learning Java and learn Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org) instead. Groovy is easier to learn, easier to write, more powerful, and compiles to Java bytecode (i.e. runs in a JVM).

It's sure going to make the editing forum fun with all kinds of source code being posted! (this a comment, not a complaint by the way!).

Out of interest, what are BI going to write in?

Edited December 16, 2011 by Jedra

[d3lta 10]

Yeahhhhh Arma3 confirmed!!!! Thanks BIS!!

https://twitter.com/#!/Arma3official/status/147720004727611392

[duke_N 10]

wow great!

never understood sqs/sqf really but i wrote some java stuff

cant wait to try it out!

[nuxil 2]

Please post more info on how to use java with the game!

some examples would be nice .. howto run java code?

do we use exec | execvm or is there a new command to execute java files ??

Edited December 16, 2011 by nuxil

[maruk 80]

Please post more info on how to use java with the game!

some examples would be nice .. howto run java code?

do we use exec | execvm or is there a new command to execute java files ??

First of all, you need to wait for future Take On Helicopters update. This is future (not so distant...) technology being discussed.

[hellfire257 3]

At the beginning? :-p

Where is that!? :D

I've never even touched code outside of ARMA, so this is into the big wide world for me. That's why I love ARMA, the learning curve never plateaus.

[nuxil 2]

First of all, you need to wait for future Take On Helicopters update. This is future (not so distant...) technology being discussed.

Oh right,. i got a bit confused here..

looking at twitter and i saw this

https://twitter.com/#!/Arma3official/status/147720004727611392

Quote: Take On Java! Arma 3 is going to build upon this technology, so if you can, Take On #Java now (Take On Patch3) and help us to shape it up.

guess i'll just haveto wait for more info :)

[mondkalb 1087]

I wonder how this will change cheating in Multiplayer. If this new technology will provide decent file system access it will need some means of restriction.

My fears are this could this be used by hackers to erase files through a simple script / mission... vital files.

I'm not too familiar with Java, but is this a real possibility?

[d3lta 10]

I wonder how this will change cheating in Multiplayer. If this new technology will provide decent file system access it will need some means of restriction.

My fears are this could this be used by hackers to erase files through a simple script / mission... vital files.

I'm not too familiar with Java, but is this a real possibility?

I think that a java sandbox for Arma3 is coming, a sandbox isolates the game system from system operation.

[le_culto 0]

Yeah !

Can't wait for it !

[[evo] dan 79]

Cant wait for this either, already been learning how to do stuff with it! Hopefully we can import our swing GUI's into game for doing stuff :)

[major_shepard 82]

Excellent! Thank you so much BIS!

I wish we can get a full Java API to access to ArmA 3 game engine so that we can develop plugin for the game. Modding for the game would just be OUTSTANDING :butbut:

Just though of a VTS like mission with all the power and possibilities of Java language and support for C++ that JVM provide through Java Native Interface (JNI) or Runtime execution of binaries.

Speaking to me I can promise a full integration of LEA (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=128696) into ArmA 3 with even much advanced possibilities :bounce3:

Edited December 18, 2011 by Major_Shepard

[jedra 11]

It's been a while since I did any proper Java (as apposed to javascript), but I used to use Eclipse. Unfortuantely I have grown to hate Eclipse with a passion (I have used it for the last two years for Flex and Coldfusion development). I find it slow and buggy in the main - this could very well be down to the Flex plugins, but I seem to remember that it was always a bit temporamental - everything seemed to be a little 'tacked on' rather than integrated.

Anyway, I thought I might try an blow some cobwebs off my Java knowledge over the festive period in preparation for ToH and ultimately Arma 3 integration.

Any suggestions on a decent IDE for Java? I have heard good things about Intellij IDEA, but I haven't tried it.

[noubernou 77]

It's been a while since I did any proper Java (as apposed to javascript), but I used to use Eclipse. Unfortuantely I have grown to hate Eclipse with a passion (I have used it for the last two years for Flex and Coldfusion development). I find it slow and buggy in the main - this could very well be down to the Flex plugins, but I seem to remember that it was always a bit temporamental - everything seemed to be a little 'tacked on' rather than integrated.

There are some issues with Eclipse for sure, but I honestly would out it down to the Adobe stuff. I worked in flex for almost 2 years a couple years ago and hated every moment of it. I used another install of eclipse for PHP development with PDT and really liked it. DBG support was nice.

Remember as well that Eclipse was developed 100% for Java development so its very mature for that platform.

[Slapstick 10]

I've heard good things about IDEA, but have never tried it. There is a "community version" of IDEA, but you have to pay to get all the really cool features. The other major contender would be Netbeans. I don't really like Netbeans, but lots of people swear by it.

[jedra 11]

There are some issues with Eclipse for sure, but I honestly would out it down to the Adobe stuff. I worked in flex for almost 2 years a couple years ago and hated every moment of it. I used another install of eclipse for PHP development with PDT and really liked it. DBG support was nice.

Remember as well that Eclipse was developed 100% for Java development so its very mature for that platform.

I'll give it another go then I think. In the end I switched to Flash Builder and CF Builder (both eclipse based) rather than use Eclipse itself with plugins, so I should be able to install Eclipse again alongside. Most of the work I get these days is still Flex/CF/Flash so I can't ditch it yet!

It would be good to see some example projetcs/scripts from BI before the release of this - just to see how it hangs together. Even a conceptual model would be nice.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

Due my studies I am a bit familiar with Java (2 semester of Java ...) and I hope I can answer some question (arose in this thread) from people who are not familiar with java.

But first:

Some of my following assumptions are theoretical. At last we have to wait for the ToH patch, to see all benefits and possibilities of Java for ArmA/ToH.

In my opinion the main difference between Java and SQF is, that java is object-oriented. That means you dont write procedural codes like in sqf, with linear commands and new script calls (exec). In Java you write classes with methods (functions inherite by classes). Propably there will be a main-class (much like init.sqf) that is called at mission start or at specific events. This main-class will create new class instances (maybe a costum behaviour class for every unit on the battlefield).

With this object orientation programmers are able to make "better"(/more logically) code. The idea behind OOP is, that you can exchange classes between different situations (missions, addons, ...) and useing third-party classes/modules.

For example: Maybe we are able to use a SQL-lib with Java, so we can get functionalities like JayLib-dll, but there is a waste amount of other possibilities.

Another difference: Java is precompiled into bytecode, the JVM (the interpreter) is able to read this bytecode and it translates it for the Arma engine), as far as i know, sqf is not precompiled (if you dont use http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/preprocessFile). So ArmA is processing sqf scripts while you call a specific script. This will probably make the optimized JVM faster (but this also depend on BIS implementation).

I hope I could grant everyone some clarity, who is not familiar with java.

Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

Edited December 18, 2011 by NeoArmageddon