Earlier this week, Sun released Java 1.5.0 update 2, which I'm
tentatively calling "the first Java release that actually works."

From day 1, Java made much noise about its ability to internationalize
applications, but until version 1.5, it didn't work at all. Font rendering
was tied to your system's font renderer. Java didn't ship with adequate
fonts, nor did it know how to find a font that contained the correct glyphs
for a given language. On Windows, and other operating systems, they weren't
even calling the right API functions that would allow internationalized AWT
GUIs. The Swing EditorPane couldn't handle paragraphs longer than 32,000
characters, so it was useless for the output of many programs.

Still, version 1.5.0 didn't work. There were some nasty regressions in
the AWT TextArea, which made scrolling break:

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=5003402

As you probably noticed, this made the Frink AWT interface really
annoying. You had to manually scroll to see the output. This affected
*lots* of applications, and was finally fixed this week.

I don't know what new regressions may have been introduced in this Java
release, but for the first time, the parts critical to making a working
internationalized application, and a very useful Frink, may be more or less
working. Therefore, I highly recommend that you take a look at this latest
Java release, which can be downloaded at:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp

Make sure you get the "update 2 or later." The one bundled with NetBeans
is apparently update 1.

Although I've ensured from day 1 that Frink runs on any JVM version 1.1
or before, sometimes the bugs in those implementations are horribly
annoying. Maybe, just maybe, this is the first working Java implementation
ever. I'm glad I held on to my stock. :)

--

Alan Eliasen | "Whenever you find you are on the side of
eliasen@... | the majority, it is time to pause and
http://futureboy.homeip.net/ | reflect." --Mark Twain