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Comment by vardump | Hacker News Reader

> There's hardly anything you can't build in Java.

I do bare metal/low level embedded, kernel drivers, and occasionally shared libraries. Java is useless for practically all of my typical use cases.

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I get the sense you're being contrarian. Op isn't saying it's the best choice, but being in that field, you should know that even those things people have tried to do and sometimes done with Java. For example, Java-based smart cards or Java Micro Edition.

These guys think otherwise

https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc

https://www.aicas.com/cms/

http://fiji-systems.com/

https://developer.android.com/things/

Of course it isn't suited when trying to fit something into PIC with 64KB.

Technically speaking you can build these things in Java. JNode is an OS written entirely in Java, including the drivers. You probably meant "drivers for linux/windows" though and yes, there it's not so useful.

You can also make shared libraries with Java these days. Look at SubstrateVM. It turns Java code into a .so file that doesn't depend on the JVM, compiled ahead of time, with a C API exported.

Yes, there's very little in software development that's strictly impossible. Practicality is another matter.

> Look at SubstrateVM. It turns Java code into a .so file that doesn't depend on the JVM, compiled ahead of time, with a C API exported.

Thanks, will do. I've been mostly eyeing Webassembly for some "cross-platform shared object" use cases.

Your comment seems largely unnecessary.

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