Intro
One of the coolest things about Java is that the JRE has a very small footprint as well as being highly portable, so I can run my application on nearly any platform with ease, and without having to integrate into the operating system linked libraries or C:\Windows\System etc – that is, the JRE can be run from within a folder.
.NET struggles in this regard – especially with size. Mono is becoming an ever popular choice but there seems to be too many dependencies that the Operating System needs to have.
Question
Are their any other RUNTIMES/languages (Perl, Ruby) that have this similar functionality that I mentioned above?
Again (1) Portability (2) Multiple OS support (AIX, Solaris, Linux) (3) Size for re-distribution over a network (4) Easy to Install and Deploy.
AIM
I’m looking for a light-weight run time or language that can be deployed on a server as easily as the JRE is.
For example: If I had to use Python, that would require added libraries to be installed on OS etc. Perl would be a good example, found on most Linux but endless hassle of for version and getting a third-party library.
ANSWER!!!!
This was CLOSED because it was thought to not be RELEVANT.
But FYI for those who this may help; outside of JRE, LUA is probably the most portable not requiring dependencies and compiles or system integration.
Ruby is not quite there, although it’s default on most Linux (not on BSD)
BSD comes with Lua though 🙂
Lastly, Jruby is not practical, as it may use the JRE (20MB) and then JRuby itself (16MB).
Some thoughts for someone considering a deploy across multifarious “OS’s” and being portable enough to distribute without consuming excessive bandwidth.
Thanks
JVM and .NET are only virtual machines, that interpret bytecode. There are a lot of language on top of them.
JVM
.NET
There are another VM and script languages that can be run across the platform, i.e. Parrot that is Perl 6 VM or Lua that is X-platform script language (i.e. WoW use it). There are also project like LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) but this is still a little bit platform dependent.