acronyms ??!!

[sakcee]

being new to java et el. I am getting confused in so many acronyms used
in java. why are there so many acronyms, are all of them necessary? and
are all these specifications necessary? arent most of these things just
libraries or APIs, why arent they part of jdk
I am just trying to understand since other languages does not have all
this,

to name a few JAXP, JAI, JAAS, JFC, JNI, JMF, java faces, servelets,
containers, application servers
application containers, web start, JINI, I am sure that I am missing
many.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

being new to java et el. I am getting confused in so many acronyms used
in java. why are there so many acronyms, are all of them necessary?

...
I have problems with some of Sun's naming and
acronyms, but more relevant to your question/complaint
is that each acronym has a different meaning.

So ..yes.

I find this handy for 'all those damnable' acronyms
http://www.google.com/search?q=acronym

Though you need to add the acronym itself..

to name a few JAXP, JAI, JAAS, JFC, JNI, JMF, ....

E.G.
http://www.google.com/search?q=acronym+jaas
http://www.google.com/search?q=acronym+jai

Usually, the acronim* will be the title of one of the
pages on the first 1st page of results.

* Even better, because acronym is tricky to spell,
variants like..
http://www.google.com/search?q=acronim
http://www.google.com/search?q=akronim
...will have the search result page asking..
"Did you mean: acronym"

Just a note that the waters do not have to be
so muddy and unclear, if you have a few handy
tricks in your 'toolkit'.

Andrew T.

 

[Alex Hunsley]

being new to java et el. I am getting confused in so many acronyms used
in java. why are there so many acronyms, are all of them necessary?

No, none of them are necessary at all, but then people would be writing
out the names of things in full all the time. Typing Java Database
Connector in full would soon get tiresome. JDBC much easier to type.

If you're actually asking why there are so many
technologies/APIs/frameworks around Java - well, usually if there is a
need of some sort, someone will invent something. Sometimes these
invented things are used needlessly and excessively though.

and are all these specifications necessary?

Specs do tend to help. If there wasn't a servlet specification, for
example, you wouldn't have a choice of which servlet container sotware
to use. And so on.

arent most of these things just
libraries or APIs, why arent they part of jdk

Why don't all shops in the high street sell just one thing: an enormous
package containing everything you might ever need?

I am just trying to understand since other languages does not have all
this,

A lot of other languages do have "all this", e.g. look at all the
modules/libs you can get for Python, Perl, C, et al.

to name a few JAXP, JAI, JAAS, JFC, JNI, JMF, java faces, servelets,
containers, application servers
application containers, web start, JINI, I am sure that I am missing
many.

The key is not to just throw technology at something just because the
technology is there. For example, a full EJB persisted web application
might be overkill for a certain application (and often will be), whereby
something as simple as a few servlets with a bit of JDBC might just be
fine.

Knowing a little about these things, perhaps enough in order to know
when they might be useful (and then you can find out more), is quite
handy though.

lex