It puzzles me to no end why a large majority of the important tools that are needed to build Java applications for settop boxes are written in compiled languages and provided only in Windows executable form.
This isn’t an idle complaint, by the way. I started rebuilding one of those tools in Java tonight, going from an algorithm in a specification (and I use the terms algorithm and specification loosely). Fortunately it’s going quickly: in just over three hours, including puzzling over the algorithm—which, despite being defined as an extension to another algorithm in another spec, is almost entirely different—and learning the relevant Java APIs, it’s about half done and well on its way to being an Ant task to boot. But this is at least the seventh time I’ve had cause to do something like this, and it’s getting really really old.
