Java compatibility? (was Re: Not a bash, just the facts)

[Matthew R. Dempsky]

On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 10:35:06PM +0000, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Matthew R. Dempsky wrote:
> >The last programming competition I went to, I remember there being 
> >*four* versions of Java available.  Seems really ironic for a language 
> >with compatibility as a core goal.
> 
> Where they compatible? Could a program written for one version run on 
> a later version?

I coded mostly in C and a little C++, so I wouldn't know.  However, I 
would presume that if they were compatible, there would not have been a 
need for so many or for specifying which version you used when 
submitting your code.

For comparison, they only provided one C compiler.

> Were versions from different vendors compatible?

Again, I don't know.  I seem to recall one version was from IBM and 
three versions were from Sun (some 1.5.x release and two 1.4.x 
releases, IIRC).