Clemens' Favorite Java Bugs

Chr. Clemens Lee

2000-10-27

I remember the time when I started to learn programming, and many times I was finger pointing to the system thinking it must be broken. But in the end, it was almost always my program that had the bug.
In 1995 I started to use Java as my primary language and environment. By then accustomed to find every software problem in my code, I was surprise to find out that more often than not it was Java which was severily broken, often at a very fundamental level. Well, since then Java has improved a lot, but also very fundamental stuff hasn't been touched by Sun for years (or unbeleavable bugs like not being able to use keys "+?*#" on Linux jdk-1.3-final pop up again).

So far I was glad Sun had their protective hands over Java, but I think it is time to open source the jdk implementation. Unfortunately instead it seems a lot of the voluntary blackdown linux porters have been pissed off by Sun by now.

I use this page to follow (and entertain myself with ) with the Java bugs I have stumbled across.

You can directly jump to the Java Bug Parade.

Update 2002-04-26: after a while I have checked the status on all bugs on this page and I must say that Sun has made quite some progress. Note all hope is lost :-).

1. Java Bug List

No Bug Id Submit Date Synopsis Status

1 4204845 1999-01-21 Remote use of double buffering on JDK 1.2 is very slow fixed

I work for a customer that has bought 4 Sun E4500 with gigs of memory for some hundred thousend bugs and it turns out that due to this bug you can't use jdk 1.2.2 or jdk 1.3 on them!?
Also, one user of Jim installed it on a university server for his collegues who then reported the application is unusably slow.
Not surprisingly this bug is at position 2 in the bug parade right now.

2 4101910 1998-01-05 Incorrect Frame sizes and locations on Solaris closed

This is my favorite bug. It got all my three little votes.
There are similar bug reports as well:
4378450
4383332

3 4034891 1997-02-26 class does only compile once fixed

Bug filed by myself.

4 4266026 1999-08-26 javac no longer follows symlinks fixed

Have been bitten by this as well.

5 4371923 2000-10-17 Three keys ><* don't appear in Swing components with German keyboard fixed

A killer bug for jdk 1.3 on linux. I have the same problem on my german keyboard.
Related bug reports:
4380071,
4389057
Keys that don't work on my German keyboard:

6 4529843 2001-11-20 javax.xml.transformer.TransformerFactory should not use context class loader progress

Filed by myself.

7 4392053 2001-06-25 Window management problems under KDE2 (Linux) progress

Might be fixed for KDE3. File this bug as well, but it was already a duplicate.

8 4390238 2000-11-06 JDK1.3 throws OutOfMemoryError when trying to allocate PermGeneration space progress

I wonder if that is the same problem I have regularly when compiling a bigger project on Solaris using jdk 1.3.1_01/02. Sometimes hotspot simply crashes when using javacc.

9 4236007 1999-05-06 No character based terminal I/O (like DOS getch()/kbhit() functions) closed, duplicate of 4050435

One of the big short commings of Java. Java could be so nice to develop console based apps.

10 4050435 1997-05-07 Improved interactive console I/O (password prompting, line editing) progress

Yes, this is really needed badly, but at least this bug gets quite a number of votes. But again, the request is already more than 6!!! years old.

Links

Java Bug Parade:	http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/top25bugs.html
Clemens' Java Page:	http://www.kclee.com/clemens/java/
Clemens' Home Page:	http://www.kclee.com/clemens/

clemens@kclee.com, last revised: $Date: 2003/10/05 16:29:43 $

No	Bug Id	Submit Date	Synopsis	Status
1	4204845	1999-01-21	Remote use of double buffering on JDK 1.2 is very slow	fixed
I work for a customer that has bought 4 Sun E4500 with gigs of memory for some hundred thousend bugs and it turns out that due to this bug you can't use jdk 1.2.2 or jdk 1.3 on them!? Also, one user of Jim installed it on a university server for his collegues who then reported the application is unusably slow. Not surprisingly this bug is at position 2 in the bug parade right now.
2	4101910	1998-01-05	Incorrect Frame sizes and locations on Solaris	closed
This is my favorite bug. It got all my three little votes. There are similar bug reports as well: 4378450 4383332
3	4034891	1997-02-26	class does only compile once	fixed
Bug filed by myself.
4	4266026	1999-08-26	javac no longer follows symlinks	fixed
Have been bitten by this as well.
5	4371923	2000-10-17	Three keys ><* don't appear in Swing components with German keyboard	fixed
A killer bug for jdk 1.3 on linux. I have the same problem on my german keyboard. Related bug reports: 4380071, 4389057 Keys that don't work on my German keyboard:
6	4529843	2001-11-20	javax.xml.transformer.TransformerFactory should not use context class loader	progress
Filed by myself.
7	4392053	2001-06-25	Window management problems under KDE2 (Linux)	progress
Might be fixed for KDE3. File this bug as well, but it was already a duplicate.
8	4390238	2000-11-06	JDK1.3 throws OutOfMemoryError when trying to allocate PermGeneration space	progress
I wonder if that is the same problem I have regularly when compiling a bigger project on Solaris using jdk 1.3.1_01/02. Sometimes hotspot simply crashes when using javacc.
9	4236007	1999-05-06	No character based terminal I/O (like DOS getch()/kbhit() functions)	closed, duplicate of 4050435
One of the big short commings of Java. Java could be so nice to develop console based apps.
10	4050435	1997-05-07	Improved interactive console I/O (password prompting, line editing)	progress
Yes, this is really needed badly, but at least this bug gets quite a number of votes. But again, the request is already more than 6!!! years old.