Curious, I tried–

moo@cow[2521]~>sudo -u nobody java -jar PerlWizard.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: rtb
+aileyphd/lib/io/JTextAreaWriter : Unsupported major.minor version 51.
+0
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:643)
        at com.simontuffs.onejar.JarClassLoader.defineClass(JarClassLo
+ader.java:803)
        at com.simontuffs.onejar.JarClassLoader.findClass(JarClassLoad
+er.java:710)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:323)
        at com.simontuffs.onejar.JarClassLoader.loadClass(JarClassLoad
+er.java:630)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:268)
        at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
        at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2534)
        at java.lang.Class.getMethod0(Class.java:2777)
        at java.lang.Class.getMethod(Class.java:1663)
        at com.simontuffs.onejar.Boot.run(Boot.java:341)
        at com.simontuffs.onejar.Boot.main(Boot.java:168)
[download]

Not to be a party pooper, new stuff is fun/interesting/welcome, but I would be pretty skeptical that anyone who knew Perl well enough to write a good generator for it would possibly reach for Java to do so. :\

Evidently your version of Java is not supporting JTextAreaWriter. Try a later version.

The reason for using Java is because the NetBeans development environment is far better for building GUIs than anything else I have ever seen since the last time I used C++ Builder. The Java freemarker template engine is extremely capable and fairly easy to use.

Being multilingual is not an issue, it is something to strive for. One should be able to use the best language for the task, and in this case Java was it. Moreover, why would you care what the underlying language is? In the final analysis, it is the actual result that counts.

I wrote a pure Perl version of PerlWizard many years ago for myself and it saved me tremendous amounts of time. But it was difficult to enhance. The Freemarker template engine made it far easier. The OneJar solution made it very easy to package and distribute everything in one file.

So give it a try with a newer version of Java and please let us know how it worked for you. In any case, thanks for trying it at least once.

Thanks for explaining much of the motivation for some of your implementation choices. Those details actually help a lot in just understanding the tool. (They would have been good things to including in your original announcement.) They certainly make the tool much more interesting to me.

- tye        

You got UnsupportedClassVersionError because your Java is too old. version 51 refers to Java 7 or jdk 1.7 which were release July 28, 2011. Evidently you have an old Java on your *ix system. Try it on your PC, which is far more likely to have a more recent Java.

On my PC, he says. :P I insist on being paid to use Windows products, sir!

The list of “why can’t I…?” regarding to OS X on Java’s site leads me to conclude we’re at loggerheads at this stage. I appreciate your effort++ if not your product.

Running PerlWizard. PerlWizard is distributed as the one-jar file PerlWizard.jar....

Fantastic :) giggle

Ok, so a Java app to generate Perl code to produce a user interface. And, apparently, it's a proprietary Java app built on an open source (BSD license) Java template engine.