java 5.0 on virtual PC?

Go look at the requirements for the Winblows version of Java 1.5 and then see if the version of Windows you're running meets them. If so, your answer is yes.

 

For basic dev work, I can't see why it wouldn't work.

If it's an entry-level class, there shouldn't be any problems. The only thing I could think of would be if you try to make a call to something that VPC doesn't support, but I couldn't even guess at what something like that would be.

 

You might also look at the option of installing a really toned down Linux distro on top of an emulator, and then running Java 5 in x86 Linux. Something like the DSL distro. I don't know how much success anyone has had using Bochs to get Linux working? If it can be done, it would be much faster, I think, than Win2k. Hmmm...Bochs and DSL...hmmm....

Finally, you might also look at options for either logging into a Unix machine on campus and running its screen within X on your Mac or doing the same with a PC box, cuz again you'll probably get faster performance than an emulator....

Oh, and just a little thing, but I think people would be appreciative if you'd just have asked this question in the first thread you created on Java 5 on a Mac instead of here, so that there aren't a bunch of threads on pretty much the same topic. Not a biggie, but little things like that'll get you nicer responses from people.

 

Can you say impossibly slow? A JVM running on an emulated CPU? It may work, but not in a productive way. I haven't heard of anyone managing to get 5.0 for Tiger running on Panther.

 

I ran Java 1.4 under Windows 2000 under Virtual PC a while ago (to test if some bug did not occur in the Windows version of the JDK - it didn't!!!). It was on an iBook 1,2 GHz with 512MB ram. It ran well enough to do some work, but it was a console application that wasn't very CPU intensive. I think it'll do fine as long as you're not going to do any GUI (AWT/Swing) coding.

Speaking of console apps, Windows treats Carriage Return / Linefeed differently than Mac OS X. I caught that under VPC/Windows. Otherwise I would have sent a dysfunctional piece of code to my teacher (who uses Windows). Maybe useful to know when you're going to do console apps too.