ACHIEVING PORTABILITY FOR LEGACY SOFTWARE USING JAVA

Abstract

Increasingly, many software developers are facing the challenge of adapting software applications developed on one platform to work on multiple platforms. While software standards have helped this effort, they do not go far enough, and many platforms only partially support these standards leaving many needed functions in platform specific libraries. This is particularly evident in the areas of graphics and user interfaces, threading and synchronization, and in network and file access. Fortunately, Java offers a common interface where native libraries diverge. This paper outlines a phased strategy for migrating platform specific applications to be platform independent while reusing the robust, existing algorithms.