Java being phased out

[oli...@sou.edu]

Hello - 

I've just been told by our IT group that Java will no longer be supported as of January 2019, I assume because of security issues. Does anybody have an idea for a workaround for this? I would really hate to lose this for my classes.

[Brian White]

That's a big problem - you might want to talk to your IT people about that. There are a lot of java applications out there that will be killed by this. I thought that IT people were supposed to support the teachers, not prevent them from doing their jobs.... Sometimes, if you push back on things like this (especially if you get organized with others) you can get them to relent on crazy things like this.

That said, there are some alternatives:

1) There's a javascript version of VGL that runs in a browser called jsVGL. You (or I) can set up custom problem pages with particular problem types on a web server. It has all the VGL features except saving your work, chi-squared analysis, and grading.

2) I could set up a MOOC with jsVGL that could allow grading but that would require renting a server from someone like Amazon or Microsoft. I have no funds for this, so I would have to charge users. 

3) There are some programs that claim to compile java code into executable programs that don't need java. In the past, these have had 'gotchas' that made them useless for our purposes but I haven't looked into them in a while.

All of these require some significant work on my part. I'm willing to do it if there's interest. Please let me know if this is an issue for you and, if so, which option you prefer.

Thanks

Brian