Welcome to the Ja.NET Standard Edition (SE) project. The aim of this project is to provide a compatible, open source implementation of a Java 5 SE JDK environment for the .NET platform. This includes JDK tools, class libraries, and a runtime environment based on the .NET CLR; rather than a JVM.

Goals

The goals of the project are many and include the following:

• Enable Java to be a "first class" development environment for .NET
  • Provide a small Java class library built for .NET which leverages as much functionality of the .NET/CLR environment as possible
  • Provide Java development tools (e.g., javac, java/javaw, jar, etc.) specifically tailored to the .NET environment
  • Provide performance on par with other .NET development languages
• Be as compatible with the Java Reference Implementation (RI) as possible
  • A java application or class library recompiled for .NET using Ja.NET SE should behave exactly as it does on the Java RI
• Provide seamless interoperability with the .NET runtime environment
  • Be able to utilize .NET specific features from the Java programming environment, e.g., Value Types, Custom Attributes, .NET Generics, etc.
  • Easily "consume" existing .NET classes from Java
  • Easily "consume" Ja.NET SE-created classes from .NET programming languages including C#, VB, etc.

Developer Scenerios

Ultimately, the goal of the Ja.NET SE project is to provide developers with the tools and runtime environment to support the following developer scenarios:

• Take existing Java class library source code and recompile it using the Ja.NET SE JDK producing .NET versions of those libraries. The new libraries should be easily incorporated into new or existing .NET-based applications (likely written in other .NET languages). The existing Java-based source could be reused as is, or it could be extended to incorporate or integrate new capabilities found in other .NET-based class libraries.
• Take an existing Java-based application, recompile the source code using the Ja.NET SE JDK, and incorporate other .NET-based class libraries. This will create a new version of the application which can be run on .NET. Using the Ja.NET SE-provided launcher, the new .NET version of the Java application runs on .NET and behaves as it did on the Java RI, yet also provides new functionality derived from incorporating the new .NET class libraries.