Java on Handheld Devices — Comparing J2me Cdc to Java 1.1 and Java 2

The current trend is towards having Java applications run on handheld mobile devices. Sun Microsystems, Inc. has addressed this trend by specifying an edition, namely Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME), of the Java environment for handheld devices. J2ME divides into two configurations: Connection Limited Device Configuration (CLCD) and Connected Device Configuration (CDC). This paper focuses on the latter, which is targeted at nextgeneration embedded devices, such as handheld computers. Sun Microsystems, Inc. has released CDC specification, a white paper and a reference implementation, which are our main references for this paper. We will give an overview to J2ME and especially CDC, and take a practical view to CDC by testing the reference implementation using several test cases. We also compare CDC to Java 2 and Java 1.1 standard editions. Java 2 is chosen, because according to Sun, CDC should comply with Java 2, except Swingclasses. For this reason, we do not take Swing into account in our tests. Java 1.1 on the other hand is taken into account, because most of the today’s JVMs on handheld devices are based on Java 1.1 functionality.