Deep Thoughts with Richard Schoen

I recently discovered a very interesting open source tool called IKVM. I was out on the web looking for ways to utilize existing Java JAR files from within a .Net application. Most specifically I wanted to use the iSeries JTOpen Toolbox for Java to access an AS/400 – iSeries back end system from .Net and didn’t want to have to rely on the iSeries ODBC or .Net providers. I downloaded IKVM and then ran the jt400.jar file through the IKVM ikvmc Java bytecode to .NET IL translator and suddenly I had a usable version of the JTOpen library in DLL format for use with .Net. So far from my testing it seems to work quite well and we plan to be using this technique in several of our commercial .Net based product offerings. Have fun with IKVM and share your stories with me.