Hi and thanks for reading my post. Let me start with the fact that I am not in any way a Java programmer. I am a systems admin running a large IT shop with no Java programmers on staff. I have tried to search for the answer to my question but apparently I don't know enough to properly formulate the question! If I knew how to ask the question I'm sure google could answer it. :-)
Anyway, here goes. We have a new application that we purchased from a vendor. It is custom written for our needs. It runs in a web browser and uses Java Runtime. In short we are receiving lots of calls at our helpdesk from end users of the application complaining that the program wont start. The solution is usually to clear the Java Cache. On Java.com there is a page explaining how to clear the cache and it says: "clear your cache so you can load the latest versions of Web pages and programs". The program is currently under development and is being constantly tweaked and changed. It does seem that when the program is changed we get a larger volume of calls to the helpdesk where the solution is to clear the cache again. I view this as a customer service issue that we should seek a permanent solution to. Yes, we can train end users to clear the cache, but we really shouldn't have to. The software developer seems content with it as it is and thinks it is perfectly reasonable for end users to know to clear the cache. This seems wrong to me. I could easily script something to clear the cache at shutdown or logoff, but most of my customers (5000+) are not on my network so I have no admin access to the PC. Besides, i don't know what other Java apps they may use and I don't want to break those. Further, the cache improves performance. So I would hate to deliberately reduce performance on my own app...
Is Java Runtime, a program used by literally billions of people and developed by one of the largest corporations in the world really so fragile? It seems there should be a way for the program to detect a new version of the application has been published and overwrite the version in the cache. Am I totally off base? I hope I am explaining myself properly.
Programming is not my strength. I am a systems admin. I'm afraid I don't know enough to tell if the programmers are being honest with me or just pulling the wool over my eyes. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!