Java 2 has a bug, specifically Java Bug Parade #4172371, which we hit from time-to-time.  Specifically, the VM signals a VerifyError if an inner class method calls a private outer class method as its only action.

We discovered a restriction in JDBC today.  The JDBC spec states that when reading columns from a row in a result set, the rows must be read left-to-right and no rows may be read twice.  The spec says that this restriction is for compatibility for some underlying databases.  Presumably, this restriction is in place so that a driver may use a stream to retrieve results, which makes a lot of sense when there is a prospect of BLOBs etc. in the result set.  This problem surfaced when Larry was processing metadata result sets from SQLServer.

I also discovered that IE4 has problems on a machine running MSPROXY.  It reports an internal error when attempting to access any site.

I downloaded and installed the new Microsoft Java VM, version 3165.  It fixed a bug that occurred in version 3158 (and possibly other earlier versions) which caused the following program to hang instead of throwing an exception:

public class MSVM3158 {
    public static void main (String [] args) throws Exception
    {
        try {
            throw new Exception ("xxx");
        } finally {
        }
    }
}