No Java 6 on Leopard?

[Ron Bowers]

The news, backed by screenshots (http://javablasphemy.blogspot.com/),
is that Leopard does not come with Java 6! I wish I could say that I
am surprised, but I'm not.

If this is true, I am more than a little peeved. This effectively
bricks the many 8 core/16 GB MacPros my employer purchased, expecting
that they would be able to run our Java 6-based application. Now we
are stuck.

On the other hand, all of these intel Macs would make truly wonderful
Ubuntu boxes.

-Ron

[Christian Catchpole]

I've been happy enough to wait (as happy as one can be), but this is
getting a little ridiculous. Especially since Apple don't publish
schedules on such things.

[Jess Holle]

If this is true (and isn't just a matter of the JDK still being at Java 5 at FCS and a Java 6 update being available real soon to any and all Leopard users), then this is a great reason for Java developers to loudly boycott the Mac.

That would put a certain Posse member in an uncomfy position, but if Apple is really going to be that way to Java development then there would appear to be little choice.

--
Jess Holle

[Christian Catchpole]

On Oct 26, 11:39 am, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:
> /If /this is true (and isn't just a matter of the JDK still being at

> Java 5 at FCS and a Java 6 update being available real soon to any and
> all Leopard users), then this is a great reason for Java developers to

> /loudly /boycott the Mac.

I'm not sure if a boycot is the right move. We might end up with less
Java support. For me the mac has more pros than cons (even if the
lack of Java 6 is a big fat stinky con). Is there a way to protest
that doesn't suggest "yeah, we should all just be using Windows"?

[Casper Bang]

I really don't think Apple care much about a boycot by Java
developers, they seem to be going for a much larger fish. For the
first time in many years eying a real oppertunity to seduce
traditional PC users - thanks to the success of the iPod and Steve
Jobs good taste/high standards. I can't help but to think there's also
a gigantic mismatch between the lowest-common-denominator mindset of
Java and the always-pushing-new-boundaries we've come to know Apple
for.

/Casper

[Jessie]

I hope that the rumors are true that Apple will be making Java 6
available for Leopard soon.
It was frustrating enough that 1.5 took so long to be released, but
this is worse, what would
be a reason for the delay? It would be a shame if people have to use
an alternative OS just
because of this.

[Jess Holle]

Yet without solid Java support Apple is burning their bridges in the CS education arena -- both at school and for student use in the home.

Educators either want to teach cross-platform languages (and Objective C really does not count here) and tooling or just pander 100% to the market leader, Microsoft.  Students have to follow suit.

Without Java, Eclipse, NetBeans, etc, Apple would clearly be way behind other platforms in this arena.  Is it everything?  No.  Would this sort of thing factor into computer purchasing decisions for families, college students, and schools?  Absolutely.

Also, throw all the stones you want at Java, but I get the feeling that Apple is turning antagonistic towards any cross-platform development tooling that is not guaranteed to stay solidly tucked away in the "geek" zone.  Apple seems threatened by the notion that one might ship a cross-platform Java application instead of investing the time to produce a platform-specific Cocoa app.  [If so, I see their fears are misguided -- better a Java app then no app on the platform at all.]

--
Jess Holle

[Mark Derricutt]

I was thinking before that if Sun want JavaFX to be successful and replace/complete with Air/Flash and continue to have JavaFX require Java6 then we'll *need* a Java6 for Mac (unless theres a way to get JavaFX working on 1.5?)

mark

--
It`s not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree
Someday I`ll learn to love these scars - Bye Bye Beautiful

[sherod]

I just finished my Leopard upgrade.

Here is the bad news:

intosh:~ steven$ java -version
java version "1.5.0_13"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_13-
b05-237)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_13-119, mixed mode, sharing)
Macintosh:~ steven$

--

Macintosh:Versions steven$ pwd
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions
Macintosh:Versions steven$ ls -al
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 12 root wheel 408 26 Oct 12:27 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root wheel 374 26 Oct 12:27 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 26 Oct 12:27 1.3 -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 29 Sep 16:53 1.3.1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 26 Oct 12:27 1.4 -> 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3 26 Oct 12:27 1.4.1 -> 1.4
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 21 Oct 2006 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 26 Oct 12:27 1.5 -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 21 Oct 2006 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 26 Oct 12:27 A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 26 Oct 12:27 Current -> A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3 26 Oct 12:27 CurrentJDK -> 1.5

On Oct 26, 1:08 pm, "Mark Derricutt" <m...@talios.com> wrote:
> I was thinking before that if Sun want JavaFX to be successful and
> replace/complete with Air/Flash and continue to have JavaFX require Java6
> then we'll *need* a Java6 for Mac (unless theres a way to get JavaFX working
> on 1.5?)
>
> mark
>

[Jessie]

Very true, as a student I had enough of this problem with the Java 1.5
delays. I'm a TA for intro level classes where they use Scanner a lot
to do simple input and output problems. It sucked to have to tell
people with Macs that they would to use Windows in the computer lab. I
really think it's important for introductory programming students to
be able to learn without worrying about that kind of stuff. The Java 6
delays have just been frustrating students and it just fuels the fire
of people who are already anti-Mac.

On Oct 25, 8:09 pm, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:
> Yet without solid Java support Apple is burning their bridges in the CS
> education arena -- both at school and for student use in the home.
>
> Educators either want to teach cross-platform languages (and Objective C

> really does /not/ count here) and tooling or just pander 100% to the

[Chris Adamson]

On Oct 25, 11:09 pm, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:

> Also, throw all the stones you want at Java, but I get the feeling that
> Apple is turning antagonistic towards any cross-platform development
> tooling that is not guaranteed to stay solidly tucked away in the "geek"
> zone. Apple seems threatened by the notion that one might ship a
> cross-platform Java application instead of investing the time to produce
> a platform-specific Cocoa app. [If so, I see their fears are misguided
> -- better a Java app then no app on the platform at all.]

Really? Do you think Apple is "turning antagonistic" to Flash and AIR
too? Those are user-facing cross-platform development tools and
platforms. And Apple happily ships the latest version of Flash with OS
X.

Ugly truth: the big difference between Flash and Java on the Mac is
that Java is largely a write-only language on the Mac: developers may
write Java apps on the Mac, but few end-users run a meaningful amount
of Java code on the Mac, because there just isn't a lot of user-facing
Java out there. Name any, ANY meaningful user-facing Java app that
requires Java SE 6. Is anyone other than developers going to care if
it's not installed with Leopard?

OTOH, Flash is ubiquitous, popular with software developers, content
developers, and end-users. Apple has to guarantee a good Flash
experience to end-users, and they're fortunate that Adobe develops and
sells the CS3 tools for Mac (presumably, Adobe makes enough money off
Mac users to keep doing so).

"Better a Java app than no app on the platform at all" sounded goo
back in the 90's when Java first hit the scene. A lot of us believed
it. But pretty much nobody developed end-user Java apps of any
consequence, and most of the enterprise Java developers happily wrote
Windows-only Java (you would not care to know how many times I have
seen hard-coded path strings in Java code that start with "C:\"). The
idea of cross-platform user-facing Java simply hasn't panned out, for
whatever reasons. It's in Apple's self interest to expect developers
to make real Cocoa apps, which will differentiate the platform, and as
the Mac market-share increases, they can expect more and more
developers to do just that, out of their own self-interest (not
wanting to throw away 10% or more of the potential user-base).

I keep getting on the side of this issue that pisses off my friends
and colleagues, but I really see the Java-on-Mac story as a "canary in
a coal mine", a *severe* warning about Java's viability. Seems like
most Java developers would prefer to kill the messenger and write
posts about what a dick Steve Jobs is. OK, maybe he is. But he's
really smart, and the company is astonishingly successful right now,
and if he and his team think de-emphasizing, demoting, or even igoring
Java will make them more money, not less, then it is really incumbent
upon us to understand that reasoning.

--Chris

[Neil Bartlett]

I can't understand what the fuss is all about. Where are all these
amazing new features in Java 6 that you simply can't live without? XML
for digital signatures? Rhino included out of the box? Why not simply
download libraries that implement these features and run them on Java
5?

Ron, it sounds like you built an application for Java 6, betting that
Leopard would have Java 6. Apple never promised that it would, so you
have only yourself to blame for losing that bet.

As FSJ might say: Java is open source, if you frigtards want it on the
Mac then port it yourselves! Bokay? Why the heck should we care?

Neil

[Roman Strobl]

So what will happen when Java 7 is out with more important changes? Mac
users will have to wait for years...?

One thing is clear to me: I am really NOT getting myself a Mac :)

-Roman

[Casper Bang]

> Also, throw all the stones you want at Java, but I get the feeling that
> Apple is turning antagonistic towards any cross-platform development
> tooling that is not guaranteed to stay solidly tucked away in the "geek"
> zone. Apple seems threatened by the notion that one might ship a
> cross-platform Java application instead of investing the time to produce
> a platform-specific Cocoa app. [If so, I see their fears are misguided
> -- better a Java app then no app on the platform at all.]

Let me try another way. In which ways will a normal Mac user typically
come by a desktop Java application? I'd argue it is not a large list:
Azureus, online banking... hmmm... now I'm actually starting to run
out of examples. To that effect, it's down right reasonable why Apple
would not want to concentrate on this high-hanging fruit, since Steve
Jobs probably isn't particular in love with (nor rely on) Java anyway.
It might not be what Java enthusiasts with a Mac want to hear, but
from a market perspective I think it's fairly logic considering how
busy Apple are on many other fronts these days.

/Casper

[Neil Bartlett]

Roman,

I don't think Jobs is going to lose much sleep over your threat :-)

As for Java 7, the changes may well be big but it remains to be seen
whether they will be "important".

Neil

[Roman Strobl]

Neil Bartlett wrote:
> Roman,
>
> I don't think Jobs is going to lose much sleep over your threat :-)
>

Actually he should really start worrying, because I travel a lot and
whenever I talk with developers about the topic "Mac & Java 6", which
happens fairly often at various conferences, I express my deep
dissapointment :)

-Roman

[Christian Catchpole]

The problem is, once you've had mac, you never go back... And I need
my fix.. of Java 6..

[Casper Bang]

On Oct 26, 1:44 pm, Neil Bartlett <njbartl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As for Java 7, the changes may well be big but it remains to be seen
> whether they will be "important".

Surely it will be important to many, to be able to leverage better
abstractions and smarter technologies. While Java has trouble getting
its head out of its own rear interface, other platforms have long time
ago moved on to explore components, binding, universal querying,
inference, parallism, DSL friendliness etc.
If it is important to me as a developer to remain enthusiastic about
what I do, it's certainly just as important to my employer to be able
to go from problem to solution as fast as possible.

/Casper

[Neil Bartlett]

Casper, you're absolutely right, except I don't think Java 7 will be a
platform that "leverages better abstractions and smarter
technologies". The only attractive things I've seen in Java 7 at the
moment have been John Rose's tentatively proposed VM enhancements, and
reification for generics. Closures are nice, but we already have them
in Scala. Against this, there are some areas where Java 7 is taking
exactly the wrong direction, eg JSR 277.

Anyway, this is a discussion for another thread. As I said in reply to
Roman, if Java support on Mac is important to Sun, then Sun needs to
do something about it. Or if it's important to the open source Java
community, then WE need to do something about it. It's clear that Java
is not a priority for Apple, and Apple are therefore, quite rightly,
not devoting much resource to it.

Neil

[Roman Strobl]

Neil Bartlett wrote:
> Casper, you're absolutely right, except I don't think Java 7 will be a
> platform that "leverages better abstractions and smarter
> technologies". The only attractive things I've seen in Java 7 at the
> moment have been John Rose's tentatively proposed VM enhancements, and
> reification for generics. Closures are nice, but we already have them
> in Scala. Against this, there are some areas where Java 7 is taking
> exactly the wrong direction, eg JSR 277.
>
> Anyway, this is a discussion for another thread. As I said in reply to
> Roman, if Java support on Mac is important to Sun, then Sun needs to
> do something about it.

I think it is important to Sun, but AFAIK this is a question of
priorities and resources. We would probably have to hire quite a few
people to make this happen. So I am not very optimistic about Sun taking
over the Mac JDK - given current goals & focus. But I don't work in the
JDK team so I am just expressing my opinion here (this is not an
official Sun reply :)

-Roman

[Jess Holle]

Neil Bartlett wrote:
> Casper, you're absolutely right, except I don't think Java 7 will be a
> platform that "leverages better abstractions and smarter
> technologies". The only attractive things I've seen in Java 7 at the
> moment have been John Rose's tentatively proposed VM enhancements, and
> reification for generics. Closures are nice, but we already have them
> in Scala. Against this, there are some areas where Java 7 is taking
> exactly the wrong direction, eg JSR 277.
>
> Anyway, this is a discussion for another thread.

Yes, the negativity about future Java versions is a subject for another
thread.

[For my part I think there are some very notable and important
advancements in Java 6 and I don't see a critical need for every
possible language do-dad in Java for it to be remain compelling.]

> As I said in reply to
> Roman, if Java support on Mac is important to Sun, then Sun needs to
> do something about it.

Agreed.

> Or if it's important to the open source Java
> community, then WE need to do something about it. It's clear that Java
> is not a priority for Apple, and Apple are therefore, quite rightly,
> not devoting much resource to it.
>

Agreed to a point. If Apple is going to leave customers who purchased
Macs under the understanding that "Java on the Mac will be great" as
Jobs had said a year or two back (and that Java on the Mac would be
maintained/updated at least) high and dry the least they could do is
turn what they've got over to the open source community to develop from
there. If they can't do so legally in general at least they could turn
over hard bits they own (e.g. Mac-specific graphics pipeline code, etc)
for others to glue on to an OpenJDK port.

--
Jess Holle

[robilad]

On Oct 26, 3:17 am, Ron Bowers <ron1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On the other hand, all of these intel Macs would make truly wonderful
> Ubuntu boxes.

Paying the Apple tax on Leopard: 129 EUR
Getting Ubuntu from https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ : 0 EUR

Being able to apt-get install sun-java6-jdk in Ubuntu for more than a
year and half: Priceless.

:)

cheers,
dalibor topic

[Ron Bowers]

Our application is built on the NetBeans RCP client and a Jini + Rio
service infrastructure. For us there are several improvements that
justify using 6, not the least of which are the performance
improvements. I suppose if one only looks at the EE side, upgrading to
6 is not as important.

[vineetb]

They did have Java 6 sessions at WWDC. I guess Java 6 development is
lagging behind and wasn't ready for GM?
In any case, leave feedback here - http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
Lets get our voices heard.

- vineet

[Mark Derricutt]

Leopard won't even recognise my partition :(  So I can't even -start- the installer :(

[zorro2b]

Yes, that's a great idea. I have done that. I still can't believe
there is still no Java 6 and Apple is so amazingly silent on the
issue.

On Oct 27, 3:14 am, vineetb <vineet.vine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> They did have Java 6 sessions at WWDC. I guess Java 6 development is
> lagging behind and wasn't ready for GM?

> In any case, leave feedback here -http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/

[zorro2b]

I had this problem. I had to boot off another disk and do a disk
repair and then it came good.

On Oct 27, 4:23 am, "Mark Derricutt" <m...@talios.com> wrote:
> Leopard won't even recognise my partition :( So I can't even -start- the
> installer :(
>

[Martin OConnor]

I remember around the time frame that the iPhone specs were released,
and there was no Java on the iPhone that Steve Jobs had mentioned that
Java was no longer part of Apples long term strategy. People assumed
it was limited to the iPhone, but it seems as others suspected perhaps
a more general sentiment.

[Eric Winter]

I am was very shocked and disappointed. This was the number one
reason I paid $130 to upgrade to Leopard. I would at least like a
"we'll have it for download in November or something. I guess we will
have to wait until WWDC for Pete's sake. Will they really let it go
over a year since the Sun release on Dec. 11th!

[Chris Adamson]

On Oct 26, 5:46 pm, zorro2b <andrew.za...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I still can't believe
> there is still no Java 6 and Apple is so amazingly silent on the
> issue.

Considering that they had a nearly-finished working version, based on
Java 6 b88, a year ago, it can't possibly be a technical issue. So
why the silence? The conspiracy theorists and whiny bloggers opt for
the easy "Steve Jobs hates Java", but that's stupid -- if that were
the case, the Java team would have been fired or reassigned long ago
and wouldn't be available to answer questions on the java-dev mailing
list.

There's another possible explanation for their silence. I wonder if
anyone else will figure it out.

--Chris

[Christian Catchpole]

Yeah, I'm wondering what they are doing. They have the nearly working
version. The core of the JVM should just compile. I can understand
some time spent getting the native stuff working. Perhaps some more
Cocoa integration, but what else is there to do?

[Mark Derricutt]

I had to repair my disk as well, but the installer still wouldn't recognize the drive - -until- I did some odd combination of opening disk utils, system info, and a terminal walking around the file system.

Loving the tiger - missing the coffee6 thou :(

[Mark Derricutt]

Part of my suspicion/hope is that Apple is working close with Sun since the open sourcing of java, and that we'll find either OpenJDK or Sun Java 7 for OS/X.

The freeing of Java would certainly be cause for pausing what work they're currently doing and rethink a few things.  Also, with the new Java 6 Update N modularization stuff that seems to be going on, Apples cocoa swing "module" could easily be swapped out/swapped in as part of the standard install (in theory I guess).

With all the coffee jokes to go with Java - a move like this would do well to market itself as "The Fix" - and with that said - its time for a coffee myself.

mark

[Alexey Zinger]

It's interesting to think about what role developers play these days in the OS
market. Perhaps very little. When it comes to Java, it's making some headway
on the client, but as was mentioned, there's still a long way to go. No doubt,
most of us here write the majority of code "on the job" for enterprise apps.
On the client, as Java marches on, it starts to compete with itself more. I'm
only now seeing downloads of 1.4 binaries of an OSS project of mine tapering
off. I won't be releasing any more 1.4 binaries, but I'm still reluctant to
move off 1.4 compatibility at the source level. Now put yourself in Jobs'
shoes. He's got a reasonably successful platform with a bunch of very
successful products people can't get enough of -- it's a seller's market quite
simply. On top of that, Java just went open source, so there's even less
pressure for him to spend time on that. I'm sure they figured if there's
enough pressure in the market for Java 6 on the Mac, it'll come out. And look
at where Java is found these days on the client. The biggest app I can think
of that a Mac user would come across that requires Java to some degree is Open
Office, which appears to be in direct competition with Apple's own office
suite. If it was up to Bill Gates, Java would have never come out for Windows.
It came down to Sun's initiative. I don't understand the whole Mac love. I
like my iPod, but other than that, I'm gonna run as far away from this
incredibly closed and tightly controlled shop as I can get. Maybe it won't
change anything if they drive Java developers away, but I won't cry over it
either. Ubuntu's looking mighty nice. I feel the path to success in the
client market is not evangelism or boycotts, but sitting down and writing some
kick ass apps that people are gonna want (Firefox, anyone?).

Alexey
2001 Honda CBR600F4i (CCS)
1992 Kawasaki EX500
http://azinger.blogspot.com
http://bsheet.sourceforge.net
http://wcollage.sourceforge.net

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

[Casper Bang]

On Oct 28, 12:45 am, Alexey Zinger <inline_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's interesting to think about what role developers play these days in the OS
> market. Perhaps very little. When it comes to Java, it's making some headway
> on the client, but as was mentioned, there's still a long way to go. No doubt,
> most of us here write the majority of code "on the job" for enterprise apps.

Don't know many (outside Sun anyway) who'd have an idea for an end-
user desktop application and do it voluntarily in Java. It's certainly
the last thing I'd do... too much trouble moving ahead from idea to
satisfying solution. The sheer lack of these kind of applications
today would certainly suggest that sentiment to be shared among others
than I. Contrast that to i.e. Paint.NET, a full fledged image
manipulation suite for .NET (also running on Linux).

Do you think it'll get there? It's been 15 years with a highly
wobbling chartered course by Sun. Current trend is of course JavaFX
and the focus on tooling, the former is a lost battle (way too late
compared to competitors) and the latter is nice albeit also somewhat
late (very little in NetBeans hasn't been in Visual Studio for years).
It seems to me the desire to put a little Java everywhere, had the
effect of Java not really being there fully anywhere. Perhaps if Sun
had been a little better at picking their battles, then Java would be
a viable end-user desktop application platform and Apple would have a
higher interest in supporting it.

/Casper

[robogeek]

Well, Neil, I'm in a similar line of thinking as Roman.

But you're right.. one person acting alone can't make much
difference. But there are lots and lots of geeks using Macs and I
think a huge number of them are doing so because of Java. I know for
myself that was a large part of choosing to switch to Mac OS X with
10.0. I saw "Unix with a pretty face" and "Java" and was sold.

I think, though, that if Java were to have the same client side
significance as Flash then it would be a no-brainer for Apple to go
out of their way to make sure Java on Mac OS X was up-to-date.

Maybe JavaFX will change this (over time).

- David Herron

[robogeek]

Hey, Dalibor, I'm almost there with you. At work I use Ubuntu and was
part of the team who made sure you can do apt-get install sun-
java-6 ... so, hey, I appreciate that you appreciate the hard work we
put in to make that happen. Oh, and on gentoo you can emerge
something or other for the same kind of easy-to-install experience.

At home though I use Mac OS X.. despite having previously made fun of
Mac OS (cooperative multitasking? what a joke!) ... after 6 yrs using
this thing, Apple does a great wonderful job at making systems that
fit together extremely well. Ubuntu isn't quite there.. yeah, Ubuntu
is a great implementation of Linux and they've paid a lot of attention
to the same sort of usability questions which Apple is famous for.
But Ubuntu is hampered by the usability problems which hinder Linux/
GNOME overall.

At the moment I'm questioning whether I want to make further
investments with Apple. Maybe they are doing as they did in 10.4,
where the release of an up-to-date Java happened with 10.4.2 rather
than 10.4.0. It's a pain that they aren't doing everything that I
want them to do.

The suggestion to leave feedback with Apple ... http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
... is a good one. I just did. As a JDK quality team member.. ah..
The suggestion elsewhere in this thread for Sun to take care of Java
on OS X is.. well.. adding another platform amplifies our cost in ways
you guys might not appreciate. Where would the money come from to do
this?

The suggestion to port the OpenJDK to Mac OS X is interesting and
ought to be doable. The way we at Sun would approach this (ramping up
a build infrastructure, test infrastructure, doing regular builds and
testing on another platform) is different than how y'all might do it
as a community project. The QA of it especially.

- David Herron

On Oct 26, 7:26 am, robilad <dalibor.to...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 26, 3:17 am, Ron Bowers <ron1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, all of these intel Macs would make truly wonderful
> > Ubuntu boxes.
>
> Paying the Apple tax on Leopard: 129 EUR

> Getting Ubuntu fromhttps://shipit.ubuntu.com/: 0 EUR

[Joshua Marinacci]

I've tried to stay out of this conversation as I'm both an engineer
working on JavaFX, a Mac user, and a friend of some Apple employees.
I won't speculate as to why Java 6 isn't shipping in Leopard (or as
to why Leopard itself was 4 months late) but I will say this: Apple
will have a greater incentive to put more resources on client Java
support if there are more 'must-have' apps written in client Java.

Obviously I believe there *can* be more kickass client Java apps or I
wouldn't have joined the JavaFX team (yet another thing I should
discuss in an interview on the posse). So my suggestion is for
people to be constructive and brainstorm awesome applications that
could be written in Java and would be hard or impossible to do in
Flash, Ajax, or Silverlight. We do have some advantages on our side,
such as a larger programmer base, excellent locale & i18n support, hw
accell 3d, real sockets, new NB support for the app framework & beans
binding & JNLP, and access to JNI. Surely we can come up with some
creative ideas. We're an awfully clever bunch. :)

- Josh

[Casper Bang]

Wasn't Netscape 5 or 6 an attempt on a large mainstream application in
Java? And how come only minute parts of Open Office are relying on
Java? Have Sun ever studied why there are so remarkable few successful
mainstream Java applications? After all, on paper a Java based
solution should be superior in almost every way - unless of course the
"write once run anywhere" involves too many compromises.

/Casper

[Jess Holle]

Casper Bang wrote:

Wasn't Netscape 5 or 6 an attempt on a large mainstream application in
Java?

Nope.  It was just a poorly written native app.

And how come only minute parts of Open Office are relying on
Java? Have Sun ever studied why there are so remarkable few successful
mainstream Java applications? After all, on paper a Java based
solution should be superior in almost every way - unless of course the
"write once run anywhere" involves too many compromises.
  

The most widely publicized attempt in this area that I'm aware of was Corel's office suite thing (what was that called again?) and Java was simply not ready yet then -- it was '97 after all!  After that well-publicized flop few dared to try again.

Unfortunately, Java was not really ready for this sort of thing until fairly recently by most accounts -- including mine.  By that point the overwhelming prevailing wisdom was "it won't work".  From NetBeans, IntelliJ, JEdit, and other Java desktop applications and experience with our own GUI apps, I'm pretty convinced Java 6 is ready (though still not perfect), but most of the market has not changed its stance since 1997.

That's not to say there are no attempts in this space.

See ThinkFree's desktop office suite at http://www.thinkfree.com/.  It's written in Java and looks pretty compelling overall.  I'm much less leery of this solution than doing my Office suite stuff via JavaScript (AJAX)!

Also, doesn't NeoOffice do it's UI through Java to avoid having to code directly to Cocoa?  Or did I misunderstand that.

--
Jess Holle

[Chris Adamson]

On Oct 28, 6:27 pm, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:

> Casper Bang wrote:
> The most widely publicized attempt in this area that I'm aware of was
> Corel's office suite thing (what was that called again?) and Java was

> simply /not /ready yet then -- it was '97 after all! After that

> well-publicized flop few dared to try again.

I think Corel's attempt was called Barista. I went Googling for it a
few years ago and found only a very few scraps attesting to its
existence.

There was an attempt to rewrite Netscape in Java around that time,
which I think was called Jazilla, and may or may not be related to a
Sourceforge project of the same name.

As far as I know, both projects were abandoned and considered
failures.

Thanks also for noting ThinkFree, which is probably the best applet in
existence. I hated it as a paying customer (it kept destroying my
data), but they've really done good stuff with it over the last couple
years.

That said, I still think overall that Java's been a horrendous
underachiever in the client-side/desktop/user-facing realm. And I'm
saying that after doing desktop Java for 10 years, and writing two
books on it.

Cooper has an interesting proposal on his ONJava blog -
http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2007/10/dear_steve_or_fake_steve.html
- basically suggesting that Apple punt to OpenJDK and contribute their
stuff as the basis of an AWT implementation. Cooper also cites the
back-and-forth we've had on Screaming Penguin and [Time code]; about
all this.

--Chris

[Roman Strobl]

Things are getting even more interesting... from Javalobby:

"I had posted to a "Where is Java 6" thread on the Apple Leopard
discussion forums; there were several Mac users and Java developers
expressing disappointment. However, the thread has mysteriously
disappeared. I can't say I'm shocked, but I'm very disappointed in
Apple's approach to the whole thing. "

http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t102924.html#92180758

-Roman

Jess Holle wrote:
> Casper Bang wrote:
>> Wasn't Netscape 5 or 6 an attempt on a large mainstream application in
>> Java?
> Nope. It was just a poorly written native app.
>> And how come only minute parts of Open Office are relying on
>> Java? Have Sun ever studied why there are so remarkable few successful
>> mainstream Java applications? After all, on paper a Java based
>> solution should be superior in almost every way - unless of course the
>> "write once run anywhere" involves too many compromises.
>>
> The most widely publicized attempt in this area that I'm aware of was
> Corel's office suite thing (what was that called again?) and Java was

> simply /not /ready yet then -- it was '97 after all! After that

> well-publicized flop few dared to try again.
>

> Unfortunately, Java was not /really /ready for this sort of thing

> until fairly recently by most accounts -- including mine. By that
> point the overwhelming prevailing wisdom was "it won't work". From
> NetBeans, IntelliJ, JEdit, and other Java desktop applications and

> experience with our own GUI apps, I'm pretty convinced Java 6 /is
> /ready (though still not perfect), but most of the market has not

> changed its stance since 1997.
>
> That's not to say there are no attempts in this space.
>
> See ThinkFree's desktop office suite at http://www.thinkfree.com/.

> It's written in Java and looks pretty compelling overall. I'm /much/

[Jess Holle]

Chris Adamson wrote:

That said, I still think overall that Java's been a horrendous
underachiever in the client-side/desktop/user-facing realm.

Agreed.

Part of this is due to the market (or most of it) failing to give desktop Java another chance after it improved technically to the point where it was useful.  In other words, one can do really cool stuff with desktop Java today, but the market is largely not bothering to try.

The other part of this is that desktop Java has taken a long time to get "up-to-snuff".  It languished as the unloved backwater of Java for years before Sun started really treating it seriously in recent JDK releases.  Sun has now given it front-and-center focus with the Consumer JRE and JavaFX -- and I believe Java will end up as a great desktop platform as a result.  It's just taken a long time to get there.

--
Jess Holle

[Casper Bang]

Java on the desktop has only recently catced up such that it is
possible to write an application *without* users knowing its actually
Java (which is why SWT has been more successful than Swing; the whole
L&F thing is broken). And even today, it just takes one JFileChooser
dialog and its overwhelming and annoying desire to want to rename
files, to assert that's its Swing.

Java Web Start and that whole delivery mechanism would have *great*
potential if it wasn't so horribly obvious that its Java Web Start
(can only install shortcots with one single icon, can not uninstall
from the menu, everything you run as web start will get registred and
clutter up the install/remove applet, there's no way to interact with
a Java 1.6 splash screen set in the jnlp file etc.). So I guess my
pledge to Sun as a simple developer is, finish what you start and
spend a little time polishing it before moving on to, oh say arm-
wrestle with Adobe.

/Casper

On Oct 29, 12:13 am, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:
> Chris Adamson wrote:
> > That said, I still think overall that Java's been a horrendous
> > underachiever in the client-side/desktop/user-facing realm.
>
> Agreed.
>
> Part of this is due to the market (or most of it) failing to give
> desktop Java another chance after it improved technically to the point
> where it was useful. In other words, one can do really cool stuff with
> desktop Java today, but the market is largely not bothering to try.
>
> The other part of this is that desktop Java has taken a long time to get
> "up-to-snuff". It languished as the unloved backwater of Java for years

> before Sun started /really /treating it seriously in recent JDK

> releases. Sun has now given it front-and-center focus with the Consumer

> JRE and JavaFX -- and I believe Java will end up as a /great /desktop

[Christian Catchpole]

I was just chatting with Michael Neale and it seems the most common
message on our messaging clients is, "So, have you got Leopard yet?"

[Augusto Sellhorn]

The Mac is just not a good Java development platform, you shouldn't
rely on an OS that forces you to upgrade to the latest version so you
can upgrade your VM, and you shouldn't plan on using a version of a
runtime when they don't share this information at all.

http://sellmic.com/blog/2007/10/28/beware-of-rotten-apples/

If you crave for a Unix shell and you are not using Linux, cygwin is
always a good alternative, and won't burn you as bad as Apple likes to
do with developers.

[Christian Catchpole]

Apple has never claimed (as far as I know) to release JVMs with OS
releases. It just seemed logical with Leopard coming up that Java 6
would arrive with it - everyone just hoped it would be so. As for
using a Mac (as a laptop and all round machine) I, and obviously many
others, beleive there are more pros than cons. I wouldn't run Mac
servers (cost and inappropriate features). Where I need Windows or
Linux (or anything else) I use VM ware. So while I understand the
anti-commercial anti-Apple sentiment on some issues, I still think we
get a better deal than Windows. And my Mac is still an Intel PC as a
direct boot or as VMWare.

The irony is, must of us just want our Java projects to compile so we
can deploy them to servers running Linux or Windows.

Apple's secrecy policy seems to be a long held philosophy which
creates buzz and protects the sales of their products as they head
into twilight. So while this might work for consumer goods, it doesnt
work so well in the developer space. But this is the bed we have
chosen to lie in.

For years many resented Bill Gates and Windows, with no viable
alternative other than open-source (which is not bad, just a
'different game' when you just want to go buy something and have it
work as well as a Mac). So now many, like me, feel rather happy being
in the slightly less evil, or evil in a different way, Mac camp.

On Oct 29, 5:52 pm, Augusto Sellhorn <augusto.sellh...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Greg Reddin]

On 10/29/07, Christian Catchpole <ato...@catchpole.net> wrote:

For years many resented Bill Gates and Windows, with no viable
alternative other than open-source (which is not bad, just a
'different game' when you just want to go buy something and have it
work as well as a Mac).  So now many, like me, feel rather happy being
in the slightly less evil, or evil in a different way, Mac camp.

+1. I ditched Windows as a primary working environment several years ago. It was all Linux for a year or so, but I could never get my wireless networks connected, etc. I could do almost anything I wanted if I was willing to write code or hack config files, but nothing was intuitive. I couldn't write pretty Word docs in the templates my company wanted to use with Open Office. When I switched to a Mac I could spend all my technical time working on things that were more interesting and everything else "just worked" which is what I needed. It would be really nice if Apple kept Java up to date and well-integrated, but if they don't we'll find ways to keep working.

Oh and Cygwin? It's the first thing I install if I'm going to be spending some time in Windows, but it's just not good enough for an everyday shell environment.

Greg

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

It's really very simple:

The kick-ass, must have, silver bullet java apps on mac os x are:

1. eclipse
2. netbeans
3. idea
4. java itself so you can test what you're writing.

Those are in no particular order.

That's enough. That's all. Getting developers is a -huge- benefit, as
they are invariably early adopters and 'tech leaders' - people who
influence businesses' computer decisions, where apps are going,
compatibility issues, and last but not least, tend to osmose their
preferences into the world at large simply by being technically savvy
and trustworthy. This isn't the microsoft twist on 'developers,
developers, developers' (which involves hooking developers into tools
that can only produce code that works on your own platform - those
days are mostly gone). It's just simply the fact that a developer is a
power user with tech skills, that's all.

Between the comments of Tor and the other Posse Gang and the sheer
amount of apple logos that show up at any JavaONE, it's obvious that
Sun itself has a boatload of 'down in the trenches' engineers that use
apple hardware. They'll surely care.

This leads to simple conclusion #1: Not having a java6 for leopard,
and not being open about apple's intentions on java in particular, is
a huge bleedin' mistake. It's a fine way to undermine the remarkable
uptake of apple hardware amongst developers in general and java
developers in particular.

Moving on to the practical stuff, what's this mean for us java
developers:

First of all, Sun is much more into the consumer experience than it
was, AND there are boatloads of sun engineers who have apple hardware,
as mentioned. I'm not aware of contractual obligations that prevent
sun from making a JVM for os x. The biggest roadblock right now seems
to be apple's silence. Not much point making your own version if
apple's going to release an update next week.

Secondly, the OpenJDK effort is chugging along, nay, flying like a
speeding bullet. The vaunted 'apple centric performance boost and GUI
upgrades' make little sense to me - it should be near trivial to take
an OpenJDK and make it work on macs. Here's what apple might add to
the pie:

- better PowerPC support. Who cares? We're on intel chips. We have
JVMs that blaze on intel chips. intel chips in macs are no different.
- Access to apple's own libraries. Apple actually stopped supporting
this a while ago and no one was doing it anyway. I used Quicktime 4
java and it wasn't great. I doubt anyone really cares about this one.
- a plain GUI in general. SWT has always been developed outside of
apple. With nimbus, how hard would it be to make nimbus run on a cocoa
canvas? It just can't be too difficult. No problems here.
- GUI acceleration. With due apologies to Romain Guy, I doubt this is
important. Right now the vast majority of java development is still a
plain GUI or web based. Having a slower GUI on macs will be an
annoyance to be sure but no show stopper.
- apple look-and-feel for GUI apps. There are nice documents over at
apple on how to make your java GUI apps like aqua-ish. Including
getting the preferences and about menu options in the right place and
having the resize thingie in the bottom right corner not be obscured
by your own GUI, and packaging it all up in a nice .app file. This
would have been a big issue except that no one uses java apps on apple
in that way. Netbeans/eclipse/IDEA have the resources to make custom
wrappers (and eclipse itself never even used the packaging option in
the first place!), and those are the only 3 apps that matter. Anything
else will look slightly off, maybe. Big whoop.
- 32 bit vs 64 bit. While having a java that integrates well with
leopard's 32/64 bit stuff would be great, the status quo on all other
platforms is that you have to choose one. Doing the same thing for the
hypothetical future Mac OpenJDK version shouldn't be difficult in the
least.

Long story short: Worst case scenario, apple dropped java like a
stone, which would mean a 6 to 12 month delay as a proper OpenJDK port
gets set up. Then everything is back to normal.

[Joshua Marinacci]

> a Java 1.6 splash screen set in the jnlp file etc.). So I guess my
> pledge to Sun as a simple developer is, finish what you start and
> spend a little time polishing it before moving on to, oh say arm-
> wrestle with Adobe.

This is exactly what we are doing. Please try the Java 1.6 update N
preview release (on a *non-critical* system! :).

- J

[Casper Bang]

> This is exactly what we are doing. Please try the Java 1.6 update N
> preview release (on a *non-critical* system! :).

Thanks, had some trouble seeing what exactly was changed in update N
apart from the VM preloading. Nice to hear Java Web Start is going to
be improved on as well. And last but not least, awesome that sites
using errornous Java no longer deadlocks Firefox 2.0 on Windows (as
i.e. java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/sprintf/
usually do). It will take some time to get used to, not to have to
hold your breath and cross your fingers when an applet is loading. :)

/Casper

[Danno]

On Oct 26, 4:30 am, Neil Bartlett <njbartl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't understand what the fuss is all about. Where are all these
> amazing new features in Java 6 that you simply can't live without?

Are you serious?
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/sql/package-summary.html
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/LinkedList.html
There are few other great additions to the API that I didn't realize I
lived without.
and then there is the speed
http://www.jroller.com/dgilbert/entry/is_java_se_1_6

[Joshua Marinacci]

That's the idea. With these deployment issues out of the way Java in
the browser can really shine.

[Chris Adamson]

Fake Steve and Daring Fireball are laughing at us:

Fake Steve - Java developers finally realize the party's over -
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/10/java-developers-finally-realize-partys.html
"But I think they don't quite know which party they're talking about.
See this screed where some Javatard says Apple has been spitting in
his face because we didn't include Java 6 in Leopard. Or something. So
he says he's selling his Mac. His headline is, "So long, Apple. The
party's over." Well he's right about one thing. The party is over --
the Java party, that is. Glad to see the Javatards have finally
figured that out. Word is they're co-sponsoring a support group with
Lotus Notes developers. Fun bunch."

Daring Fireball linked to the newer of the Javalobby threads and said
"Java Developers Unhappy With Leopard. I fail to see why anyone
(other than Java developers themselves) would care."

[Alex Battisti]

> Fake Steve and Daring Fireball are laughing at us:

Of course they are... as is everybody else outside the 'Java
community' :-)

...

Java6 will come eventually to OS X, but some enthusiasts seem to
grossly overestimate Java's importance outside of it's 'core market'..

[Jess Holle]

Irrespective of its importance Apple should not treat its customers with such clear disdain.

--
Jess Holle

[Alex Battisti]

> Irrespective of its importance Apple should not treat its customers with
> such clear disdain.

Not releasing the latest and greatest version of someone's favorite
toy
from day one is a far cry from 'treating with disdain'.

Sorry, but sometimes the feelings of entitlement and self importance
within the 'Java community' can get a bit absurd.

[Michael Neale]

Yeah I think hyperbole took over some time ago.

The sad fact is despite suns belated efforts, client java has died.
Maybe it will rise from the grave, but I have learnt from bitter
experience not to expect that (always happy to be surprised).

Who knows, maybe apple have something great in store.

[Jess Holle]

Alex Battisti wrote:

Irrespective of its importance Apple should not treat its customers with
such clear disdain.
    

Not releasing the latest and greatest version of someone's favorite
toy
from day one is a far cry from 'treating with disdain'.
  

True enough, however, that's far from the whole story:

• Jobs promised to make MacOS X the "premiere Java platform"
• Apple listed Java 6 as a feature in your new OS version until relatively shortly before it was released
  
• Apple did not release Java 6 in MacOS X and provided no information whatsoever as to their Java plans
  
• Apple has deleted some threads on their support forums complaining about this and refused to respond to any of them

Java developers purchased the Leopard and their Macs hardware to begin with based on Job's promises.  At least in part Apple has gone back on these promises and then can't be bothered to even respond to their customers.

*That* is disdain.

Sorry, but sometimes the feelings of entitlement and self importance
within the  'Java community' can get a bit absurd.
  

I don't care if my market segment was "southern dirt farmers".  If the CEO and company make and break promises, break them, won't take minimal effort to respond and then try to hush things up on their forums, that's disdain.

--
Jess Holle

[Casper Bang]

> The sad fact is despite suns belated efforts, client java has died.

Evidently, in order to see this, you have to not be madly in love with
Java (denial). When I mentioned that Java on the desktop was dead in
an email that was read up by The Posse about a year ago, it was not
received very well (anger). Not that I expected it to, the Java
ecosystem has always felt very stubborn and pleased with itself (lack
of acceptance).
Acceptance is required in order to want to fix, and recent fresh
blowing breeze suggests this to have happened at least at some level
inside Sun. And it just might ignite the sparks into a full fledged
fire again - although I fear the breeze is too weak or too late.

So I can understand why people outside this ecosystem would be
laughing at a crowd worthshipping platforms which are now incapable of
operating together. It's a bucked of cold water in the face, but
perhaps it was needed.

/Casper

[Alex Battisti]

I don't remember, but was Jobs 'premiere Java plattform' speech for
the release of 10.1 or 10.2? Maybe 3-4 years is not much within the
'Java community' but outside of that, a lot of happens within this
time... including 'subtle' hints - like Apple dropping the Java-Cocoa
bridge and Jobs comments on the lack of Java on the iPhone - that the
honeymoon might be over.

I mean, sorry, but holy shit, when does naiveté start to become a
liability? Who in his right mind makes relevant decisions based upon
old promises of some CEO?

...

A couple of thousand Java developers using Macs to write software for
a different platform is not a 'market segment' for Apple. They're
certainly not "opinion makers" or "thought leaders". They're a Solaris
refugees, no more, no less.

[Jess Holle]

Alex Battisti wrote:
> I don't remember, but was Jobs 'premiere Java plattform' speech for
> the release of 10.1 or 10.2? Maybe 3-4 years is not much within the
> 'Java community' but outside of that, a lot of happens within this
> time... including 'subtle' hints - like Apple dropping the Java-Cocoa
> bridge and Jobs comments on the lack of Java on the iPhone - that the
> honeymoon might be over.
>
> I mean, sorry, but holy shit, when does naiveté start to become a
> liability? Who in his right mind makes relevant decisions based upon
> old promises of some CEO?
>

I personally have held off on buying a Mac for exactly these reasons.

> A couple of thousand Java developers using Macs to write software for
> a different platform is not a 'market segment' for Apple. They're
> certainly not "opinion makers" or "thought leaders". They're a Solaris
> refugees, no more, no less.
>

Irrespective of the size/importance of the market segment the Apple's
treatment of this segment has been disdainful and dishonest. I don't
care what the market segment is -- the least they could do is say
straight out how well they intend to support that segment's needs.

--
Jess Holle

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

It was said recently, with the release of 10.5 and (again until
recently) grand sweeping plans to make the 10.6 release a 32/64 bit
hybrid.

The fact that java client side is dead is totally irrelevant. People
want their java to run eclipse, netbeans, IDEA, and tomcat/jetty/
struts/spring/rife/whatever.

What I don't get is this:

How hard could it be for sun to build a version of java6 for mac os x
that forces itself into headless mode? I can even boot up jconsole
using the apple 1.5 which does do GUIs. I bet that covers 95% of the
current complaints and I seriously doubt it would take much effort.
It's okay if the release is intel-chip only, even. It's got a posix
kernel and everything.

[Joshua Marinacci]

I've been trying to stay out of this discussion but I must say something. 

May I humbly suggest an option besides "Steve hates Java" and "Apple is deprecating Java" and many others discussed here and on the web.  Perhaps, and maybe I'm just being crazy here, perhaps.... Java 6 on Leopard wasn't ready so it didn't make the release date.  

Software slips. It's a fact of life.  Even some software I've written has slipped. Leopard itself slipped. And several other notable (non-Java) features of Leopard mysteriously disappeared just before release as well.

The lack of Java 6 is very annoying but not the end of the world.  From what I've seen so far the Java 5 on Leopard includes many improvements, some of which are detailed as of yesterday in the Java on Mac OSX 10.5 Release Notes now available on developer.apple.com.

Can we all get back to writing killer Java apps now?  

Okay, rant off.

- Josh

http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Java/JavaLeopardRN/index.html

[Alex Battisti]

> Java 6 on Leopard wasn't ready so it didn't make the release date.

You're (probably) dead on.

The discussion revolves around some 'radical elements of the Java
community' thinking Java6 is important enough for Apple to justify
another delay of Leopard and everybody else considering that
ridiculous. :-)

[Jess Holle]

Really.

I thought it was about Apple having the decency not to flip-flop by:

• Promising to make MacOS X the premiere Java platform
• Later saying "Java is dead" -- possibly only with respect to their cell phone
• Doing a lot of promising looking Java stuff to be delivered in Leopard
• Not delivering the Java stuff in Leopard and giving no information where they're really at with Java

It's like Apple is alternating between "we want you as customers", "we could care less", and "we just can't be bothered to say".

--
Jess Holle

[Rick]

Agreement with Josh, but also, why would Apple treat Java developers
any different from Cocoa developers?

To find out about the new changes to Objective-C you had to actually
pay cold hard cash to sign up to their developer program.

That is one thing I love about the way Sun handles Java, everything is
out in the open for _years_ in advance of changes being made. Whereas
Apple is ultra secretive about everything.

I think it is not entirely a coincidence that outside of Apple there
are ... thousands(?) of OS X developers, whereas outside of Sun there
are millions of Java developers.

OTOH, if the only applications that matter enough to ensure porting
are all IDEs, that is a sure sign that client side Java is dead and
pushing up the daisies*. Moreover, on the server side there is a vast
amount of work, but in my local area Java EE 5 isn't gaining
traction. It is so frustrating. Can someone please put a stake
through the heart of the unholy abomination that is hibernate (and 99%
of the other xml driven frameworks too) already? Java EE 5 is such a
huge leap in the right direction. Also, on the client side some of
these guys are doing incredible things, making beautiful software. So
the tools exist today for Java to be truly great, but there is this
vast inertia of the lowest denominator dragging it down and strangling
it.

*Back with 1.4 I worked on a client side program which was fairly
slick looking (nothing in the league of bling bling as the Romans,
Romains, Kirills and Joshes though), so I know it is possible. I play
Puzzle Pirates occasionally, so I know first hand that Java can do
pretty.

OTGH, I think the most exciting thing happening in client side Java
today is not JavaFX, but GWT. I just wish someone would put a bullet
in Struts (and the other web frameworks) so that we could use it!

And the most exciting thing on the server side is not Scala, it is
annotations.

[Kevin Wong]

> A couple of thousand Java developers using Macs to write software for
> a different platform is not a 'market segment' for Apple. They're
> certainly not "opinion makers" or "thought leaders". They're a Solaris
> refugees, no more, no less.

Actually, from what I've read the number of Java developers worldwide
is an estimated 6 million. If only a third of those use Macs it would
be a couple million, not a "couple thousand"; certainly not a
demographic to pooh-pooh.

My question is: What about servers? If the Java 6 omission is a
symptom of a greater indifference to Java by Apple, then aren't they
effectively conceding the server market? Can anyone deny the
significance of Java on the server side?

[Joshua Marinacci]

>>
> My question is: What about servers? If the Java 6 omission is a
> symptom of a greater indifference to Java by Apple, then aren't they
> effectively conceding the server market? Can anyone deny the
> significance of Java on the server side?

Again, I feel this is not indifference but resources. Their (fairly
small) team can only do so much and they apparently decided that
getting a improved 1.5 onto Leopard was the highest priority. I get
the impression that there were a lot of changes under the hood (which
presumably will benefit Java 6 as well). Remember, Leopard itself
was late and Java 6 isn't the only feature that was cut from the
10.5.0. I prefer to always go with simplest explanation. It's just
late.

- J

>
>
>
> >

[Kevin Wong]

Perhaps much of this pushback could be obviated if Apple would simply
be more forthcoming with their plans for Java (or lack thereof).

[Joshua Marinacci]

You'll receive no argument from me. I certainly wish they were more
transparent (and makes me appreciate how transparent Sun is). We
should remember, though, that Apple is like this with *everyone*.
They aren't singling Java developers out for special treatment.
Apple is a black box.

- Josh

[Alex Battisti]

>I thought it was about Apple having the decency not to flip-flop by:

No it was about some Java developers throwing a sissy fit, because
they feel that Apple is obliged to sync their Java releases with Sun
(which Apple never promised).

> * Promising to make MacOS X the premiere Java platform...
... in the year 2000

> * Later saying "Java is dead"...
... in the year 2007. It is quite legitimate for a company to change
their strategy after seven years.

> * Doing a lot of promising looking Java stuff to be delivered in Leopard
It is not that Apple won't deliver Java 6. There is no anti-Java
conspiracy going on. When it is ready Apple will deliver. But
expecting Apple gives Java the same priority as their core products is
pretty weird.

> * Not delivering the Java stuff in Leopard and giving no information

> where they're really at with Java

This just Apple being Apple. They do this all the time, every time and
have been doing this for over thirty years. Everybody dealing with
Apple knows that. Sure it sucks, but it is the same treatment for
everyone.

...

> I think it is not entirely a coincidence that outside of Apple there
> are ... thousands(?) of OS X developers, whereas outside of Sun there
> are millions of Java developers.

It is also no coincidence that Apple is actually profitable and that
these thousands of developers write applications consumers like to
use, while millions of Java coders only talk about creating them.

....

> If only a third of those use Macs

Apple does not even have this kind of (world wide) market penetration
within its core markets.

[gverig]

There was an interesting article on the subj at javalobby:
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t102936.html

[Casper Bang]

On Nov 1, 4:38 pm, gverig <gve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There was an interesting article on the subj at javalobby:http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t102936.html

I'm confused. That vastly contradicts the 3 most recent blog entried
by Ben Galbraith:
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/javaben/archive/2007/10/the_java_on_os.html

/Casper

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

Client side isn't dead. It was never alive to begin with. Why all the
negativity?

Between Filty Rich Clients and similar focus by java developers, and
the consumer JRE, now is just the time when client side java might
finally be birthed. Perhaps we should retire the metaphor, actually.
That sounded horrible :-P

General note on the javalobby article: It was full of dingo droppings.
It jumped the gun more than a bit. Do read Ben Galbraith's counter
arguments.

Java6 will be released in at most a month or two by apple, and that'll
be the end of this storm in a teacup.

I'm guilty myself of overhyping this issue, for which I apologize.

[gverig]

> I'm confused. That vastly contradicts the 3 most recent blog entried

No clue... I don't have leopard right now. I can only assume both
articles speak the truth and if they do, I care about unusably slow
rendering more than animated triangles.
... then again, I mostly do server side anyway, no Macs there :)

[Joshua Marinacci]

The new features in Java 5 on Leopard are real. More importantly, I
think the things they have been working on under the hood will make
it easier to get Java 6 running sooner (things like the new Aqua L&F
that better uses Cocoa).

As far as the pipeline goes, it should be plenty fast enough. I
suspect the reason certain particular apps are slowing down is
because they were counting on certain image formats being fast to
draw, and those formats changed when the pipeline changed. Properly
written code should convert images into particular formats that are
fastest on the underlying platform. There are utilities in SwingLabs
to do this (heavily used in Romain's demos, of course). BTW, When I
say format I mean the layout of bytes in the BufferedImage, not file
formats like gif & png. After updating code I'm sure those
applications will be fast again.

- Josh

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[Mark Derricutt]

Just noticed http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2196.html this morning - a lot of new control styles and things for making java apps look more native.   Some really nice things in there...

[Casper Bang]

> Just noticed http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2196.html this

Holy crap, that's a lot of type-unsafe/hackish-feeling client
properties. How's does that fit write-once-run-anywere?

> The new features in Java 5 on Leopard are real. More importantly, I
> think the things they have been working on under the hood will make
> it easier to get Java 6 running sooner (things like the new Aqua L&F
> that better uses Cocoa).

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't they drop the Cocoa bridge over a
year ago? Also, the sentence "...look and feel more like Cocoa
applications..." would indicate it has nothing to do with Cocoa peers.

/Casper

[Joshua Marinacci]

>>

> Holy crap, that's a lot of type-unsafe/hackish-feeling client
> properties. How's does that fit write-once-run-anywere?

Quite nicely, actually. These are just client properties. Something
extra which you can add to components that you want to style. Other
Look and Feels will completely ignore them, as will older versions of
Java on the Mac. It means that your app will always do the right
thing. Also notice that they didn't call most of their properties
things like apple.searchbar=true; but instead used
JTextField.variant=search. This means that other Look and Feels
which have their own specific way to render a search box could
recognize the same client property. (in a future version of WinLaF,
perhaps?) And remember, these are all completely optional. Think of
them as css rules that older browsers would ignore. It's a great way
to add new features that degrade gracefully. Quaqua has been doing
this for years quite successfully.

>
>> The new features in Java 5 on Leopard are real. More importantly, I
>> think the things they have been working on under the hood will make
>> it easier to get Java 6 running sooner (things like the new Aqua L&F
>> that better uses Cocoa).
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't they drop the Cocoa bridge over a
> year ago? Also, the sentence "...look and feel more like Cocoa
> applications..." would indicate it has nothing to do with Cocoa peers.

Well, I don't know for sure because I've never seen the code to the
Aqua L&F, but I did spend a year and a half working on the Windows
Look and Feel. In WinLaF (starting with Java 5) we call to native
Win32 methods to get the actual bitmaps that Windows uses to draw
native widgets. This is why recent versions of WinLaF will work with
3rd party themes. Since we get whatever Windows itself is using, we
automatically pick up the theme changes. I imagine they are doing
something similar in Aqua.

- J

[Greg Reddin]

On Nov 8, 2007 5:50 AM, Casper Bang <c...@brunata.dk> wrote:
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't they drop the Cocoa bridge over a
> year ago? Also, the sentence "...look and feel more like Cocoa
> applications..." would indicate it has nothing to do with Cocoa peers.

Could you be thinking about the Carbon bindings? Although in
researching this I did find some blurbs about "reduced" cocoa support.

Greg