Apple is deprecating Java

[Arne Vajhøj]

And for those interested:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/macjdk

Arne

 

[Roedy Green]

I'm no great fan of Apple and their business practices, and this is
nowhere near to being relevant to Java anymore, but…

What Apple is doing is a major threat. Apple is cutting Java out of a
big chunk of its natural territory. In earlier times, Sun would have
simply done its own Java for Apple products and Apple would have done
its best to ensure they did not work, much like early Sun-Microsoft
rivalry. However, I doubt Oracle has much interest in the Apple niche.

It seems to me that many Apple products now are sold like Rolex
watches, not so much because they tell the time that much better, but
BECAUSE they are expensive and make a fashion statement. Apps that
anyone can have via Java are the antithesis of this designer phone
mentality.

One place for Java to go that does not sound that glamourous is
schools in the third world. IBM used a strategy like this is the 1960s
by offering computers to universities at greatly reduced cost. When
the students later went out into business they tended to select that
which was familiar. Over the next decades, that market will dwarf the
Apple niche.




--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the "most reliable Windows ever." To me, this is like saying that asparagus is "the most articulate vegetable ever."
~ Dave Barry

 

[Mike Schilling]

The stock market is betting billions that they will.

Of course, it bet trillions on CDOs being a sound investment.

 

[The Frog]

Stockmarket - that's a technically competent source. Didn't that have
some sort of major crisis recently? Maybe it was running on Apple
systems? Does anything said here actually negate what I said? Jobs may
be laughing all the way to the bank, but at what cost to everyone
else? Just because he can doesn't mean he should. A turd, no matter
how glossy and polished it may appear, is still a turd.

The Frog

 

[Steve Sobol]

And for those interested:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/macjdk

Arne

Signed!

I'm going to go download the BSD port of OpenJDK.

It runs under X. I'm assuming that means that my Java apps will not use
the Cocoa UI, as they do now when running in the Apple JVM.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Steve Sobol]

One place for Java to go that does not sound that glamourous is
schools in the third world. IBM used a strategy like this is the 1960s
by offering computers to universities at greatly reduced cost. When
the students later went out into business they tended to select that
which was familiar. Over the next decades, that market will dwarf the
Apple niche.

Microsoft does the same thing. Have you seen their educational
discounts? I can get Visual Studio for $99 because my wife is a public
school teacher. Visual Studio *retails* for over $900.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Signed!

I'm going to go download the BSD port of OpenJDK.

It runs under X. I'm assuming that means that my Java apps will not use
the Cocoa UI, as they do now when running in the Apple JVM.

Sounds likely. Code for *BSD would not come with anything
Apple specific.

It would be a fair guess that this stuff is among the relevant
parts to get open sourced.

Arne

 

[Steve Sobol]

But, to whom?

People who make their living developing Java apps on OS X. I can't see
this being a major threat to anyone else.

I mean, it's annoying for them to say they are getting out of the Java
game. But it was also annoying for them to always be a full version
behind the rest of the Java world.
Agreed.

Maybe now (eventually), Java on the Mac will be a bit more up-to-date.

Hopefully.

Or, maybe Apple will successfully kill Java on the Mac altogether. More
power to them if they can get that to work, but I doubt it will help
their bottom line. Fact is, the main reason I even got involved in Java
was because a) I find the standard Mac API (Objective-C/Cocoa) to be
out-dated, awkward, and unfriendly, and b) I hate porting software and
would rather write-once, test-and-run-everywhere.

I'd like Mac users to be able to run my software, but I don't like
porting either. For me it'll be Java or nothing.

If there's no more Java on the Mac, I'm not likely to waste much time
porting programs to the Mac. They just won't run there. Fact is, only
about 25% the stuff I write is in Java anyway; the rest is in .NET or
unmanaged Win32 and is stuck on a Windows box anyway.

Most of what I do is Java-powered websites which run on my Linux server,
or Windows/Linux Java desktop apps, with some .NET and a tiny bit of
Win32 thrown in for good measure.

I doubt I'm all _that_ unusual in the programming world. As Apple
continues to deprecate and eliminate the ability to run on Mac OS
through the use of cross-platform tools, they are likely to find that
people just write less and less software for the Mac.

I agree.

There will always be the die-hard fanatics who just love everything
Apple. Especially for the essential programs, there will be Mac
versions. But even huge corporations sometimes find that they just
aren't getting enough return on their investment trying to support
cross-platform in-house, and smaller developers are likely to stick with
the biggest markets.

I commented to someone that being a Mac owner is a completely new
experience to me, and that I hadn't even USED Macs on a regular basis in
20 years.

Back then, I was doing Desktop Publishing for Kinko's, on second- or
third-generation Macs.

OS X is still a preferred platform in publishing, as well as a few other
industries.

But even there, a lot of the stuff that runs on Mac also runs on
Windows. For example, any Adobe product.

 

[Thufir Hawat]

Swing is possible the easiest possible GUI framework to port to a new
OS.

All you need is something on the platform to draw a bitmap and then the
Swing classes does all the work themselves.

Arne

PS: Well - most Mac OS X users will say "puh badr - it does
not look as it should", but ...

I suppose I was referring to the Swing-Cocoa bridge (not a mac user):

"What does this mean for Eclipse and other Java-based IDEs? Well, one of
the key problems is that the OSX implementation of Java provides a number
of Cocoa-specific bindings and hooks. Whilst Eclipse is based on top of
SWT, and SWT uses the native widget set directly (rather than AWT and
Swing which render their own), there are a number of hooks into the Cocoa
layer to provide application-level services. Some of these have been
extended in the redesigned eAWT package to permit Java applications to
opt into user events (including the “sudden termination†which enables
faster OS shutdown)."


http://alblue.bandlem.com/2010/10/apple-deprecates-java.html



-Thufir

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

You didn't say "peer review", you said "code review".

Code reviews are supposed to be peer reviews.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

And your post still does not change *my* point, which appears to actually
be on topic for this newsgroup.

Irrelevant comments that just happens to mention something Java
related is not on topic.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Right. And we know how reliable an indicator the stock market is. No
one's ever lost money betting with the stock market.

If you think you can do better, then you should not waste
your time here. Warren Buffet seems to be able to make 1 B$
per year.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Of course, it bet trillions on CDOs being a sound investment.

They happen to make mistakes.

But who is better to predict the future of businesses?

And why are they not in the stock market??

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Sounds likely. Code for *BSD would not come with anything
Apple specific.

It would be a fair guess that this stuff is among the relevant
parts to get open sourced.

I have not seen this link posted, but here it is:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/11/12openjdk.html

Arne

 

[ClassCastException]

Code reviews are supposed to be peer reviews.

"Supposed to be" being the operative words here.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Apple is doing this all over. They now want to lock users in, and
ensure apps for Apple won't run or cannot be easily be made to run
elsewhere. Now they are getting bigger, they are mimicking IBM's old
strategies.

That's why we are not developing for the iPad, but waiting for the
upcoming Android devices, particularly Advent Vega.

Android would seem to be the future

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

The only industry "standards" Apple wants are those over which it
exercises complete control.

Applications (sorry, apps), such as those written in Java, which can be
run on systems other than those under the dominion of The House of Jobs
are to be cast out as unworthy. Programmers who develop for such systems
should be cast down as unclean. Only the truly virtuous, who develop
applications exclusively on His systems, for the sole use of disciples
who are in possession of one of His systems, will be welcome in The
House of Jobs.

So it is foretold.

Where you can only develop Apple programs with Apple software and buy
Apple programs from the Apple store and only media from iTunes and the
whole lot locked down with DRM crapware.

At some point even the biggest Apple fan is going to smell a (expensive)
rat.

 

[David Lamb]

"Supposed to be" being the operative words here.

Arne is using the phrase in its original, technical sense -- the one I'd
expect to be the default on a programmer's newsgroup. IIRC the early
literature on code reviews found it is significantly less effective if
there is any suspicion it's also being used as personnel review. Just
because your boss calls it a code review doesn't make it one.

 

[ClassCastException]

Arne is using the phrase in its original, technical sense -- the one I'd
expect to be the default on a programmer's newsgroup. IIRC the early
literature on code reviews found it is significantly less effective if
there is any suspicion it's also being used as personnel review. Just
because your boss calls it a code review doesn't make it one.

All of this is wandering pretty far from the original point, which is
right at the top of the quoted material:

If your boss reviews code he can. If your institution imposes peer review
of code, then maybe you can. If your institution doesn't, it's again on
your boss to maybe change that, though.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

That's why we are not developing for the iPad, but waiting for the
upcoming Android devices, particularly Advent Vega.

Android would seem to be the future

Apple is doing fine and probably will for quite some time.

But if you are into Java, then Android makes a lot more
sense - objectiveC is not Java.

Arne