

Apple drops Java and more: so what? - Garbage
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici/archive/2010/10/24/apple-drops-java-and-more-so-what

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PatrickTulskie
Looks like they pulled the article. I do agree though... so what? Who really
uses the built in version of language-x on their machine? Mucking around with
the system's version of Java, Ruby, Python, etc is a great way to cause
problems for yourself later down the road.

~~~
mgkimsal
There's no 'officially supported' binaries from anyone else. Most people I
know (on most platforms, not just OSX) use precompiled binaries from
_somewhere_ (apt/yum repos, DMG files, etc). Without officially provided
binaries for Java from Apple, OSX users are left without any solid direction
at this point.

Will some company step up and provide regularly updated binaries tested for
various OSX systems? Maybe. But that's not known at this point, so everyone's
left wondering.

Sun should never have ceded this degree of control over Java's implementation
to Apple (or other companies), and Oracle needs to step up soon to provide
peace of mind (or at least clarity) to Java developers.

There's been so much focus the past few days on "Java GUI is dead" etc, and
swing/swt/x11 conversations about Apple's desktop Java bindings and such,
there's been little attention that most people are using Java for back-end
non-GUI stuff. This removal hurts Mac owners who develop Java for non-GUI apps
- arguably the largest share of Java/Mac people out there.

~~~
tzs
> Without officially provided binaries for Java from Apple, OSX users are left
> without any solid direction at this point.

Apple said Java will continue to be supported and maintained on Leopard and
Snow Leopard through the standard support lifetime of those products. That's
something like 4 years from now for Snow Leopard.

> There's been so much focus the past few days on "Java GUI is dead" etc, and
> swing/swt/x11 conversations about Apple's desktop Java bindings and such,
> there's been little attention that most people are using Java for back-end
> non-GUI stuff. This removal hurts Mac owners who develop Java for non-GUI
> apps - arguably the largest share of Java/Mac people out there.

Isn't the bulk of the work Apple did in the GUI area? For non-GUI work, a
relatively simple port of, say, the BSD port of OpenJDK should be just fine.

~~~
mgkimsal
"For non-GUI work, a relatively simple port of, say, the BSD port of OpenJDK
should be just fine."

If it's so simple, why hasn't anyone packaged this up yet and made it a
project?

Yes, Apple will continue to maintain current Java on current OS for forseeable
future. Given that they've tended to lag behind on most updates anyway (for
various reasons) this doesn't fill me with much enthusiasm. But... that's not
what I was referring to.

"OSX users are left without any solid direction at this point." I'd meant
there's no direction as to who, if anyone, is going to provide workable Java
packages for OSX users.

~~~
PatrickTulskie
Hopefully Oracle will step up and provide the binaries like they do for every
other operating system.

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JerryH
I'm thinking sticking with the linux desktop for Java dev and all things
powerful, and a mac laptop ..... for, well, sitting in coffee shops drinking
expensive coffee and looking cool

