

Apple and the future of Java - pietrofmaggi
http://www.subfurther.com/blog/?p=1305

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NathanKP
I agree with the main premise of the article: that Steve Jobs isn't the one
dealing a blow to Java, he is just getting rid of the white elephant that is
already on its way down.

Seriously Apple does not have that much of a market share in the desktop and
laptop field, and while it is a growing share, it is far from the market
majority. Therefore, to think that Jobs is dealing a major blow to Java by not
factory installing Java on a machine which is only going to sell to a small
percentage of the market doesn't make sense.

If Java is losing popularity as a desktop app programming language it won't be
because of Apple.

~~~
glhaynes
I agree that it's not the primary cause of Java's decline — as if it had far
to go aside from theoretically — as a desktop system. Apple's moves seem these
days to signal or drive the industry direction, though, so if Apple's
deprecation isn't a blow, it's at least a bellwether.

~~~
NathanKP

        bellwether
        noun
        harbinger, herald, indicator, predictor
    

Thanks for teaching me a new word.

~~~
ghshephard
I highly recommend: <http://www.amazon.com/Bellwether-Connie-
Willis/dp/0553562967>

It's a fast, one day read, and it ages well - I re-read it every couple years.

------
stcredzero
_I looked at javax.sound yesterday and estimated it would take me 4-6 weeks,
full-time, to do a production-quailty port using Core Audio. I’ll bid the
project out at $20,000._

How about Kickstarter?

 _Desktop Java is a ruinously expensive legacy that they need to do something
about.

All the angry screeds against Steve Jobs won’t change the fact that this is
the “ball and chain” that’s pulling Java below the waves._

I think attempting to do cross-platform UIs held Smalltalk back as well. You
either have Least Common Denominator native UIs that stink, or emulated UIs
that don't look native. "Cross Platform" failed for the general public end-
user. Web Apps took up their niche.

~~~
aphexairlines
Eclipse is cross-platform, comes with a disgusting component system (OSGi),
pillages all your RAM, and yet is still arguably the most popular IDE these
days.

~~~
stcredzero
How many general-public end-user apps are built with SWT?

~~~
jsankey
There don't seem to be many. But I believe it has been used quite extensively
in internally-developed applications, never intended for the mass market. The
same goes for Swing as well.

So although end consumers might not see them, it will certainly take a long
time for SWT or Swing to die. These are the same class of applications that
are keeping IE 6 alive, after all.

Does this matter to Apple? I doubt it's significant, as most of these
applications are probably running on Windows desktops already. Probably more
significant is the legion of Java developers that have been vocal proponents
of Macs over recent years. The numbers of such developers might not be so
great in an absolute sense, but the amount of noise they create is
disproportionate. And, more importantly, they are more motivated to build
interesting stuff for the platform they use.

------
acqq
> The Java crowd will (...) have to make a choice: either use Windows or Linux
> for development, or get away from the IDEs (...) on the Mac.

According to archgrove's post, Eclipse works on OpenJDK:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820288>

So Java crowd can continue to develop on Mac in Eclipse even without Apple-
maintained Java in OSX.

------
bad_user
Apple open-sourcing their work to be included in OpenJDK would also require
copyright-assignment to Oracle.

Not going to happen.

Also, get the crappy APIs out of Java SE, like AWT and Swing, then the Java SE
"standard" and the TCK needs updating, and then you've got a subset suitable
for mobile phones, for which Oracle cannot collect revenue anymore.

Not going to happen.

------
frou_dh
I think the problems with [non-native] GUIs on the Mac are compounded by their
developers likely not having as much passion for look & feel as Cocoa-heads to
start with, regardless of the quality of the APIs.

I was under the impression that the IntelliJ IDE was a diamond, then I saw a
dude use it in a screencast and the design looked grim.

~~~
allertonm
I wouldn't go so far as to say grim - but it definitely shows that even with
the best of efforts, Swing is never going to cut it for non-developer
applications. IntelliJ is about as good as Swing apps get on OSX.

Gotta feel for the JetBrains guys, I have a feeling that a good chunk of their
users are on Macs and it's not clear that they'll have a way forward. It does
look to me like Eclipse will be a viable option in future. Which, as an
IntelliJ fan using a Mac, doesn't make me super happy.

That said, I think the original article was spot-on.

~~~
strlen
IntelliJ does use JNA quite extensive, already, on the Mac. It wouldn't be a
stretch to imagine more extensive use of JNA e.g., for custom widgets.

JetBrains guys are very smart (I dislike Java as a language, but I continue to
be impressed by IntelliJ) and I have no doubt they'd be able to switch a
native layer if needed: they have all the motivation to (it's a commercial
product).

------
Hoff
Apple plays a long game, and they're not afraid to toss stuff under the bus.
Now consider what these Apple engineers might now be working on, if not
Oracle's Java and JVM pieces. Some language past Java? A replacement for
Objective C? Both?

~~~
Perceval
Doubtful that Objective C would be replaced. Still requires continual
improvements and updates.

The engineers might now work on MacRuby, which is rumored to be the up-and-
coming second language on OS X real soon now.

~~~
tjogin
I think so too. MacRuby is perfect for Apple, as they control its
implementation, and the syntax is far more approachable than Objective-C is.
Also, no performance penalty when compiled, unless I'm mistaking.

Thinking on it, I'd only be _slightly_ surprised (and extremely delighted) if
native/official (as opposed to experimental) MacRuby support for Xcode and the
new Mac App Store was announced at the next WWDC.

------
m0nastic
I don't think Apple's decision is going to be a death-rattle to Java on OS X,
but it provides an interesting perspective.

If nothing else, it's provided the groundwork for my next software development
project. The vast majority of tools my industry uses to perform a specific
type of testing are Java-based, and more and more folks I run into are using
Macs.

------
jshen
I'm confused by everyone focusing on Java. "Java's on the decline", "I don't
mind if Java goes away", etc, etc.

This is really about the JVM and the JVM is on the rise. I have no idea what
impact this decision will have, but if it's negative if affects a lot more
than Java.

------
__david__
I think he makes a good case for himself in the article, though I wonder how
much effort it really costs to maintain an already written port. However, he
is quite mistaken about the possible side effects of Apple licensing the code
under the GPL:

> The company would want nothing less than an absolutely forensic code
> analysis to ensure there are no loopholes, stray imports or links, or
> anything else that a creative FSF lawyer could use to claim that Mac OS X
> links against the GPL’ed OpenJDK and must therefore itself be GPL’ed.

That is not how the GPL works. The GPL doesn't apply to the copyright holder
(owner) of the code. The GPL applies to all the people who get the code from
the owner. The owner can do what every they want.

------
dabeeeenster
Are Apple going to ship any sort of Java runtime with 10.7? I (and some of my
team) use Intellij on OSX. Are we not going to be able to upgrade to 10.7?

~~~
alexyoung
They haven't said yet, but: "Developers should not rely on the Apple-supplied
Java runtime being present in future versions of Mac OS X."

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/Ja...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/Java/JavaSnowLeopardUpdate3LeopardUpdate8RN/NewandNoteworthy/NewandNoteworthy.html)

~~~
cosmicray
While Apple hasn't been specific, I'm taking that to mean "no pre-installed
JVM beginning with 10.7". Apple only mentioned 10.7 this past week (with very
few specifics). Wikipedia suggests that the release date for 10.7 will be
'Summer 2011'. The problem may be real, but there is time to find solutions.

------
stefanve
am I the only one who thinks JDK 7 (for OSX) will be released by Oracle when
Lion is launched? at the end of last year they released JavaME 3 for osx. so
it wouldn't be that far off

