java is deprecated?

etresoft wrote:
Up until some point in the summer of 2011 (or perhaps later), you will be able to buy a machine with Snow Leopard and Java 6 preinstalled. You will be able to run that machine for three years with the AppleCare warranty. You have almost 4 years before you have to do anything regarding finding another Java.

That takes care of me, but I also have my end-users to think about. I have no control over when they upgrade to to Lion.

I've spent all morning checking out the OpenJDK at your suggestion, and it simply is not a viable option for me. The Java Research License for Soy Latte precludes that all by itself.

I think Soy Latte is old news now. According to the website: "Soylatte is now officially a part of the OpenJDK BSD-Port project" and "OpenJDK releases are provided under the GPLv2 and GPLv2+CP licenses, and no authentication is required".

Soy Latte is the only binary distribution of the OpenJDK JVM for OS X that I've been able to find. It's not workable to ask my end-users to build the OpenJDK JVM from source. I have plenty of work on my hands helping them build my software from source. On Linux you can install it through yum, but it doesn't seem to be available through MacPorts yet. Not that most of my Mac end users have MacPorts installed anyway.

{quote}> > I'm left with the hope that somebody will create at another, more usable JVM for OS X over the next year.

Like this one? http://vmkit.llvm.org/index.html
{quote}

From that same page:
{quote}VMKit is still in its early development stages. If you are looking to experiment virtual machine technologies, VMKit is probably a great solution for you. If you want to use it as a drop in JVM or .Net, it is not yet ready.{quote}

So I'm still stuck with hoping.

{quote}they still are. They are just narrowing their scope of responsibility. You can build GCC 4.4 on a Mac. You can develop .NET and C# on a Mac. You can write FORTRAN on a Mac. You can do that without any support form Apple.{quote}
Sure, but insofar as it it involves more work on my part, the question then becomes why would I buy a Mac for a workstation? Part of the current benefit to me is that I install the optional developer toolkit, and I have everything I need. Even more importantly, I can tell my end users to install the development kit and know that they'll have everything they need. This make life better for me on the Mac. If it goes away, then it's more of a wash.

{quote}If Java needs such a high level of active support from Apple to be viable, then maybe it isn't really a cross-platform language{quote}
Come on. I don't think anyone is concerned is that a 3rd party JVM for Apple is technically infeasible. The concern is that political and business factors will keep it from getting written in a timely fashion.

For me at least It's not a matter of blaming Apple. It's just a statement of fact: if there isn't a JVM for OS X that can easily be installed by end users, I won't be able to support my software on the Mac anymore. I don't care where the JVM comes from, I just would like to know that it's coming. The only blame I would attach to Apple is that they were supporting it, now they're not, and the result is a dislocation for some of their customers. As you pointed out in an earlier message these dislocations happen all the time, but that doesn't mean that they aren't a pain in the butt, or that they don't sometimes doom whole platforms. Also, there is always room for some negotiation. I mean, Carbon is still around in some form isn't it? It was supposed to be completely gone ages ago, but customers convinced Apple that they need more time for the transition, and they got it.

{quote}I don't think you fully understand the difference between Sun Microsystems and Oracle{quote}
Point conceded about Oracle. My buffer against Oracle is that on Linux and Cygwin that have an existing, practical end-user installation process for the OpenJDK JVM. For now at least on OS X I only have hope.

I will say what others have said. I currently use 2 Mac's (one laptop, one desktop) and was about to buy a third laptop this week. My family currently has 3 iphones. Given this announcement, I have put our new Macbook Pro on hold until the end of next month and if there isn't some answer from Oracle and or Apple about this I will start the migration of our house back to Microsoft Windows and or Linux. I will then start the migration over to Android for our phones (starting next year).

Our company (around 100 computers) was considering switching totally to Mac, but this definitely will put a hold on that. We are a development shop, and obviously this announcement effects us. I do understand why Apple has made this decision, and hope that they work out something with Oracle to keep Java on the Macintosh, and the new OSX App Store. I also think this could not have been handled much worse. It is apparent that Apple didn't want Java applications on their new App store (why?), so they had to kill it before that could happen. It is sad that Oracle and Apple couldn't have come to an agreement before this event and had a joint event to announce that Oracle was taking over this development, or even paying for those developers time.

I guess the only good news is that both Windows 7 and Ubuntu have improved a lot on their previous versions. The sad part is that their are a lot of great Java applications that will "possibly" not work on future versions of OSX. All this over 4 developers and probably one QA person... Sad...

CharlesEGrant wrote:
Soy Latte is the only binary distribution of the OpenJDK JVM for OS X that I've been able to find. It's not workable to ask my end-users to build the OpenJDK JVM from source. I have plenty of work on my hands helping them build my software from source. On Linux you can install it through yum, but it doesn't seem to be available through MacPorts yet. Not that most of my Mac end users have MacPorts installed anyway.

Why can't you distribute binaries that you compile? People used to distribute their own JVMs with Java apps all the time.

Sure, but insofar as it it involves more work on my part, the question then becomes why would I buy a Mac for a workstation? Part of the current benefit to me is that I install the optional developer toolkit, and I have everything I need. Even more importantly, I can tell my end users to install the development kit and know that they'll have everything they need. This make life better for me on the Mac. If it goes away, then it's more of a wash.

You shouldn't be asking your end-users to install the development kit. Just build an installer package with everything you need and give that to them.

Come on. I don't think anyone is concerned is that a 3rd party JVM for Apple is technically infeasible. The concern is that political and business factors will keep it from getting written in a timely fashion.

The thing that is certain is that no one would ever use a 3rd party JVM as long as the Apple one is around.

Carbon is still around in some form isn't it? It was supposed to be completely gone ages ago, but customers convinced Apple that they need more time for the transition, and they got it.

Carbon is a dead-end. It is still around, but only in 32-bit. PowerPC is still around too.

Perhaps you should look at Apple's Java Mailing List: http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev

This same discussion has been going on there, only much more vigorously. That is the only place that you will actually get feedback from Apple: http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev/2010/Oct/msg00455.html

Another article on this topic? It summarizes some of James Gosslings thoughts about this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/22/jobson_java_formac/

I saw that article previously and wondered what part he didn't think was true?

The part about Apple's implementation being behind or the part about Sun (now Oracle) providing other implementations, or the part about it being the best way to do it.

When you read the blog post, it is obvious that he thinks it is the latter, which is the only one really in question (both the others are true).

If this is the correct interpretation, I'd have to agree with Gossling [sic]. I hate java apps because they don't look and feel like I expect. They look and feel like something you'd pull out of a cracker jack box. That's what you get from being cross-platform. It's a compromise, which by definition, is never the best solution.
In my computing life, I grew up with the Mac. I saw a lot of software where the developers created their own interface like they were used to doing on the PC. It looked like crap. They built their own windows, buttons, and menus and it looked like crap. I kept wondering why they spent the effort to create something that looked so bad when the Mac came with all the interfaces necessary to make something look good and consistent.
Apple helped fill the gap between getting something working and making a Mac-like product. They played that game for a while and it doesn't really suit them.

The bottom line is if you don't want to waste time making it look and feel like the customer wants it to, you're probably not going to provide the support required to keep it working well.

fatherofone wrote:
I will say what others have said. I currently use 2 Mac's (one laptop, one desktop) and was about to buy a third laptop this week. My family currently has 3 iphones. Given this announcement, I have put our new Macbook Pro on hold until the end of next month and if there isn't some answer from Oracle and or Apple about this I will start the migration of our house back to Microsoft Windows and or Linux. I will then start the migration over to Android for our phones (starting next year).

Why stop there? You should also mandate a pear-only fruit buying policy. Don't forget to dump all of your hot "cocoa" too. No more mochas at Starbucks either. The java part is OK, but cocoa is verboten.

It is apparent that Apple didn't want Java applications on their new App store (why?),

Because app store apps cannot have any 3rd party dependencies and cannot install system software. This forbids Java applications and a number of others.

their are a lot of great Java applications

There are? I've seen about three or four that were barely acceptable.

All this over 4 developers and probably one QA person... Sad...

You have no idea what the motivation was. It is against the Apple Discussions Terms of Use to speculate, so I'll just provide a link instead: http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev/2010/Oct/msg00254.html

Apple is currently warning developers that Java might not be bundled with Mac OS X Lion.
Jobs later clarified:
"Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms. They have their own release schedules,
which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind.
This may not be the best way to do it."

http://java.dzone.com/articles/java-mac-os-x-lion-redux

http://javageek.org/2010/10/22/goodnews_apple_deprecatedjava.html

In theory, this should be a step forward in the quality of Java on the Mac.
I would think Steve will provide (license) Oracle any OS code they need to
properly interface Java with the new Lion OS.

I believe all you that are throwing fits over this, are getting steamed up over nothing.
Besides, The Bear (Bill G.) dropped Java support from windows years ago and nothing
bad happened.
Kj

I'm a professional Java developer. I'm also an iPhone developer. In fact, my iPhone application (written in Objective-C) communicates with a server written in Java.

Most Java programming is server programming. Apple isn't protecting their operating systems by abandoning Java. They're just forcing server developers to abandon OS X as a workstation.

I was a Windows user for 15 years. I switched to Mac in 2007. I now own three Macs and I've never once thought about switching back to Windows, until now. If my workstation can't run Java then I can't do my work. Instead of owning three Macs and using them every day, I'll probably end up owning one and using it mostly as a toy.

This *****.

So what are you going to do? Go to Windows?

"Sun vs. Microsoft
In October 1997, Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java, sued Microsoft for incompletely
implementing the Java 1.1 standard.[4]
In January 2001, Sun and Microsoft settled the suit. Microsoft paid Sun $20 million and the
two agreed to a plan for Microsoft to phase out products that included the older version of
Microsoft Java that allegedly infringed on Sun's Java copyrights and trademarks."
"...In 2001, Microsoft settled the lawsuit with Sun and discontinued its Java implementation…"

taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicrosoftJava_VirtualMachine

Who knows, maybe Oracle is threatening to sue Steve, if he doesn't drop his proprietary
OS X Java implementation? It happened to Micro$oft.
Kj

"With Oracle, everything is always about money. It is the only metric they know."
Posted by James Gosling on August 13, 2010 at 12:09 AM PDT

http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/dearoracle_get_aclue

http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/isjavadeprecated

I really hope Java will be included in Mac OS Lion. In my opinion this was a really bad decision on Apple's part. There is an enormous amount of Java developers working on the Mac including me. If Java isn't included in Mac OS Lion thats really going to hurt the developer community. Hopefully Oracle will decide to take over the development of Java for Mac.

I am trying really really really hard but if my simple mind understands all I have read I am basically screwed! According to Java my system is great, according to apple we don't want/like/need Java? Seriously? I left windows for this bs? I think not apple, this piece of crap can go on ebay for all I care. I finally have a question after owning this computer for slightly over 3 months and I can't enter serial number like your systems wants to even get my question answered. I could kick myself in the rear for getting rid of my wonderful Sony Viao that used Java with no problem.

Synfulwife wrote:
I could kick myself in the rear for getting rid of my wonderful Sony Viao that used Java with no problem.

What problems are you having with Java on the Mac? The issue of Java being deprecated at the moment doesn't effect anything and may not ever effect anything. Java works great on Macs and being a Java developer I would have to say a Mac is the best option for developing and running Java applications. Care to explain, maybe we can help?

I left windows for this bs? I think not apple, this piece of crap can go on ebay for all I care.

While I am just as upset as you about Java being deprecated this does not have anything to do with Apple's hardware. Apple computers are built with high standards and quality hardware. I have never and will never think of an Apple computer as "crap". I'll guarantee that you'll be kicking yourself in the rear again if you put that Mac on Ebey.

I finally have a question after owning this computer for slightly over 3 months and I can't enter serial number like your systems wants to even get my question answered.

Huh? That looks like english yet I don't understand a word of it. Maybe its just late and I need to get some rest.

Arhsmacdude wrote:
guys, you've gotten way off topic here! all I really wanted to know was if java was being discontinued from snow leopard or not.

I guess all of us Java developers needed a thread to vent in. Thanks for giving us one 😉 At least you got your question answered.