Java and Ipad

I am a developer. Writing for iOS is hardly platform-agnostic.

Your nickname should be diggie as you throw a dig in at the last second.

The clear point is that Apple as found a niche and they are very happy to fill it. The average intelligence in the world is 100. Being it is on a bell curve, roughly half is above and half is below. Being that Apple products are designed to have the most glitz and pizazze without serious value, I assume the target market is 6 to 20-year-olds as their minds are still maturing. I'm sure many will chastize me for picking this age range but that is where the bottom of the bell curve comes in; those are the Apple product users that camp out in front of Best Buy; those are the ones that have no problem throwing away a 500+ dollar device to get whatever their beloved Apple provides.

Q

You see other products that can be upgraded. You can add more memory, a bigger hard drive, a new screen; but Apple has taken a different approach in selling the product on an as-is basis. It seems the bottom side of the curve has accepted this as normal which explains waiting in line for the new iPhone when they just bought one last year.

I grant that Apple has developed some very interesting interfaces and presentations, but on the other hand, if I do make a typing mistake it is a pain to fix. So much for user friendly. And when a rare but possible virus hits your phone or iPad, well good luck as you have no defense against it. You will be taking a walk into the Apple store. A long time expensive experience I have watched my Apple loving sister have.

And Harry, give up arguing with this group. They are not here to help people like you and me, they are here to reaffirm the followers. You are correct in saying that Java is not dead. It is only dead to the Apple world. There are numerous companies like SAP and Lean Logistics that have invested millions into Java so it won't just die overnight. It may not be an Internet choice but it is definitely a choice for serious business applications. Realize that Apple products are not designed to be a serious business application. They are great for drawing pictures, watching videos, taking goofy pictures at the spur of the moment and other similar activities that require no thought to accomplish. The only thought associated to these products were those by the geniuses that sucked the lower end of the bell curve into this.

I was required to see my school counselor at the end of high school. He told me my career choice was a bad plan as programmers would not be needed. He foresaw that only a handful would be needed to write apps that would generate the programs that everyone needs. After 20 years programming and such an 13 years being and analyst and such, I am still looking for that killer app that will answer all the questions.

Thank you for the advice. Arguing asynchronously helps me to prepare to argue IRL.

Yes, anyone who pays attention knows that Java programmers are still being sought out and that Java is being used in a great many universities as the language for learning programming.

Certainly, I'm an admirer of Apple's MARKETING prowess and its ability to make mundane appliances look very special indeed. I also admire its ability to turn simple ideas into lots of money. Just because you can make money doing something doesn't make it right.

I've seen this movie too many times. A variety of unique platforms appear. The number shrinks. Finally, a means to combine them all, from the developer's viewpoint, arises. In the meantime, developers suffer, users get a substandard experience, and the companies make tons of money. No one can ever own a lucrative market for long. Things will change. Instead of fighting this obvious historical trend, Apple and Google should embrace it for everyone's long-term benefit.

Well, that's a "glass half full" sort of comment.

The articles state, "To defend against this and future Java vulnerabilities, disable Java in Web browsers."

Clearly, this statement refers to Java applets, which are becoming less favorable these days. While applets can be quite complex and rich, they were initially intended as small web-aware programs. For such tiny software, it is true that you're better off with HTML5 these days -- finally -- almost -- sort of. In 2014, HTML5 should become a true standard.

However, these security holes cannot be used if you only run Java applications using, mostly, Java Web Start (JWS). So, go ahead and disable your Java in your WEB BROWSER, but leave it in place on your computer for use by the many great Java applications available from the Internet.

"Oracle plans to release a patch on Tuesday that will fix the bulk of the problems ..." It's under control.

WRT Java being dead, read this from one of the articles: "Java is so widely used that the software has become a prime target for hackers. Last year Oracle's Java surpassed Adobe's Reader software as the most frequently attacked piece of software, according to security software maker Kaspersky Lab."

So, there's been a huge hoopla over nothing. Java is not anywhere near being dead. Furthermore, the primary Java security problems refer solely and uniquely to Java applets, not to Java applications. Some people don't realize the difference just as some even less-informed people don't understand the difference between Java and Javascript. Because Javascript is the programming language for HTML5, that's a problem.

We initially wrote our software as a very large applet because we had to use many browser features. Java now includes those features, so we've changed it to an application of 20,000 or so lines of code. Servlets of similar size operate the server side.

Java is alive and well and "widely used." Stealthy security attacks don't work on Java applications.

What is it that brings out all of the distaste, bordering on hate, by some people. Did you all find your college Java programming classes that awful? Did the object-oriented paradigm create nighmares for you? Maybe not, but I cannot figure out why you even care.

Believe it or not, I have a dog in this fight. Please allow me to introduce myself: I am a middle-aged, heavily-experienced, Java-based, front end web developer who specializes in User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX). I develop the front-end code (HTML/CSS/jQuery) for a Fortune500 website with a product catalog of well over 145,000 SKUs which runs Java, Oracle, ATG - and a whole host of complementary technologies.

I just spent the batter part of the last hour reading posts by a number of people who are not seeing the proper picture.

We're talking about the CLIENT-SIDE JAVA BROWSER PLUGIN. Server-side Java is a different animal. I'd much rather work in Java as a server-side technology than .NET any day of the week, even if you add ATG as your ecommerce solution (which is totally painful). Server-side Java is wonderful. It is old. It is platform-agnostic. It does more things than Jimmy Carter had peanuts. And it ain't going anywhere!

CLIENT-SIDE JAVA should go the way of Flash: it's insecure, and it requires too much end-user management. It *should* die. If you are dealing with something that requires ISO9000 or PCI compliance DO NOT USE A TABLET - Windows 8 or otherwise. If your software or website requires re-mapping of client keystrokes (ActiveX), DO NOT USE A TABLET.

Why? Because MicroSoft, in its wisdom, killed ActiveX. And Flash. And, yes, the Java browser plugin for the Metro interface or IE in Windows 8. Why? Too many security issues.

Adobe killed Flash - why? Because it has - and will have - no answer to the lack of hover behavior on touch screen devices. Think about that one, OK?

If you're thinking about JavaScript programs running 20k lines, you're still living in 1994 - jQuery (****, even Prototype) can cut that mess down at least 65-75%. You'd be surprised what HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery can do in a modern browser!

But, this is what I expect from all of you: no idea of what a good UI/UX designer/developer can do for you. You all think you have the ultimate answer, and want to troll and blame others for your lack of understanding.

My only recommendation I'd give you is to start reading. But, alas, you won't. So, in the meantime:

ALL of you, please: grow up!

You're right as far as you go. What you've omitted is the important difference between browser-based and not. You say, "We're talking about the CLIENT-SIDE JAVA BROWSER PLUGIN." But, I'm not.

My own situation is the result of being stuck back in 2004, not 1994. However, I've fixed that now. I did drag my feet and hoped for a magic bullet. But, now I've bitten the bullet and converted that applet to an application.

The various problems with Java on the client side refer to APPLETs and plug-ins for browsers. Once you have a robust enough application, even in JQuery, you should escape from the browser and all of the problems that different browsers and their updates cause.

Client-side, outside of browsers, is just as nice to create as server-side in Java. The tools are there for the UI.

Why bother when there are so many browser-based tools? Because they limit what you can do on the client side. Why not just shove that stuff off to the server? Because of server loading and bandwidth problems when you're dealing with thousands of users. The delays are unacceptable as part of the user experience.

So, I have a really nice, skinnable (via synth) application that has grown to much more than 20K lines of Java (not Javascript -- heaven forbid!!) due to the conversion and that works well on any system that can install Java -- not as a plug-in but just as a system resource.

Oracle has demonstrated Java on iOS and Android. There's really no reason not to allow people to create software as they will except for spite. It's time for Apple and Google to allow Oracle to release Java for iOS and Android. If it's a big flop, then Oracle has egg on its face. If it allows the most popular development language on the planet to be used by a huge programmer base to build iOS and Android applications that also run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, then it's a win for all. IMO, that's a rather "grown-up" attitude.

What's wrong with that?

Let's see. IOS does not support Java and we dont know if any time soon it will. Seems like Microsoft - java war some time ago, now became IOS (objective c apple) - java war (part of a much much bigger war Android-IOS). And you guys just buy it as your own personal war.

Apple sales are better each year without java. For now they do not need java. They are exclusive and in my opinion they are wrong (in long term). They (apple) just ignore a majority of bussiness industry who is trying to preserve what they have and to expand their apps to the new mobile world.

Who stated that java is outdated was, is and will be just wrong. Java is growing even more (Android world is pure java - whole new world - mobile-one and the bigger one). Like it or not, most of IT industry right now is based on java. Java world right now is much much bigger than IOS (objective c) world.

Each one of them will grow even more. But in my opinion Apple is wrong ignoring java. This is not only about browser plugin. Java is much much more. By the way, I dont like java (as programming language), but i have to admit that java as technology with time won a looooot of field in IT industry.

DraganK is quite correct on all counts. Of course, anyone can have any opinion on a language's suitability for them.

It's quite possible that RoboVM will fix things without Apple or Oracle or even Google doing a single thing. We'll see. There was a time when programmers had to know more than one programmimng language. I must have worked in four or five every week for a while. Most were assembly languages, though.

Really serious development languages take a while to master. Once mastered, anyone would avoid having to do it all over again just because Steve or Bill would like you to. If the language becomes obsolete (e.g. C++, Pascal, APL, et al.), then you have no choice. As long as Java continues to evolve and has a strong support community, there's no reason to leave.

In the meantime, I have to know HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, and C in addition to Java in order to get along in today's world. These aren't really all "languages" in the strictest sense, but they might as well be as far as writing software is concerned. So now, I have to know six "languages" to survive. Do not ask me to learn C# and Objective C too. They're captive languages and I prefer freedom.

Times change but then they don't so much after all.

And with all that said, it just proves that people are not in charge of what they buy anymore even after they have paid for it. Once you buy an item it is yours and what you choose to do with it should be also of your own choosing and noone else period.

Amen, Alidar. It's absolutely improper and should be illegal for a company to turn your expensive purchase into a boat anchor overnight without notice. If you don't like Java, you may be cheering, but tomorrow it could be Firefox or anything else not created by Apple.

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Mr. Jobs stated that Java was outdated when he discussed the release of the iPhone in an interview in 2007.

Given the recurrent security issues Java is having I don't see that opinion changing any time soon.

HarryKeller wrote:

Amen, Alidar. It's absolutely improper and should be illegal for a company to turn your expensive purchase into a boat anchor overnight without notice.

This statement might make sense if Alidar had ever been able to get Java on his iPad. But it never existed for the iPad so nothing was "turned into a boat anchor". The iPad still does exactly what it always did and Apple has removed no features or abilities.

I was referring to my many MacBooks that Apple disabled Java on just a few days ago and not to the iPad. I don't own one of those overpriced game and entertainment devices.

Then you might want to figure out how to post in the right forum since it is clear you do not have any usable information regarding the iPad.

Non-sequitor.