macOS No Java 6 on Leopard Retail!!

[seanneko]

If this means that OS X will not have Java 6 until the next major release, then Apple have really shot themselves in the foot.

As much as some people here want to kid themselves, Java is not some rubbish language that's about to die. The vast majority of software development is done using Java, such as at my work (research organisation employing a few thousand people). There's a bit of C++ and an even smaller amount of .NET, and absolutely NO Objective-C. Incidentally, all of our Macs run Windows XP. Take a look at a list of programming jobs in the newspaper - how many are related to Java, and how many Objective-C?

I don't know or really care about Fortune 500 since I'm not American, but I'm sure that they don't run native Mac apps for their backend systems. How can an app written in Objective-C compare to an enterprise system with integrated distributed fault tolerance developed in Java EE?

Java has a bad reputation for two reasons. Firstly, the early versions WERE slow, but this has long been fixed since (Java often outperforms C++ under Windows - don't know about OS X performance). Secondly, it's the first language that lots of people learn, which means that there's a lot of Java hacks out there who have no idea what they're doing. They develop crappy single-threaded applications which people use and then base their opinion of the entire programming language on that one application.

There is no reason why you can't develop high quality, high performance, reliable, mission critical applications under Java. It's happening right now all over the world.

 

[hsvmoon]

It is not that bad.

Apple did not ship 1.5 until after the release of Tiger. I think 1.6 is going to be the same. I think the inclusion of 64-bit java on 64-bit machines under Leopard is good evidence that Apple still cares about JAVA and will support 1.6. It seems to me that 64-bit implementations are just as much work as implementing 1.6 upgrades. I am still hopeful that it will be out before the end of the year.

 

[Persifleur]

IBM hasn't released their Java 6 implementation either (it's still only "early release" i.e. not production-ready). Given that they've been pretty public supporters of Java, shall we complain about them, too?

There is still a complete and functional 1.5 JDK included with Leopard. Unless you use 1.6-specific features, applications you compile with a 1.6 JDK can still run on a 1.5 JRE.

 

[jeremy.king]

Being that Java has been officially open sourced, does anyone else other than me think that Apple is just leaving it to the community to make a 1.6 JDK/JRE?

 

[Compile 'em all]

Java 6 Swing performance has improved even more.

Azureus GUI is using SWT not Swing.

 

[Keiichi]

Being that Java has been officially open sourced, does anyone else other than me think that Apple is just leaving it to the community to make a 1.6 JDK/JRE?

as far as i know this is not the case and imo it's apple's job to implement java 1.6 in their os rather than leaving this to the community. i don't want the people that use my software to install jre 1.6 before using my app. i'm a cs student and the chair i'm also working for will switch away from osx if there won't be 1.6 in near future.

 

[jeremy.king]

i don't want the people that use my software to install jre 1.6 before using my app.

What do you think Windows users have to do?

 

[Edot]

I wonder if the delay is related to CoreUI. I mean this new way that Leopard handles UI elements is dramatically different than the way Tiger handles UI elements. I would think these changes significantly effect the way Java UI elements are rendered in Leopard. I'm sure they are working on releasing it.

 

[AlmostThere]

IBM hasn't released their Java 6 implementation either (it's still only "early release" i.e. not production-ready). Given that they've been pretty public supporters of Java, shall we complain about them, too?

Not really because of the different ways that the companies use Java. IBM use Java as an anchor for their own IBM development platform, consisting of application servers, databases and data management tools and loads more. By contrast, Apple are trying to offer that anchor by selling a Java platform.

Being that Java has been officially open sourced, does anyone else other than me think that Apple is just leaving it to the community to make a 1.6 JDK/JRE?

I think that is very unlikely for something the size and complexity of Java - it really needs corporate backing for a development of this size, and the only genuinely interested party is going to be Apple. I don't know off hand of comparable projects that don't have a major corporate sponsor or three.

What do you think Windows users have to do?

Probably use the runtime that you bundle with your application.

 

[mbabauer]

Not really because of the different ways that the companies use Java. IBM use Java as an anchor for their own IBM development platform, consisting of application servers, databases and data management tools and loads more. By contrast, Apple are trying to offer that anchor by selling a Java platform.

Agreed. IBM is notorious for being late on their JDK releases, at least in the AIX world. This is why my team at work switched from AIX to Linux x86_64. This way we can use Sun's JVM and forgo the waiting.

I think that is very unlikely for something the size and complexity of Java - it really needs corporate backing for a development of this size, and the only genuinely interested party is going to be Apple. I don't know off hand of comparable projects that don't have a major corporate sponsor or three.

I agree. Something this size takes a team of developers, and without funding, you can't pay for them. It would be awesome to see Apple back something like this, though.

Probably use the runtime that you bundle with your application.

Errrr! Wrong! I rarely see a Java application bundled with a JVM. Some installers will install a JVM, if one doesn't exist, but it's no different than what M$ does with DirectX and video games. IBM does this practice on their big Java-based applications like WebSphere and TADDM, laying down their own IBM JVM durring installs regardless if you want them or not, but I would say this is more of an exception than a rule.