No Java 6 Yet In Leopard - Developers Freaking Out at Simon’s Blog

No Java 6 Yet In Leopard - Developers Freaking Out

Well, the new version of Mac OS X, Leopard, has shipped… without support for the latest version of Java - Java 6. Also, the developer preview build of Java 6 that has, up until very recently, been available on the Apple Developer web-site has been pulled. From the sounds around the Interwebs, it seems that more than a few developers who use Macs as their development platform are really freaking out about this.

Some are saying they’ve had it with Apple, and are dumping the Mac completely. Others are vocally expressing their disappointment that Leopard didn’t ship with Java 6, as people had been thinking it would. Tim Bray says it’s one of the reasons he won’t upgrade to Leopard yet. Unusually for Tim’s blog, the level of discussion in the comments, reacting to this, is pretty ill-informed and unintelligent… I guess the Apple (and/or RoR) fanboys are out in force

One of the most amusing comments in this discussion is from someone saying that it’s somehow the fault of Sun Microsystems that Apple’s engineers aren’t capable of shipping an up-to-date version of Java for their operating system. Hilarious. The truth is this: Apple decided many years ago that Apple wanted to take responsibility for Java on the Mac. From the very first days of Mac OS X, I’ve been told that “from now on”, Apple would keep Java on Mac OS up-to-date. Not-a-once have they delivered on this. Java on Mac OS has always been way behind the state-of-the-art. If Apple can’t deliver on Java for Mac OS, it’s no-one’s fault but Apple’s.

Some perspective on the Leopard situation re: Java is probably in order. Firstly, historically, we know that Apple is always late with their Java support. So, if you really like Mac OS X, I’d say it’s worth giving them a little more time before throwing your Mac out of the Window. Secondly, though, if you care about cutting edge software development, I have to ask - why are you using a Mac as your development platform in the first place? I ask because: Mac OS X’s small percentage market share, both on client and server; and its lack of any unique capability (e.g. amazing horizontal scalability), mean that Mac OS X isn’t a first-tier development platform for major software technology vendors… so it’s almost always going to be a second-class citizen as far as state-of-the-art support goes.

It will be interesting to see if Java 6 for Leopard ships soon… last reports I had (which were a while back) said that there will still a few issues to be sorted out. Assuming Steve Jobs hasn’t totally pulled the plug on Java for Mac OS X (as he is rumoured to have done, and actually appears to have done for iPhone), I’d actually expect Apple engineers to have done a pretty good job when it finally does ship. While they’re clearly not resourced to be able to ship things in a timely manner, it’s equally clear that they know how to create high-quality pieces of work.

Trackbacks & Pings

Java 6 Developer preview now available for Leopard « outaTiME on 21 Dec 2007 at 3:19 pm

[...] may recall, in the immediate aftermath of Leopard’s release, Java developers were a little upset about the exclusion of Java 6 from the shipping release of Apple’s latest operating system. [...]
iPhone Software » Blog Archive » Java 6 Developer preview now available for Leopard on 21 Dec 2007 at 7:02 pm

[...] may recall, in the immediate aftermath of Leopard’s release, Java developers were a little upset about the exclusion of Java 6 from the shipping release of Apple’s latest operating system. [...]

Comments

Marc wrote:

Having to buy a whole new OS to get Java 5 was one small point that made me switch to Linux.

Posted 31 Oct 2007 at 11:10 pm ¶
Mr X wrote:

At least three Apple Java engineers have posted to the MRJ mailing list in the last day or so which puts the lower limit on the Java team size. Historically 3 is actually quite a large number to be posting to the list at once - normally you might see just one ( it’s as if one is tasked with monitoring the list ).

One interesting thing to note is the switch from Quartz to Sun rendering pipeline - improves cross-platform consistency and potentially reduces the custom work Apple needs to do long term - ( once it can replace all quartz features ) http://lists.apple.com/archives/java-dev//2007/Oct/msg00537.html

There are two considerations for Apple and Java support -
1. Apple ships with Java apps - they need a VM
2. Work on the GUI classes - Apple have actually done a lot of work to make sure a Java app looks and behaves like a Mac App.

Can’t see how people can read these facts as Apple going to drop Java.

I have to say I don’t see why they can’t be more open about plans - after all most of Leopards features were demo’d to the public well over a year ago.

The great thing about Macs at the moment is you have the safety net of installing other OS’s on the hardware.

Clearly there is a complicated dance happening between these companies - they are collaborating and competing - not so much in the computer space, but in the phone space ( with google and ms ).

Posted 01 Nov 2007 at 4:46 pm ¶
simon wrote:

I think it would be amazing if Apple completely dropped Java on Mac OS X. There’s not really any evidence, yet, to suggest that their timelines are much worse than they’ve been historically.

In any case, it looks like the management team felt they *had* to ship Leopard now, whatever state it was in. I’d expect a whole bunch of updates, plus at least a new developer Java 6 preview, during the next few weeks as they sort out some of the issues.

Posted 01 Nov 2007 at 7:36 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:

Mac users aren’t really bothered, Java apps are rubish anyway - Mac marketshare growing and probably enough momentum now to keep going, as the share price shows. So what, a few Java developers get their knickers in a twist becuase they’re too dumb to set up VMs - for most Mac users it’s a zero issue, probably we’re glad in a way as we won’t be reliant on hidious Java GUI monstrosities. Will not having Java 6 affect takeup on Leopard, I don’t think so…..

Posted 01 Nov 2007 at 8:05 pm ¶
simon wrote:

Asam, I agree that lack of immediate availability of Java 6 will have little effect on take-up of Leopard. Clearly, software developers are a small subset of the total number of users of Apple, or any other hardware/OS platform.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “Java GUI monstrosities” though. As Mr X said, Apple have pretty worked hard to ensure that Java apps can look and behave like native Mac OS X apps. Also not sure what you mean by “Java apps are rubbish”. What make you believe that Java apps are rubbish, in particular, compared to apps written with other languages? I hope it’s nothing that Steve Jobs said… he seems entirely clueless when it comes to software development technology (judging from the remarks I’ve heard him make about SDKs, Java, Web 2.0 etc. etc.)

Posted 01 Nov 2007 at 10:34 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:

The Java developer market is not something Apple is clearly aiming for right now, there is something in development that clearly has priorities at the moment, but that doesn’t mean Apple won’t update to Java 6. Whatever it’s doing right now means that Java has to wait. A lot has changed in the GUI and deep technologies in Leopard, and in order for Java 6 to take advantage of these features requires time and now must fit in with plans for Mac OS X 10.6…..

Posted 02 Nov 2007 at 1:21 am ¶
Mr X wrote:

It’s mostly new comers to the Mac platform that are freaking out - they are used to seeing roadmaps and interpret silence as indifference- the old hands on the java-dev lists are more sanguine - being used to (if not happy) Apple’s (insanely) great secrecy.

On your earlier point of shipping Leopard, not because it was ready, but because they felt they had to - right on the money - there are serious known bugs in Leopard - however, most consumers won’t notice and they are working on the fixes.

Same thing happened on Tiger.

I’d classify Leopard as a great consumer release but not a great enterprise release - in particular they have made lots of changes to the server product - it probably wouldn’t be wise to deploy that until maybe 10.5.3

Java support is only one small part of that picture.

Posted 02 Nov 2007 at 11:13 am ¶
simon wrote:

You might well be right about it being newcomers to the Mac doing the freaking out. It’s hard to believe that anyone that’s been involved with Java on Mac for any length of time would have got upset like this. Having said that, there have been reports of Apple people deleting threads about Java 6 on the developer forums - people often get heated about behaviour like that.

Posted 02 Nov 2007 at 11:54 am ¶
Mr X wrote:

Apple are very hot on keeping their mailing lists high signal to noise and will take action on what they think is off topic - starting with a reminder. Bottom line this sort of speculative noise is out of place on lists which are a communication channel between developers and Apple engineers.

Wouldn’t pull it past them to pull it - but the bottom line is, as I’ve said before, it only makes sense if they have an alternative ( which they may secretly be working on ). Can’t see it being a lack of resources problem - not these days.

Posted 02 Nov 2007 at 2:03 pm ¶
simon wrote:

I don’t know what the threads are that people say are being pulled. I imagine they were threads like - Why has the Java 6 developer preview disappeared or No Java 6 in Leopard - when will it be released?. I think those would fall into the category of “FAQ”; rather than “speculative noise” And, as for resourcing not being an issue… the mythical man month notwithstanding, given that Apple has never shipped their Java in anything like a timely fashion, and given that Leopard is so late, and so buggy, is because of lack of people, I think it’s pretty likely that the Apple Java team needs more people.

Posted 03 Nov 2007 at 7:36 am ¶

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