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Re: Are we still being polite about Java 6 ?

I am a Mac developer just getting into Java because I'm writing an app that needs to be cross-platform. I offer a perspective that does not suggest gloom and doom for  the future of Java on Mac OS.

Apple knows that Java does exist and is being used, which is clear from the existence of this list. I think that's relevant because, while Apple tends not to provide much notice of new technologies before they're released, they DO let us know when an existing technology is deprecated and may disappear in the future. I'm suggesting that no news is probably good news for the long term.

Also, there are some noticeable improvements in Java support with Leopard.
- As far as I can tell, previous Java templates for Xcode were mostly for a Cocoa bridge, and were identified as legacy. Now we have standard Java templates not identified as legacy.
- With Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard ), junit is automatically installed - it hadn't been before.
- Other resolved issues are documented at Java on Mac OS X v10.5 Release Notes.


On Dec 17, 2007, at 6:45 AM, Joshua Portway wrote:

Looking back through the archives it seems as if everyone on this list decided to be polite and not to discuss the matter any further. Is this still the time to be polite? As far as I can tell Apple is being unbelievably rude to thousands of developers by leaving them hanging with (as far as I can tell) absolutely no information whatsoever about the future of Java on OSX.  If anyone can point me to an announcement about this from Apple I'd be ecstatic, but as far as I can tell they have been totally silent - despite upwards of 13000 results on a search for 13949712720901ForOSX now.

Since people's livelihoods depend on having some information about Apple's policy, I find this silence unbelievably disrespectful of their developers. What justifiable reason is there to refuse to make an announcement about the matter? Either they have dropped Java or not. If they are still working on it, then any kind of announcement to that effect - even without a release date - would be enthusiastically received by tens of thousands of Java developers. If not then at least everyone can make a decision about what to do. The only reason I can think of for this silence is to try to sweep the whole affair under the rug and hope that eventually people will just give up hope and drift off without Apple very having to deal with the adverse publicity of officially announcing that they are dropping Java support. If that's the case then the livelihoods of thousands of developers is being jeopardised to avoid a marketing embarrassment - and if they're so worried about the potential reaction to an announcement that they no longer support Java then perhaps they should reconsider that decision.

I have developed on Macs since the late eighties. During that time there have been some difficult and painful moments. But at least in the past Apple generally had the decency and respect to inform developers what was going on. This whole affair has shown such a staggering disregard for developers that I really question why I should continue in this abusive relationship  - even if I'm not forced to use another platform by the absence of Java on OSX.


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References: 
 >Are we still being polite about Java 6 ? (From: Joshua Portway <email@hidden>)



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