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Re: Java on Leopard report

At 17:10 -0700 26/10/07, Greg Guerin <email@hidden> wrote: 

How is it not technical that when I want to develop to the same environment
(Java6) that all the other developers in my office are using and we are
running on our production servers that my Mac becomes so much decorative
baggage? Sounds like a technical failing to me.


The technical failing you mention is rooted in a policy decision.  There
are no technical solutions that can effect a change in business policies.

There are technical work-arounds, such as porting OpenJDK or using
Parallels, or policy work-arounds, such as not using a Mac, or alternative
business decisions, such as waiting to see what happens on Leopard, but
those are different animals entirely.

To a large extent it depends on what exactly the problem you're trying to solve is. You seem to be assuming the problem is "write this application so it works on a Mac", in which case asking "what technical issues are there that prevent you using 1.5?" is a valid response. However, the issue I and William and no doubt many others are facing is a different one: we're developers working as part of a larger team or for a large organisation, currently dominated by Windows, Linux or Solaris. We're perhaps working on project which is mandated by OTHERS to use Java 1.6 and the goals we have are threefold:

a) be able to do our development on a Mac Book Pro rather than having to buy an Ubuntu laptop or dual boot every 5 minutes,
b) raise awareness of Mac within the organisation as a whole so they might consider using things like XServes, Mac OS X Server - or at the very least ensuring their public web site works properly with Safari
c) evangelise Macs to our co-developers and other colleagues so they might consider buying one for themselves, their kids, or recommend them on further to THEIR friends and families.

I wouldn't pretend to know what Apple's strategic objectives are with respect to Java but on the surface at least all of these would appear to be beneficial to Apple's interests, that's what makes all this so frustrating. We love using Macs for development, and want to promote them as widely as possible.

In the Developer's Technical Guide to Effective Complaining, the first rule
is "Complain to an appropriate audience."

Currently I guess we have a number of options, either give up and switch to Linux, leave and find another job, or make ourselves unpopular or the subject of ridicule by trying to force everyone else to use a different version of java just to suit us. You're implying this situation is perfectly ok and normal and we should simply accept it rather than striving for a better solution. Yes, they're all viable options, if we have no other choice, but the preferred solution from all our points of view is for Apple to put a bit more effort into getting Java 6 out, or at least communicating their plans better. Hence the appropriate audience for our complaints *is* Apple.

And yes, I understand this is a developer mailing list designed for technical issues so I do feel guilty for adding yet more noise here, but it's one of the very few channels of communication to Apple we have open to us. I hope the JDK development team at Apple read this list, and I assume some of them at least are involved in the management discussions about development priorities, so I don't think it's totally irrational to raise these issues here.

If it was up to me personally, I'd be more than happy to stick to Java 1.5 (or even 1.4.2) for development. Come to that, there's not an awful lot you can't do in 1.1 if you put your mind to it! You don't win many arguments as to the superiority of the Mac as a development platform if you talk like that though.

-Rolf

PS. Suggesting we stick to Tiger and use 1.6 there isn't really an option either since Apple yanked the developer preview.
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