Bill Janssen wrote:
>To me, it seems that Java 1.5 is supported on MacOS X 10.4 for the
>purpose of development, but not for the purpose of deployment.
End-users can download and install J2SE 5.0. They do it in exactly the
same way that developers do.
>If I write a Python application for 10.4, I can assume that Python 2.3 is
>available on my customer's machine.
But why are you assuming the customer has 10.4? What if they have 10.3 or
10.2?
Even if you assume 10.4, maybe an uber-geek customer has a modified version
of Python that conflicts with your assumption of 2.3.
Exactly what is at the heart of the conflict here? Assumptions.
This all comes down to assumptions and assumed implications.
Some people want to assume that 10.4 implies J2SE 5.0. It doesn't.
The problem is not that it's unsupported or unavailable. It is.
The problem is that the assumption of one thing (OS version) doesn't
necessarily imply another thing (Java version). It's annoying not to have
the implication, but reality is frequently annoying in its implications.
>In the real world, I can't distribute Mac applications
>that use Java 1.5.
I can. I start by listing J2SE 5.0 in the requirements section of the
download page, with a link to Apple's download URL.
You could write an applet for your download page that shows the current JVM
version used by the browser, which may help show the user whether they need
to install J2SE 5.0, but I would not rely on. There are browsers that
won't use 5.0 even if it's available, so it might just muddy rather than
clarify.
However, you can definitely write an opening-sentinel (an alternate main)
that checks the JVM version and either runs the normal 5.0-main() by
dynamic loading or reflection, or tells the user how to remedy the
omission. The sentinel has to be compatible with an earlier JVM, but it's
completely reusable code, so write it once for 1.4 or 1.3 (or even 1.1) and
reuse it for every app where JVM-version confirmation has to occur. It
would seem to be a small investment with ongoing payoffs, and not just on
Mac OS X.
And JNLP gives you additional options, because you can tailor jars and
other resources by the actual J2SE version present on the target client.
-- GG
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