Is it possible to install older JDK versions side by side with the one
that ships with the OS?
No, it is not. Occasionally, older versions stay around, but
consider them installation cruft, rather than an older version you
can use for things.
In essence, Apple supports a single release of 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 on
Tiger at any one time. There are currently developer builds of a new
release of 1.5 on the ADC site (free, registration required). This
release takes them towards the long term goal of having 1.5 be the
default VM, so it does behoove developers to download and test that
new release for showstoppers.
Apple has not said when they will support 1.6, but they are a Java
licensee, and they clearly are putting time and money into Java right
now, so I expect we will see support sometime after Sun's release of
for 1.6, currently forecast for third quarter 2006. I rather hope
the delay is short - JDBC 4 is cool.
They have also said that they want to drop 1.3 support at some point,
and I suspect they would prefer not to have to carry on 1.4 as well -
older releases do take engineering effort to keep working. That
said, no date for such support ending has ever been stated. I would
not want to bet against Leopard, the release of MacOS X targeted for
late this year, or early next.
Actually, is the JRE installed with the OS a full JDK at all?
It is, but it is missing the documentation and source code. That
comes with the developer documentation install.
Scott
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