So, my MacBook is coming up on it's second birthday and it happily
runs Leopard. In my 20-year history of using Apple products, I finally
have a consistent backup of my personal data thanks to Time Machine.
It's brilliant!
My laptop is a 2.0GHz Core Duo. I find myself a tad dismayed that
because I'm an early adopter of the new MacBook line, I am unable to
run a development platform that is 17 months old. My MacBook would
have been about 6 months old had Java 6 been released on the Mac along
with other major platforms in December 2006. Additionally, beta
versions of Java 6 were out before I even purchased my MacBook.
I have to admit that I am a bit tired of being subject to Apple's
whims. As a developer, I cannot conceive of any significant technical
challenges within Java between 32 and 64 bit processors. Java 6 works
with both processors for other platforms.
If it's not a technical challenge, then it appears to be a change of
Apple's commitment to Java being a first-class development environment
of Mac OS X. This seems to be enforced by dismissive comments from
Apple's iCEO about Java on the iPhone.
My uncertainty and doubt leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I fear that
Apple's choice of silence will continue to hurt it's developers. This
smacks of behaviours more typical of Apple's competitors. While this
is speculation, without any comment from Apple, all I can do is wonder.
Unfortunately, the best thing that this public release has provided is
the convenience to discuss the current Java situation on this forum
without fear of breaking an NDA of our developer accounts.
Are we going to wait for Apple to delay Java 7 for some indeterminate
period after 10.6 is released? Only to be eventually released on a
subset of the most recent hardware that is available?
I am not so much commenting on Apple's business decisions. Apple is a
business and it has to make decisions according to what will promote
it's continued financial success. Java can be an independent project.
Ideally, I would love to see Apple release it's port of Java 6 as a
part of the Java open source initiative. If Apple has decided to focus
on other endeavours, then it should let go and allow the larger
community to aide in the development of Java as it has with projects
like Bonjour and Webkit.
Setting aside Apple's involvement, SoyLatte has made some significant
progress as an independent project but the last contribution was made
about 2 months ago. Is there continued interest in working on SoyLatte?
What I am hoping is to continue to encourage a course of action that
secures Java's future on Mac OS X at a time where there's a risk of
"close enough"-style apathy stalling what momentum has been built.
This "release" of Java 6 shouldn't be motivation to upgrade a computer
less than 2 years old.
What do you think?
Sincerely,
A Concerned Developer.
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