If Apple Won’t Build It, The Community Will
The average Mac user is probably unaware of the smoldering controversy surrounding Apple’s lack of support for Java 6. In fact, I’ll hazard a guess that the average Mac user may not even know or care that Java is installed at all, but continued, first-class support for Sun’s flagship, cross-platform development and run-time environment is critical to the future of OS X — both desktop and server — in many institutions/organizations.
Not a Straight Path
The road to Java on OS X has been rocky at best. Eric Burke has created a definitive timeline comparing Sun’s Java releases with Apple’s Java releases and does an admirable job justifying Apple’s release strategy to-date, but the fact remains that Java on OS X has lagged behind its Windows, Linux and Solaris counterparts. It may be prettier and better integrated with the desktop experience, but it has suffered — at times — from performance issues and lack of features that have fostered many heated threads in the Java community.
It’s About the Developers
Even with these issues, you can find hundreds of well-maintained Java apps that take advantage of OS X on Apple’s download site, Version Tracker and MacUpdate (as well as other aggregate listing sites). Why? — because Java has a huge developer following, is used as the primary teaching language in a large percentage of schools and (anticipates much feedback in the comments as I write this) is much easier to develop programs in than other languages.
It’s no secret that Apple has touted Objective-C as the language de rigueur for OS X, and I suspect that part of the reason for the lack of Java 6 support in Leopard is due to the focus on enhancements in Objective-C (including some that make it more Java-like), Xcode and the inclusion of new debugging and performance analysis tools. However, Java 6 has some enhancements of its own, including major performance improvements, GUI toolkit updates and the ability to interface with the same debugging/performance back-end Apple is utilizing. In fact, Java 6 seemed like a no-brainer to be included in Leopard, or at least shortly thereafter. Developers who have been focusing on taking advantage of these latest improvements in the Java platform are more likely to keep focusing their efforts there since they then have the ability to deploy the results of those efforts on multiple platforms (except, of course, Apple’s).
It’s About the Enterprise
Lack of Apple-backed support for Java 6 will also slow or halt the adoption of OS X in the enterprise. While PHP and Ruby are all the rage with the Web 2.0 intelligentsia, Java remains the backbone of corporate web application development. If Apple wants to ensure continued adoption of OS X server (and desktop) at businesses they must show a commitment to the full Java roadmap and keep current with platform releases. Any sign of wavering support will kill current adoption and prevent further investment — at least in the short term — in Apple technologies for Java applications.
It’s About the Community
The education/research community has been adopting OS X since the early releases and Apple itself showcased scientific development on OS X at the 2007 WWDC. It’s extremely important to ensure that OS X meets the needs of this group of users and yet Apple has not made one of the core components available to them.
Thankfully, rather than abandon the platform completely, the community — led by Landon Fuller — has done what Apple has failed to and is set to release an open source, independently built version, based on the BSD port of Java 6, in the near future (preview releases are available now). The GUI won’t be as integrated as Apple’s official releases have been and there will be some rough spots as they work out all the kinks, but it’s great to see developers take the initiative and do what Apple will not.
This work is only possible due to the open source underpinnings of OS X and the hard work of a number of very smart people dedicated to running their applications on Apple technologies. Apple should take heed from this community effort and finalize their Java 6 release as soon as possible, then get to work on adding Java support for the iPhone (one of the easiest ways to enable secure/sandboxed application development/deployment).
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#1 Connor says:JAVA is not the backbone of all of corporate. Most people in the DC Metro area that I work with are using C# or VB still. People wite some nice little apps with JAVA but most of those are fine with pre 6 releases. The major Mac network being installed and operated locally won’t care either.
#2 tycho says:OK, flame me for being ’slightly’ off-topic but, please, this article is about language, the word appears three times. If you do not adhere to the rules of grammar, in any programming language, you’ll get an error and no result.
English is somewhat more forgiving, which is why - I guess - we’ve all become a little sloppy when it comes to grammar. Nonetheless, I’d really love to see just one article, anywhere, with the correct usage of its and it’s.
It’s become something of a plague, with almost every article unable to show that its author got it right!
#3 Josh Pigford says:@tycho: Lets be honest. You’re being a bit sensationalist and, as you said, off-topic. If you’ve got feedback regarding the blog, contact us. Otherwise, please keep your comments in line with the article topic.
#4 MandeBooks says:At the company I work at we use Java within our enterprise environment. However even on the Windows side the only fully supported version of java is 1.4.2. How is Java 6 supposed to make developers change what they are doing in the enterprise if most enterprise systems still barely support Java 5? New stuff is great, but you have to go with what all - not just windows or mac, customers can use.
#5 Bob Klemperer says:Yawn. Java 6 will appear in it’s own good time for Leopard. There are more immediate concerns that need to be addressed currently.
#6 James Bailey says:The fact remains that Java on the Mac has lagged because Sun doesn’t support it on OS X like it does on Windows, Linux and Solaris. Apple doesn’t get the source until late in the game while the other major OS distributions are all updated at the same time.
Recently Apple has indicated that they are becoming less than enamored of this situation with Steve Jobs making some pretty strong indications that Apple doesn’t want to support Java any longer.
Java 7 is going to be completely open source under a gnu license. This solves the problem nicely. Any developers concerned about lagging OS X support can do it themselves.
#7 Angsuman Chakraborty says:This is a great community effort. JDK 1.6 provides tremendous improvements over earlier versions in functionality and performance. Now Apple developers will finally be able to use it too.
Sun should also promote this effort.
BTW: Despite my respect for Steve’s ingenuity I think he is making a wrong decision is slowing or abandoning Java support in future versions of OS X.
#8 MandeBooks says:There have been no announcements of Java support being slowed or abandoned in future versions of OS X. The fact that Java 6 wasn’t released at the exact same time as Leopard is consistent with past OS and Java releases.
#9 Stephen says:This post is very overblown. I work in Enterprise and work with some Java apps. I think you need to consider two things.
1) There is a multitude of Java apps that do not work on 1.6 Java, like some we run. In fact Vista users need to downgrade to 1.5 to use them. We were very happy Apple did not cram the latest Java into Leopard.
2) Apple could very easily and quickly update OS X to include a Java update, like they have dome several times in the past.
Offending some Java developers is better than dealing with many Java apps crashing and burning for users. I think Apple will deliver the latest Java when it is percolated correctly for most apps.
#10 James A Dempsey says:The real “fact” is that Java apps pretty much suck on the OSX platform, so there really is no need, want or desire for Apple to keep up with it.
If developers would/could make even a half-decent app for OSX using Java, I’m sure the community would get behind the Java movement more. As it is, most of the Java apps are luck just to launch - and I doubt that has anything to do with the OS.
#11 ThunkDifferent.com says:iThink i remember Steve saying in last years keynote (may 2006) that Java is going to be history as far as the OSX goes. iT is not suported in many cases.
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