J2EE Development on MacOSX

RyanG asks: "So I'm looking to get a new laptop and have found myself very tempted by Apple's iBook for a variety of reasons like cost, performance, size, etc. Now I know Steve Jobs once touted the Mac/OSX as the (future) premier platform for Java development but I'm curious to know what people think of it in practice? I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who work with JSPs and Servlets."

Comments

WebObjects

[Lally Singh]

Webobjects is a great development environment. It's all Java w/v5, well priced (only $99 for students, $699 for everyone else), and is finally getting some good documentation. I'm getting into it myself and I'm pretty impressed.

If you don't like WebObjects, that's fine. Tomcat runs great on OS X (and you can find a point-n-click installer on the web), and Project Builder is a good dev environment. Besides, where else can you use photoshop, illustrator, gimp, and apache all on one box?

Re:WebObjects

[Howie]

Besides, where else can you use photoshop, illustrator, gimp, and apache all on one box?

Err, Windows. Provided you can get around the brain-damaged memory-management that Photoshop and Illustrator inherited from their mac cousins ("allocate 50% of memory to this app"?).

Re:WebObjects

[Lally Singh]

Haha, forgive me. Let me add the clause that they have to work well (that includes the GIMP and apache) all on one box.. And adobe's apps won't inherit the memory problems from the classic versions.

Server Side Java Development with OS X

[jefflinwood]

Hi, I bought a Titanium G4 400 for doing exactly that. I struggled with the choice between the iBook and the TiBook for a while, but the bigger screen and G4 processor won me over. Apple supplies an IDE with the free Developer Tools for Mac OS X download. I haven't used it yet - only mucked around with it. I'm using BBEdit Lite and the Mac OS X 1.3 Java runtime and compiler. I forget if that comes with the OS or with the development tools.

A good website (and you probably already have been there) is http://developer.apple.com/java.

Here's a good overview from Apple of Developing Java Applications on OS X

Just for another point of reference though, I use the open-source Eclipse IDE on my Windows 2000 Athlon, and I love it. I'm used to developing server side Java on Windows, though. As far as I can tell, Eclipse isn't available for OS X yet. They'd have to port the SWT widget set to OS X. However, JBuilder 6 is coming out for Mac OS X, and should have the native Aqua UI.

And last, just to stoke the flames, I think a lot of the people who use Linux would benefit greatly from taking a look at Mac OS X. Go down to CompUSA or (insert-your-retailer-here) and play with the new G4 boxes. The Aqua UI will blow your mind (XP doesn't even come close).

osX for java development? you betcha.

[spike666]

i got an olde tyme powerbook g3(firewire) and its 500mhz, 256mb memory and OSX 10.1.1

first off, it works really well for development. you can run any of the all java IDEs like netbeans or forte from sun or even borland's jbuilder
i've been using jbuilder4 for a while. i had a bit of a hack getting the linux version to install, but once i did, its all straight up java 2 code, so it ran fine. (i prefer jbuilder4 since its got the ability to load in the vi editor tool from sourceforge - jvi.sourceforge.net i've got tomcat 3.2.1 and 4.0 running fine on my pb, and it all works like a champ.

i've found that the java integration into osX is outstanding. apple has made it one of the languages to code full on applications for osX with. i've got a coworker who does use the apple IDE projectBuilder to do his java development, so i know its possible. i just havent done it. i use jbuilder on NT at work, so i wanted to keep the same project files.

When OS X first came out

[DeadSea]

When OS X was released I was very excited because Mac users would soon be able to use my java programs. I went and tested what I had written and I was both very impressed and somewhat frustrated.

I was impressed because almost everything that I have written that is pure java works flawlessly. The GUIs have the nice new bubbly plastic look and feel to them and life is good. This alone is enough to make we want to use OS X as my development platform.

On the other hand I was frustrated because java programs we so hard to use. Mac OS X.1 added the ability to double click on a jar file to start a java program. Until then you had to go to the command line to start java programs. For an OS that prides itself on being GUI oriented, that is just unacceptable. There is some sort of utility to put some sort of macintosh wrapper around your java files, add and icon and make them look like a mac program. It all looks nice but it means that you will have to offer a separate mac download. That would be ok sometimes, but unfortunatly the utility is only a mac GUI program. I didn't see a way to script the process and add it to my makefile. The program also doesn't run on linux and windows which is where I do most of my builds. If there were a java port of this utility which I could run from a makefile, I would be much happier.

The other frustration I had also dealt with lack of command line support. I wanted to open a web browser but was unable to find a command line to pop up IE. I finally found some class libraries to open a browser that were hidden (not in the classpath I might add) somewhere on the machine. Getting java to work with other programs is much easier on both Linux and Windows.

Other than those couple nits, I really think OS X and java have a very bright future.

Re:When OS X first came out

[lordpixel]

Well, your options would be threefold...

Batch/Shell script - sucky on any platform, especially bad on Mac OS.

Double clickable jars - better on any platform, but most end users won't know how to use them, so a file like "How do I launch this fscking app?" would probably need to be in the distro.

As for MRJAppbuilder - its the only option (other than CodeWarrior or the ProjectBuilder IDE) that will give you that polished application. You might investigate if CodeWarrior on Linux or Windows can make Mac Java apps, but I'd guess not, and it obviously costs money.

As for MRJ app builder, its written in Java, but it might well need native code. You could certainly write the xml files required, but it uses a small binary launcher stub.

Then again, since you obviously care about user experience you should really be producing a little .exe launcher on Windows ... which would be just as difficult if you develop on Unix or Mac OS.

You might be able to build a generic launcher that will launch any java application which follows some naming convention you define (eg, make your jar be called appClasser.jar and your main class be com.myclasses.Main). Certainly this was possible on Mac OS 9 - then you wouldn't need to regenerate the launcher every time you release.

File a bug with Apple requesting a cross platform solution (developer.apple.com). You need to join up, but its free.

As for opening IE - if all you do on Windows is

Runtime.exec("iexplore.exe");
then you've just annoyed me, because you've ignored my browser preferences.

What you want is Eric Albert's BrowserLauncher... works out the user's prefered browser and works pretty much everywhere you're likely to want to be, and is free:

http://browserlauncher.sourceforge.net/

Re:When OS X first came out

[DeadSea]

There are many classes for opening the system browser. I have them listed on dmoz. I use the one I wrote.

Executable jar files are the generic solution you were looking for to launch java apps. You should just be able to double-click on them. The only thing they lack is an icon. I would have to say that Windows options for launching java programs aren't much better than macintosh, however there are several command line installer builders that I can invoke when I need to use custom windows code.