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Gosling Reacts To Apple's Java Deprecation
Kurofuneparry writes "Apple has announced that Java is deprecated as of the most recent update to OS X. This shot across the bow is getting some responses. To Jobs' claim that 'Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms,' James Gosling is quoted as saying that 'simply isn't true.' Much talk of a coming turf war is to be had. This certainly can't be unrelated to statements from Jobs recently covered on this website and is sure to make waves. Apple has enjoyed significant success recently accompanied by a widespread sense that they can do no wrong in business or design. However, is deprecating Java a mistake? It doesn't take much insight to connect the dots and see that Apple has starting marking friends and enemies relative to the increasingly heated fight for mobile and other platforms."
Overly-dramatic summary aside, isn't this just because the cost for Apple to support Java on OS X is greater than the benefit it provides?
The mistake isn't necessarily deprecating Java, if that is the way forward then that is the way forward. The big mistake is deprecating it without ANY concrete plans on a way forward. Corporate types hate uncertainty and Apple fails to realize this it seems. I mean we don't even know if Oracle will provide a JVM for mac, and if they do what will become of the Apple-specific technologies(such as launching with the Java application stub, using Cocoa instead of X, the Apple specific Java extensions etc.)
Where I work we use a lot of Apple Java and now we have absolutely 0 idea on whether we should invest any more in Apple at all. Buying new hardware and transitioning to a new platform is expensive, but at least the other major platforms(Windows and Linux) do at least provide some certainty as to the future of those products and the platforms they will support.
Basically Steve is treating major software platform updates the same we he treats iMac hardware updates, and that just doesn't sit well with a lot of people.
Monstar L
There are still open source equivalents of the JVM such as SoyLatte and the like. Plus, I really don't believe Gosling on this. I imagine we will be seeing an Oracle branded JVM for the mac in the next year or so. The apple audience is just too big to ignore. It won't have first class citizenship like it used to have with the OS, but then again, Apple has been gradually pushing Java to the side. Java updates have always been incredibly slow for the mac and trying to make a Java app look native takes a tremendous amount of work that sort of goes against the spirit of Java and also creates compile headaches.
This is not a big deal really.
Software developers aren't really all that important to Apple market share anymore as they have been moving toward becoming more of a source for trendy tech gadgets rather than a major force in computer driven software for some time now. They intend to phase out of computers completely as there is more money to be made with iPhones, toy tablets and other trendy gizmos. They see no future in the business world of databases, web-development and science-based applications, but rather in the end-user market phone, games and entertainment space. Apple intends not to compete with Microsoft or Linux. With OS X, their primary targets are increasingly Sony, Nitendo, Nokia, Samsung and the like.
Lets face it modern American youth are really no longer receiving the kind of educations that they would need to remain current in the computer-tech world. Jobs is just adapting to market realities and the fact he has a captive market of folks who recognize that they can't really be "cool" unless they buy Apple products.
I think Gosling is correct.
Why would Oracle care to port JVM/JDK to Mac on their own, especially now, when so many developers that used to work on Java are gone from Sun/Oracle after the buyout deal?
Actually Oracle doesn't care about Mac platform, it cares about its money making business - databases, ERP software etc. and what percentage of that runs on any Mac server exactly?
The only single reason for Oracle to care is to try and preserve more Java developers, which they probably do care about, because so many of their own products use Java. But do they really care about developers on Macs? I don't see it.
You can't handle the truth.
It's too bad; Macs really caught on at my workplace since OS-X was released. Our software targets Windows and Linux, but since we're mainly a java shop developers can run Macs on their desktops if they like, and since OS-X. almost half of them have chosen to do so; they all have 8-core power macs with 8 gigs of RAM etc. If java doesn't keep up on the Mac, OS-X won't be a viable option for us any more.
Yes they do because many of their enterprise Java GUI products run on Mac. They've also made a major commitment to JavaFX 2.0, and ignoring 20% of the desktop market would make no sense to them.
The question is whether Apple will give them their OS X Swing implementation, or whether Oracle will have to write it themselves.
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