Mac App Store without Java

[JonathanC]

@delt0r

Also as much as mac are getting a lot of mindshare they are still small fry compared to windows.

Not when one of your product’s main use cases is building iOS games. I expect our share of Mac users to grow to at least a third or 50%, if not more.

[princec]

Mac/Apple/iOS are on a rampage. Expect market share to double over the next 10 years.

Sod applets.

Cas

[Nate]

@Eli Delventhal

This sucks. The fact that I have to wait at least 5 minutes for compilation and that XCode repeatedly refuses to actually compile all changed resources (as in, it will often think an out-of-date resource is up-to-date, so you get to wait 2 minutes to clean your project before you get to wait 5 minutes) and that sometimes you just have to completely quit and reopen it, and more…

Xcode is a huge steamy pile from the early 90s, but right click -> Touch will cause it to see your changed resources.

I’ve been forced to do a lot of ObjC and I have exactly the same opinion as you. Best thing you can do is not do it.

[erikd]

@princec

Mac/Apple/iOS are on a rampage. Expect market share to double over the next 10 years.

Sod applets.

Cas

I’m afraid you’re probably right, but I’m also expecting a backlash at Apple in the next 10 years seeing how they seem to be much worse in their monopolist attitude than MS have ever been.
Apple have the benefit of the doubt because they (arguably) still have the best platforms at least from the end-user’s point of view, but they might have a hard time to keep the mindshare of the development community on their side.
I mean, they managed to convert a lot of java developers to Apple (and there are of course a LOT more java developers than Obj-C developers) and now they just show them the door without even giving them the courtesy of giving them a cup of coffee on the way out (yeah, bad pun ;))

[Gudradain]

@Eli Delventhal

fk shit fk crap.

As someone who is programming in Obj-C for at least 40 hours a week, I say fk fk.

This sucks. The fact that I have to wait at least 5 minutes for compilation and that XCode repeatedly refuses to actually compile all changed resources (as in, it will often think an out-of-date resource is up-to-date, so you get to wait 2 minutes to clean your project before you get to wait 5 minutes) and that sometimes you just have to completely quit and reopen it, and more…

fk. fk.

I hate Objective-C.

Lol. I just bought an Iphone and will probably do some coding if I feel like it. Meh… your comment turn me down a bit

[kappa]

Nice article covering Apples decision to depreciate its Java support, even mentions Minecraft as one of the last saviours of desktop Java

Apple threatens Java with death on the Mac

[Orangy_Tang]

Maybe I’m being hopelessly optimistic, but surely Oracle will want to post some kind of annoucement saying that they’ll be releasing 1.7 for mac as soon as possible. Otherwise this is going to stir up all kinds of uncertainty and push people away.

OTOH, Oracle are obviously even more server-focused than Sun, and with OSX being almost entirely a client OS maybe they just don’t care about the lack of java on that platform…

[kappa]

@Orangy Tang

Maybe I’m being hopelessly optimistic, but surely Oracle will want to post some kind of annoucement saying that they’ll be releasing 1.7 for mac as soon as possible. Otherwise this is going to stir up all kinds of uncertainty and push people away.

ha, Oracle have the most tight lipped PR marketing people ever, the don’t announce or reply to anything unless they absolutely have to. As usual they’ll just ignore this announcement and miss any chance to get some positive PR from its java developers.

[Gudradain]

The real issue here is Java development. “There are a whole hell of a lot of Java developers toting around MacBooks at the moment,”

That’s a stupid move by apple indeed. At my school we learn java and like 1/4 of the students have a Mac.

[jezek2]

Nothing unexpected there. I saw it coming from the moment they deprecated the Java Cocoa bridge. It doesn’t have to be death of Java on Mac, but for sure it’s death of naive idea (but worth noting that without trying we wouldn’t know it’s naive) of having such complex system as Java as standard provided by each OS directly. Just look at JavaScript, which uses similar model but on smaller scale (each browser provides it’s own runtime), while the language itself is (almost) identical, the APIs are not. There are many mismatchs in DOM and other things.

So generally I consider it a good thing actually, but depends on how well Oracle or community (through SoyLatte) will react. I suspect that creating native Mac Look And Feel would be quite problematic as the supporting API that is providing the ability to draw component parts is from deprecated Carbon. On the other side, Qt (which is also opensource) has native LAF on Mac, so there is fully functional example to learn from.

[Mr_Gol]

@jezek2

I suspect that creating native Mac Look And Feel would be quite problematic as the supporting API that is providing the ability to draw component parts is from deprecated Carbon. On the other side, Qt (which is also opensource) has native LAF on Mac, so there is fully functional example to learn from.

There is already the Quaqua look and feel (http://www.randelshofer.ch/quaqua/index.html) which is actually better than Apple’s own effort. The only problem will indeed be to port AWT to Cocoa.

[kappa]

interesting post from Gosling regarding the above.

[Demonpants]

@Mr_Gol

There is already the Quaqua look and feel (http://www.randelshofer.ch/quaqua/index.html) which is actually better than Apple’s own effort. The only problem will indeed be to port AWT to Cocoa.

Quaqua is not a fully self-contained look and feel. It runs on top of Apple’s Aqua Look and Feel, and provides fixes and enhancements for it.

[kappa]

Steve Jobs responds to an email about Java. Could be fake but either way its a rather lame excuse for dropping java support.

[erikd]

Still, if another JVM would actually be provided by for example Oracle, Apple is still blocking java apps on the App Store right? But would that also include games with an embedded JVM?

[delt0r]

It includes anything Apple says no too. Its not like they have been consistent with what they permit and don’t permit.

If i was a mac user right now, I would be looking at Ebay right now. Its pretty clear what direction this is going to go in. Makes the MS tax look friendly (IIRC they are asking 30%).

[kappa]

Well, Steam is on Mac now, so there is still hope for java games on at least that app store

[princec]

Well, yes, provided someone has the wherewithall to see if OpenJDK cuts it with LWJGL, anyway…

Cas

[Orangy_Tang]

Frankly I couldn’t care less about Aqua/Swing/AWT bindings, or even if the VM is bundled with the OS. Just as long as there’s a reliable and performant VM that I can throw LWJGL and a VM language over the top of.

[kappa]

@princec

Well, yes, provided someone has the wherewithall to see if OpenJDK cuts it with LWJGL, anyway…

Cas

LWJGL works fine with OpenJDK (at least on linux), only issues with OpenJDK is that it doesn’t have proper JWS and Applet support. It should be fine for bundling with an app though.