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Getting started with Java on a Mac

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  Getting started with Java on a Mac Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> - 2012-01-13 09:41 -0500
    Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-01-13 09:04 -0800
    Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Jim Gibson <jimsgibson@gmail.com> - 2012-01-13 10:01 -0800
      Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> - 2012-01-13 13:26 -0500
        Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Jim Gibson <jimsgibson@gmail.com> - 2012-01-13 16:11 -0800
          Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> - 2012-01-16 13:48 -0500
          Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> - 2012-01-16 20:24 -0500
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-16 21:20 -0500
              Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> - 2012-01-17 05:33 -0500
                Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> - 2012-01-17 11:30 -0800
                  Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-17 17:34 -0500
                Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-17 17:32 -0500
              Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2012-01-19 13:09 +0000
                Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-19 08:35 -0800
                  Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-19 19:08 -0500
                Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-19 19:05 -0500
                  Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2012-01-20 21:50 +0000
                    Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-20 21:15 -0500
                  Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac rossum <rossum48@coldmail.com> - 2012-01-21 17:44 +0000
                    Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-21 15:59 -0500
        Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-01-13 16:43 -0800
      Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> - 2012-01-13 16:58 -0800
        Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-14 22:46 -0500
      Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-01-13 23:12 -0400
        Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Peter Duniho <NpOeStPeAdM@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> - 2012-01-13 20:13 -0800
          Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Gene <gene.ressler@gmail.com> - 2012-01-13 20:47 -0800
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Peter Duniho <NpOeStPeAdM@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> - 2012-01-13 23:16 -0800
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> - 2012-01-13 23:56 -0800
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-14 11:17 -0800
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-14 22:52 -0500
          Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-01-14 11:00 -0400
            Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2012-01-14 22:30 -0500
      Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-01-14 22:45 -0500
    Re: Getting started with Java on a Mac "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2012-01-13 22:29 -0500

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#11315

On 1/13/2012 10:26 AM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:
...
> It's been 10-12 years since I've used Perl, one of the "potential"
> applications is 3D rotation in plotting points from a text file.  Currently
> one of the guys at work is using Matlab for that, I was hoping for something
> a little simpler.
>

If the problem domain is matrix arithmetic and plotting, I am not at all
sure Java is simpler than Matlab.

Patricia

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#11316

In article <130120121001312844%jimsgibson@gmail.com>, Jim Gibson says...

> Java will run on a Mac, but is not well supported. Java is (or was)
> provided by Apple, but the version often lagged, and they have
> announced dropping support for Java. 

They did, but then they announced that they will support Java going 
forward.

The main issue you may need to deal with is that the Java VM version is 
typically tied to a specific version of OS X.


-- 
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
sjsobol@JustThe.net

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#11329

On 1/13/2012 7:58 PM, Steve Sobol wrote:
> In article<130120121001312844%jimsgibson@gmail.com>, Jim Gibson says...
>> Java will run on a Mac, but is not well supported. Java is (or was)
>> provided by Apple, but the version often lagged, and they have
>> announced dropping support for Java.
>
> They did, but then they announced that they will support Java going
> forward.

They donated code to OpenJDK - OpenJDK will support
moving forward.

Download link posted in another post.

Arne

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#11318

On 12-01-13 02:01 PM, Jim Gibson wrote:
> In article <0001HW.CB35ACBC000174A4B038C9DF@news.panix.com>, Wayne
> Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> wrote:
> 
>> I've been looking for a programming language to help me write tools to do 
>> stuff.  For example generate 2-D plots from CSV or text files.  C++ can do 
>> that (and more) but there's a lot more overhead and maintenance that that 
>> requires.  In the past I've used Tcl/Tk for that kind of task but that seems 
>> to be dying<sniff>, Excel with Visual Basic can do most of that but not so 
>> much on the Mac.
>>
>> I have a book "Core Jave" by Sun but I'm at a loss on how to start Java on my 
>> Mac.  Is there any help for this noob?
>>
> 
> Java will run on a Mac, but is not well supported.

I'm not advocating Java for the OP's requirements, but I think it's a
bit of a stretch to say that Java on Mac OS X isn't/hasn't been well
supported. I'm running 1.6.0_29 on my MacBook right now, and that came
out for Mac OS X only a few weeks after the update release for other
platforms. It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.

Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.

> Java is (or was)
> provided by Apple, but the version often lagged, and they have
> announced dropping support for Java. You will then depend upon Oracle
> or some other party providing a Mac version:
> 
> <http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/11/12Oracle-and-Apple-Announce-Ope
> nJDK-Project-for-Mac-OS-X.html>

No, Apple is not dropping support for Java. Apple is contributing to
OpenJDK, AFAIK.

> Eclipse is available, so you might want to use that, although there
> will be a bit of a learning curve.
> 
> I use a combination of Perl and gnuplot to generate 2D plots from CSV
> or text files on a Mac. Since you are coming from Tcl/Tk, maybe picking
> up Perl wouldn't be too hard.
> 
Well, I used Perl intensively back in the early and mid-90's, and I
still have a pathological, masochistic fondness for it. I dunno as how
I'd nominate it as a first choice; Ruby support on Mac OS X is quite
good, and that's worth looking at.

AHS

-- 
...wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their
own government...
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1789

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#11320

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:45 -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:

> [...] It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
> going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
> Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.
> 
> Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
> AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
> anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
> things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.

My experience with Java and the Mac is not as extensive as yours, going
back only five years.  But I'd say that given that Apple's Java on the Mac
was still stuck at 1.5 when 1.7 was on the verge of release, there's
justification for considering Java on the Mac to be lagging.  Note also the
problem that on other platforms you can update to the latest Java easily,
while on the Mac (at least historically) the only way to get the latest
Java release was to buy the latest OS version as well.

Maybe with the OpenJDK stuff, Java on the Mac will become less-proprietary,
more up-to-date, etc.  And I'd certainly agree that Java development on the
Mac is viable, even if the API lags behind the rest of the world.  But I'd
definitely not call Apple's support of Java on the Mac "very good".  I
wouldn't even call it close to that.

Pete

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#11321

On Jan 14, 5:13 am, Peter Duniho <NpOeStPe...@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:45 -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
> > [...] It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
> > going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
> > Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.
>
> > Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
> > AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
> > anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
> > things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.
>
> My experience with Java and the Mac is not as extensive as yours, going
> back only five years.  But I'd say that given that Apple's Java on the Mac
> was still stuck at 1.5 when 1.7 was on the verge of release, there's
> justification for considering Java on the Mac to be lagging.  Note also the
> problem that on other platforms you can update to the latest Java easily,
> while on the Mac (at least historically) the only way to get the latest
> Java release was to buy the latest OS version as well.
>
> Maybe with the OpenJDK stuff, Java on the Mac will become less-proprietary,
> more up-to-date, etc.  And I'd certainly agree that Java development on the
> Mac is viable, even if the API lags behind the rest of the world.  But I'd
> definitely not call Apple's support of Java on the Mac "very good".  I
> wouldn't even call it close to that.

It's something like a red herring to say Apple support for Java is
this or that.  Certainly Microsoft provides less support under
Windows.  Ditto for Linux.  Apple is unique in embracing Java at all.

Moreover, Apple's policy of associating a Java release with each OS X
release is a more sane lifecycle management strategy than the once-
every-two-months routine release of the JVM/JDK.  Ask any Windows user
who runs it what they think of the Java update daemon!  If developers
don't appreciate the stability that the Apple policy affords, users
certainly do.  And guys/gals...users are more important.

In all, the policy of frequent releases seems for more than 15 years
to have fostered a Java culture of half-baked architectures and
okayness with bugs a la amateur night.  Ultimately, this is why Java
has never reached the tipping point as a web dynamic content
mechanism.  What a shame...  Java could have been Flash.  And the
world would have been a better place.

Upshot: If Oracle ultimately makes an annual, high quality Java
release for all platforms, life is going to be better for everyone
than the current ad hoc mish mosh.

Just an opinion...

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#11322

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:47:20 -0800 (PST), Gene wrote:

> It's something like a red herring to say Apple support for Java is
> this or that.  Certainly Microsoft provides less support under
> Windows.  Ditto for Linux.  Apple is unique in embracing Java at all.

It's not a red herring at all.  It's entirely germane to the question of
using the Mac as a Java development platform.  Whether you think Apple is
justified or not does not change the facts of the situation.

Not that it's important, but I don't happen to share your view of Apple's
motivations.  It's true that they are relatively rare in that they took
ownership of Java support on their platform, but I see that as more a
consequence of need related to their own business priorities, not any sort
of commendable contribution to the Java cause.  I'd hardly say they
"embraced" Java.  Their support of it seems more begrudging than anything
else.

> Moreover, Apple's policy of associating a Java release with each OS X
> release is a more sane lifecycle management strategy than the once-
> every-two-months routine release of the JVM/JDK.  Ask any Windows user
> who runs it what they think of the Java update daemon!  If developers
> don't appreciate the stability that the Apple policy affords, users
> certainly do.  And guys/gals...users are more important.

Boy, talk about red herrings.  User's don't need to run the Java updater at
all if they don't want to, and whatever you think about the updater, I find
it much more likely that Apple's choice about tying Java version to OS X
version has to do with forcing user upgrades than about "lifecycle
management strategy".

In any case, again...whether the policy is sensible or not is irrelevant.
The policy is what it is, and it _does_ have a negative effect on those
trying to use Java on the Mac.

> In all, the policy of frequent releases seems for more than 15 years
> to have fostered a Java culture of half-baked architectures and
> okayness with bugs a la amateur night.  Ultimately, this is why Java
> has never reached the tipping point as a web dynamic content
> mechanism.  What a shame...  Java could have been Flash.  And the
> world would have been a better place.

Speculative at best.  And you're ignoring the fact that Java has broad
deplyment across the computer industry.  Who cares whether it's "reached
the tipping point as a web dynamic content mechanism"?  The same thing can
be said about any number of other programming platforms; it's not a real
criticism, and there's no evidence that Java really _should_ be the
standard "web dynamic content mechanism".

Personally, I find the culture of "half-baked" to prevail in all variety of
programming enterprises, regardless of language, platform, or even whether
the software is proprietary or open-source.  Most people are sloppy, and
that's human nature.  It's not a Java thing.

Heck, one of the biggest criticisms of Flash is that it seems (at least at
times) "half-baked".  So whatever the reason for Java not making it in the
role you see Flash in today, it's not because of any half-bakedness, since
that's obviously not a real impediment.

> Upshot: If Oracle ultimately makes an annual, high quality Java
> release for all platforms, life is going to be better for everyone
> than the current ad hoc mish mosh.
> 
> Just an opinion...

Well, Apple will still be closely guarding their "look and feel".  I'd be
surprised if they just hand over ownership of Java on the Mac to Oracle
outright.

Other than that, I don't disagree with the general sentiment.  Having
uniform development across all platforms would be great.  But I doubt
Oracle has the resources to implement and maintain Java across a large
number of platforms.  And even if they do, who knows whether they'd do as
good a job on each platform as someone with a stronger commitment to that
platform might do.

Pete

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#11323

In article <ed8675a2-15da-4cb5-8bc0-0446ecaa9500
@d10g2000vbh.googlegroups.com>, Gene says...


> It's something like a red herring to say Apple support for Java is
> this or that.  Certainly Microsoft provides less support under
> Windows.  Ditto for Linux.  Apple is unique in embracing Java at all.

Here's the thing. 

Java support for GDI+, the Windows window manager, and support for GTK, 
are provided by the JVM's supplied by Oracle. 

Java support for Cocoa, the Mac OS window manager, is provided by Apple. 
They also bake some support for other OS X-specific features into their 
JVM.

Why it worked out that way, I don't know, but that's the way it is.


> In all, the policy of frequent releases seems for more than 15 years
> to have fostered a Java culture of half-baked architectures and
> okayness with bugs a la amateur night.  Ultimately, this is why Java
> has never reached the tipping point as a web dynamic content
> mechanism.  What a shame...  Java could have been Flash.  And the
> world would have been a better place.

Java is just fine when used on the back end of a website. I think you're 
referring to JavaFX here, which was never releveant.

> Upshot: If Oracle ultimately makes an annual, high quality Java
> release for all platforms, life is going to be better for everyone
> than the current ad hoc mish mosh.

In the case of OS X, I'm not sure that Oracle has a choice.
 

-- 
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
sjsobol@JustThe.net

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#11326

On 01/13/2012 08:47 PM, Gene wrote:
> On Jan 14, 5:13 am, Peter Duniho<NpOeStPe...@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com>  wrote:
>> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:45 -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
>>> [...] It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
>>> going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
>>> Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.
>>
>>> Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
>>> AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
>>> anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
>>> things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.
>>
>> My experience with Java and the Mac is not as extensive as yours, going
>> back only five years.  But I'd say that given that Apple's Java on the Mac
>> was still stuck at 1.5 when 1.7 was on the verge of release, there's
>> justification for considering Java on the Mac to be lagging.  Note also the
>> problem that on other platforms you can update to the latest Java easily,
>> while on the Mac (at least historically) the only way to get the latest
>> Java release was to buy the latest OS version as well.
>>
>> Maybe with the OpenJDK stuff, Java on the Mac will become less-proprietary,
>> more up-to-date, etc.  And I'd certainly agree that Java development on the
>> Mac is viable, even if the API lags behind the rest of the world.  But I'd
>> definitely not call Apple's support of Java on the Mac "very good".  I
>> wouldn't even call it close to that.
>
> It's something like a red herring to say Apple support for Java is
> this or that.  Certainly Microsoft provides less support under
> Windows.  Ditto for Linux.  Apple is unique in embracing Java at all.

Linux supports Java just fine, at least some distros.  OTOH, saying that 
"Linux supports <?>" is a bit of an oxymoron.

Regardless, here in Ubuntu you just "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" and your Java 
is updated to the latest stable release for Ubuntu. It's hardly required to 
support it any more than that, since that's how Ubuntu supports literally 
everything it's meaningful to say it supports.

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg

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#11330

On 1/13/2012 11:47 PM, Gene wrote:
> On Jan 14, 5:13 am, Peter Duniho<NpOeStPe...@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com>  wrote:
>> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:45 -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
>>> [...] It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
>>> going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
>>> Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.
>>
>>> Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
>>> AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
>>> anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
>>> things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.
>>
>> My experience with Java and the Mac is not as extensive as yours, going
>> back only five years.  But I'd say that given that Apple's Java on the Mac
>> was still stuck at 1.5 when 1.7 was on the verge of release, there's
>> justification for considering Java on the Mac to be lagging.  Note also the
>> problem that on other platforms you can update to the latest Java easily,
>> while on the Mac (at least historically) the only way to get the latest
>> Java release was to buy the latest OS version as well.
>>
>> Maybe with the OpenJDK stuff, Java on the Mac will become less-proprietary,
>> more up-to-date, etc.  And I'd certainly agree that Java development on the
>> Mac is viable, even if the API lags behind the rest of the world.  But I'd
>> definitely not call Apple's support of Java on the Mac "very good".  I
>> wouldn't even call it close to that.
>
> It's something like a red herring to say Apple support for Java is
> this or that.  Certainly Microsoft provides less support under
> Windows.  Ditto for Linux.  Apple is unique in embracing Java at all.

No.

IBM support Java on z/OS.
IBM support Java on i.
IBM support Java on AIX.
HP support Java on HP-UX.
HP support Java on OpenVMS.
SUN/Oracle support Java on Solaris.

This is the Java model. The OS vendor support Java
for their platform.

It was even supposed to be the case for Windows, but SUN
and MS ended up in court and MS stopped developing Java/non-Java.


> Moreover, Apple's policy of associating a Java release with each OS X
> release is a more sane lifecycle management strategy than the once-
> every-two-months routine release of the JVM/JDK.  Ask any Windows user
> who runs it what they think of the Java update daemon!

They probably like that Java behaves similar to Windows itself,
AcrobatReader, Flash, FireFox, ThunderBird etc..

Automatic updating is standard today.


> In all, the policy of frequent releases seems for more than 15 years
> to have fostered a Java culture of half-baked architectures and
> okayness with bugs a la amateur night.  Ultimately, this is why Java
> has never reached the tipping point as a web dynamic content
> mechanism.  What a shame...  Java could have been Flash.  And the
> world would have been a better place.
>
> Upshot: If Oracle ultimately makes an annual, high quality Java
> release for all platforms, life is going to be better for everyone
> than the current ad hoc mish mosh.
>
> Just an opinion...

Given that it is typical security fixes that drive the release
of Java updates, then updating once a year would be a complete
disaster.

Arne

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#11324

On 12-01-14 12:13 AM, Peter Duniho wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:45 -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
> 
>> [...] It's been my experience for years (and I've used Java on Macs
>> going back to when Java appeared) that Apple support for Java on Classic
>> Mac and Mac OS X has been very good.
>>
>> Granted I am not a Java GUI guy, I may have written half a dozen trivial
>> AWT or Swing apps ever in over a decade, and most of them not on a Mac
>> anyway, so there could be some cruftiness when it comes to that side of
>> things, but overall Mac Java support is very good. IMO.
> 
> My experience with Java and the Mac is not as extensive as yours, going
> back only five years.  But I'd say that given that Apple's Java on the Mac
> was still stuck at 1.5 when 1.7 was on the verge of release, there's
> justification for considering Java on the Mac to be lagging.  Note also the
> problem that on other platforms you can update to the latest Java easily,
> while on the Mac (at least historically) the only way to get the latest
> Java release was to buy the latest OS version as well.
> 
> Maybe with the OpenJDK stuff, Java on the Mac will become less-proprietary,
> more up-to-date, etc.  And I'd certainly agree that Java development on the
> Mac is viable, even if the API lags behind the rest of the world.  But I'd
> definitely not call Apple's support of Java on the Mac "very good".  I
> wouldn't even call it close to that.
> 
> Pete

OK, OK, maybe I was in a really charitable mood when I wrote my first
reply. I'll revise my opinion and say that I think Apple support for
Java has been good, and sometimes very good.

It hasn't been just 1.5->1.6 that exhibited a delay, the other jumps
(1.3->1.4, 1.4->1.5) have been like that too. I believe that there is a
developer base that is relatively unconcerned about this (like me), and
that's server-side folks who see their product ultimately deploy on
Windows or Solaris or Linux against an older JVM from Sun (now Oracle)
or IBM or BEA (now Oracle). Not many "enterprise" clients upgrade their
infrastructure so quick either.

I have to acknowledge that Mac Java developers who want to write
consumer-type GUI software didn't pick the best platform for it.
Although I personally believe that anyone who "needs" the latest Java
the day it comes out has misplaced priorities, it's not my place to say,
I'm not a writer of consumer GUI apps. So if such a person is wedded to
the Mac (for other good reasons) but needs the latest Java, they'd best
use a VM. And quite frankly a lot of professional developers using Macs
do use VMs anyway. I know I do. So it's a moot point actually. Given
that the VMs are so good it's a wonder that Apple didn't throw in the
towel for Java support a long time ago.

Apple does have different priorities, like linking major Java upgrades
to their major OS upgrades. I can see reasons for that, without being an
Apple fanboi.

AHS
-- 
...wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their
own government...
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1789

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#11327

In article <IMgQq.9$744.2@newsfe10.iad>,
 Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> wrote:
[...]
> It hasn't been just 1.5->1.6 that exhibited a delay, the other jumps 
> (1.3->1.4, 1.4->1.5) have been like that too. I believe that there is 
> a developer base that is relatively unconcerned about this (like me), 
> and that's server-side folks who see their product ultimately deploy 
> on Windows or Solaris or Linux against an older JVM from Sun (now 
> Oracle) or IBM or BEA (now Oracle). Not many "enterprise" clients 
> upgrade their infrastructure so quick either.

Apple sometimes makes pre-release versions available to developers 
under the terms of a license that limits disclosures.

> I have to acknowledge that Mac Java developers who want to write 
> consumer-type GUI software didn't pick the best platform for it.

Supporting cross-platform Swing applications has improved my 
understanding of layouts and the UI delegate's role in calculating 
preferred size, among other things.

> Although I personally believe that anyone who "needs" the latest Java 
> the day it comes out has misplaced priorities, it's not my place to 
> say, I'm not a writer of consumer GUI apps. So if such a person is 
> wedded to the Mac (for other good reasons) but needs the latest Java, 
> they'd best use a VM. And quite frankly a lot of professional 
> developers using Macs do use VMs anyway. I know I do. So it's a moot 
> point actually. Given that the VMs are so good it's a wonder that 
> Apple didn't throw in the towel for Java support a long time ago.

Oracle's VirtualBox is a good example.

[...]
-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

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#11328

On 1/13/2012 1:01 PM, Jim Gibson wrote:
> In article<0001HW.CB35ACBC000174A4B038C9DF@news.panix.com>, Wayne
> Dernoncourt<wayned@panix.com>  wrote:
>
>> I've been looking for a programming language to help me write tools to do
>> stuff.  For example generate 2-D plots from CSV or text files.  C++ can do
>> that (and more) but there's a lot more overhead and maintenance that that
>> requires.  In the past I've used Tcl/Tk for that kind of task but that seems
>> to be dying<sniff>, Excel with Visual Basic can do most of that but not so
>> much on the Mac.
>>
>> I have a book "Core Jave" by Sun but I'm at a loss on how to start Java on my
>> Mac.  Is there any help for this noob?
>>
>
> Java will run on a Mac, but is not well supported. Java is (or was)
> provided by Apple, but the version often lagged, and they have
> announced dropping support for Java. You will then depend upon Oracle
> or some other party providing a Mac version:
>
> <http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/11/12Oracle-and-Apple-Announce-Ope
> nJDK-Project-for-Mac-OS-X.html>

In the end Apple turned over the relevant code to OpenJDK,
so OpenJDK is Java for MacOS X from 1.7+.

It is still preview not GA, but you can get it here:

http://jdk7.java.net/macportpreview/

Arne

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#11319

In article <0001HW.CB35ACBC000174A4B038C9DF@news.panix.com>,
 Wayne Dernoncourt <wayned@panix.com> wrote:

> I've been looking for a programming language to help me write tools 
> to do stuff.  For example generate 2-D plots from CSV or text files.  
> C++ can do that (and more) but there's a lot more overhead and 
> maintenance that that requires.  In the past I've used Tcl/Tk for 
> that kind of task but that seems to be dying<sniff>, Excel with 
> Visual Basic can do most of that but not so much on the Mac.

You might look at JFreeChart [1], especially the Web Start demo [2] and 
these examples [3, 4].

[1] <http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/>
[2] <http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/samples.html>
[3] <http://stackoverflow.com/q/5522575/230513>
[4] <http://stackoverflow.com/q/5048852/230513>

> I have a book "Core Jave" by Sun but I'm at a loss on how to start Java on my 
> Mac.  Is there any help for this noob?

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

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