5 ms·

Not surprising at all, given the rise and fall of Java as a first class citizen on OSX (remember how first-party Java support was touted as a huge feature in th

by 0x0 10y ago

Not surprising at all, given the rise and fall of Java as a first class citizen on OSX (remember how first-party Java support was touted as a huge feature in the first OSX releases) and then also OSX Server (which, once the OS of choice for running file, mail, web servers on Xserves, has been relegated to be an appstore .app that mostly seems to be useful for running xcode ios build bots on mac minis)

coldtea 10y ago
>Not surprising at all, given the rise and fall of Java as a first class citizen on OSX And not only on OSX -- generally the rise and fall of Java. In late nineties "Java Applets" (+ the web plugin) were supposed to go big. Never happened. Then there was always the promise of Java on the consumer desktop. Never happened either [1]. Java on the enterprise desktop also didn't fare that well. As for startups and smaller companies, the mostly go with Ruby/RoR, Python, Node, Go, PHP, etc. Nowadays it's just mainly Java on the enterprise server. [1] Yeah, I know you can name 5 somewhat successful desktop Java apps. I doubt you can name 50 though, and that's the whole point.
- dhimes 10y ago
  I can name two that never sold very well. I built them :(
- jmfayard 10y ago
  Actually the java-everywhere thing worked out pretty well, but Oracle is suing the OS that made that idea comes true.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Java-everywhere wasn't about a single platform with Java being everywhere, it was about Java being on every platform.
    - jmfayard 10y ago
      we are in a winner-takes-most world so the first strategy beats the second one every single day
      - coldtea 10y ago
        I'm not so sure about that. Microsoft for example is a winner in desktop space, but they don't get most of the server, nor most of the mobile. And even their desktop profits are not that great. And Android is a winner on the marketshare front, but its profits (from all makers, Google, Samsung, etc) combined are at best equal to Apple's which has 1/3 to 1/10 the market share (depending on the country).
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  Based on adoption rates I would say Java applets were very successful. One area were Java applets were still actively used until very recently was in online banking, where it was used for secure OTP entry. I'm sure there are still some that use it. As a technology, it was fairly clear even in the late nineties that Java was a bad fit for the web.
  - X-Istence 10y ago
    Very recently being when? I don't remember anytime where I've used a Java Applet on any single banking site.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      The Norwegian government's BankID system (used by all Norwegian banks, and also supported as a login mechanism across all the government's digital solutions, including the national paperwork portal where everyone files their tax returns) only migrated away from Java 18 months ago [1]. [1] http://www.dinside.no/931165/dnb-dropper-java-fra-november http://www.dinside.no/931165/dnb-dropper-java-fra-november
    - krylon 10y ago
      I Germany, the web site of the German equivalent of the IRS uses a Java applet to do the Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung (don't ask me what that is in English, though). So it's not banking per se, but it's finance-related.
      - opless 10y ago
        VAT Return. (According to Google Translate)
  - outworlder 10y ago
    Brazilian banks do that. Nearly all of them. It is a major pain. Some are moving away from them, but installing spyware instead.
  - 10y ago
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Sun did a pretty bad management of it. They could have gotten Java much more widespread if they weren't religious against AOT compilation to native code, leaving that to third party JDKs. Thus forcing the whole distribution headache. Then the whole APIs for media and graphics, 3D and desktop integration where left abandoned. Swing is powerful, but by default looks awful, one needs to know which APIs to make use of. The Filthy Rich Clients blog was quite helpful in this regard. The sad thing is that it helped to displace much nicer native languages like Delphi. Borland's mismanagement also contributed a lot, though.
  - 0x0 10y ago
    If you look at super early OS X documents, it's interesting to see how highly regarded the Java development platform was held. For example: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/environments/environments.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Portin... Here, Java is a peer of Carbon and Cocoa. Also, IIRC, on the original OS X reveal presentation, Jobs flagged Java as deeply, natively integrated in a way that no other OS had done before (surely this is available on youtube but don't have a link handy) It would almost seem like they were betting half the farm on Java. I find it fascinating how fast Java was alienated from the mac given its initial deep embed. Even today, Oracle's JVM for OS X installs into the dedicated /Library/JavaVirtualMachines folder, something I've never seen anywhere else.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      I remember those days. As I also remember Apple sales people coming to CERN doing a presentation trying to sell us the idea that since Mac OS X was built on NeXT and BSD, it was also an UNIX that could be used by the researchers. In the early days of MacOS X, Apple wasn't sure that the Mac OS developer community would enjoy using Objective-C, so they bet the farm on both languages. As it became clear that the majority of the developers were quite happy to using Objective-C, they just slowly killed the Objective-C - Java bridge, and then eventually gave the JVM code to Oracle. This also helped killing the Java role on the desktop and together with Microsoft, started the industry cycle to move back into AOT compiled languages. I wonder how it would have turned out if they had killed Objective-C instead. On the other had, I also sometimes wonder how a Mac OS X based on BeOS ( C++ )would be.
- kmonsen 10y ago
  Have you heard of this thing called Android?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    What about it? We're talking about the historical rise (and fall) of Sun's/Oracle's Java technology. Android uses its own runtime, its own platform APIs, they just borrowed the syntax and basic libraries and added their own (non standard) implementation below, plus their own platform APIs, unique to Android. It's nothing like SWT/Swing, J2EE, or the "compile once, run everywhere" Java of yore.

by 0x0 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago

>Not surprising at all, given the rise and fall of Java as a first class citizen on OSX And not only on OSX -- generally the rise and fall of Java. In late nineties "Java Applets" (+ the web plugin) were supposed to go big. Never happened. Then there was always the promise of Java on the consumer desktop. Never happened either [1]. Java on the enterprise desktop also didn't fare that well. As for startups and smaller companies, the mostly go with Ruby/RoR, Python, Node, Go, PHP, etc. Nowadays it's just mainly Java on the enterprise server. [1] Yeah, I know you can name 5 somewhat successful desktop Java apps. I doubt you can name 50 though, and that's the whole point.

dhimes 10y ago
I can name two that never sold very well. I built them :(
jmfayard 10y ago
Actually the java-everywhere thing worked out pretty well, but Oracle is suing the OS that made that idea comes true.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Java-everywhere wasn't about a single platform with Java being everywhere, it was about Java being on every platform.
  - jmfayard 10y ago
    we are in a winner-takes-most world so the first strategy beats the second one every single day
    - coldtea 10y ago
      I'm not so sure about that. Microsoft for example is a winner in desktop space, but they don't get most of the server, nor most of the mobile. And even their desktop profits are not that great. And Android is a winner on the marketshare front, but its profits (from all makers, Google, Samsung, etc) combined are at best equal to Apple's which has 1/3 to 1/10 the market share (depending on the country).
lobster_johnson 10y ago
Based on adoption rates I would say Java applets were very successful. One area were Java applets were still actively used until very recently was in online banking, where it was used for secure OTP entry. I'm sure there are still some that use it. As a technology, it was fairly clear even in the late nineties that Java was a bad fit for the web.
- X-Istence 10y ago
  Very recently being when? I don't remember anytime where I've used a Java Applet on any single banking site.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    The Norwegian government's BankID system (used by all Norwegian banks, and also supported as a login mechanism across all the government's digital solutions, including the national paperwork portal where everyone files their tax returns) only migrated away from Java 18 months ago [1]. [1] http://www.dinside.no/931165/dnb-dropper-java-fra-november http://www.dinside.no/931165/dnb-dropper-java-fra-november
  - krylon 10y ago
    I Germany, the web site of the German equivalent of the IRS uses a Java applet to do the Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung (don't ask me what that is in English, though). So it's not banking per se, but it's finance-related.
    - opless 10y ago
      VAT Return. (According to Google Translate)
- outworlder 10y ago
  Brazilian banks do that. Nearly all of them. It is a major pain. Some are moving away from them, but installing spyware instead.
- 10y ago
pjmlp 10y ago
Sun did a pretty bad management of it. They could have gotten Java much more widespread if they weren't religious against AOT compilation to native code, leaving that to third party JDKs. Thus forcing the whole distribution headache. Then the whole APIs for media and graphics, 3D and desktop integration where left abandoned. Swing is powerful, but by default looks awful, one needs to know which APIs to make use of. The Filthy Rich Clients blog was quite helpful in this regard. The sad thing is that it helped to displace much nicer native languages like Delphi. Borland's mismanagement also contributed a lot, though.
- 0x0 10y ago
  If you look at super early OS X documents, it's interesting to see how highly regarded the Java development platform was held. For example: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/environments/environments.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Portin... Here, Java is a peer of Carbon and Cocoa. Also, IIRC, on the original OS X reveal presentation, Jobs flagged Java as deeply, natively integrated in a way that no other OS had done before (surely this is available on youtube but don't have a link handy) It would almost seem like they were betting half the farm on Java. I find it fascinating how fast Java was alienated from the mac given its initial deep embed. Even today, Oracle's JVM for OS X installs into the dedicated /Library/JavaVirtualMachines folder, something I've never seen anywhere else.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I remember those days. As I also remember Apple sales people coming to CERN doing a presentation trying to sell us the idea that since Mac OS X was built on NeXT and BSD, it was also an UNIX that could be used by the researchers. In the early days of MacOS X, Apple wasn't sure that the Mac OS developer community would enjoy using Objective-C, so they bet the farm on both languages. As it became clear that the majority of the developers were quite happy to using Objective-C, they just slowly killed the Objective-C - Java bridge, and then eventually gave the JVM code to Oracle. This also helped killing the Java role on the desktop and together with Microsoft, started the industry cycle to move back into AOT compiled languages. I wonder how it would have turned out if they had killed Objective-C instead. On the other had, I also sometimes wonder how a Mac OS X based on BeOS ( C++ )would be.
kmonsen 10y ago
Have you heard of this thing called Android?
- coldtea 10y ago
  What about it? We're talking about the historical rise (and fall) of Sun's/Oracle's Java technology. Android uses its own runtime, its own platform APIs, they just borrowed the syntax and basic libraries and added their own (non standard) implementation below, plus their own platform APIs, unique to Android. It's nothing like SWT/Swing, J2EE, or the "compile once, run everywhere" Java of yore.