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The Apple/Java story is still interesting. I now personally don't care much about Mac OS and Java anymore, but I remember me being pissed when Apple abandoned s

The Apple/Java story is still interesting. I now personally don't care much about Mac OS and Java anymore, but I remember me being pissed when Apple abandoned shipping Java, Cocoa bindings, native LaF for Swing and other integrations around 10.7 and leave the field for Oracle, after SJ had promised to deliver "first-party, best-of" Java dev experience years earlier. Oracle had also published a dev build for the Oracle RDMS on Power-based Macs, but then denounced the Mac as a serious platform. Maybe a back-deal or bet was in effect here, or Apple figured they'll never get into datacenter and enterprise anyway?

pfschell 8y ago
Steve was once asked about Apple's commitment to Java by one of the engineers working on it. SJ called Java "a big, fat pig." It was on its way out of the OS within the year.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Yes, I was a bit annoyed about that, it came just as I was finishing off a commercial Java application.
pvg 8y ago
That's interesting, to me it seemed the other way round - it was good for Oracle to be responsible for their runtime. The integration was always a really terrible fit and without it, Oracle could ship current versions of Java. The Apple/Java thing was just a bad idea with a long lifetime and somewhat sluggish death.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  It was the plan B in case Mac OS developers wouldn't be willing to use Objective-C from the new shinny OS X stack.
pjmlp 8y ago
I also got pissed off, but I do get the reasoning behind it. Apple only bet on Java, because the hype wave was still going strong and they were quite unsure how well the Mac developer community would be willing to embrace Objective-C. So for a while they kept both languages on the platform to see which one would get the uptake. When they saw that the developers had no issues with Objective-C, the decision was clear.

pfschell 8y ago

Steve was once asked about Apple's commitment to Java by one of the engineers working on it. SJ called Java "a big, fat pig." It was on its way out of the OS within the year.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

Yes, I was a bit annoyed about that, it came just as I was finishing off a commercial Java application.

pvg 8y ago

That's interesting, to me it seemed the other way round - it was good for Oracle to be responsible for their runtime. The integration was always a really terrible fit and without it, Oracle could ship current versions of Java. The Apple/Java thing was just a bad idea with a long lifetime and somewhat sluggish death.

pjmlp 8y ago
It was the plan B in case Mac OS developers wouldn't be willing to use Objective-C from the new shinny OS X stack.

pjmlp 8y ago

I also got pissed off, but I do get the reasoning behind it. Apple only bet on Java, because the hype wave was still going strong and they were quite unsure how well the Mac developer community would be willing to embrace Objective-C. So for a while they kept both languages on the platform to see which one would get the uptake. When they saw that the developers had no issues with Objective-C, the decision was clear.