6 ms·

However it isn't just the Cocoa bindings that are important. AFAIK SoyLatte's Swing/AWT elements run through X11. Apple's Java allows for Java GUIs without star

by lyso 16y ago

However it isn't just the Cocoa bindings that are important. AFAIK SoyLatte's Swing/AWT elements run through X11. Apple's Java allows for Java GUIs without starting X11.

pmjordan 16y ago
Indeed, this will presumably affect users of Eclipse, Netbeans and similar. Not sure how many non-developer apps make use of those APIs, though, especially as they don't quite produce native look & feel. (still much better than X11, which is indeed terrible on OSX)
- nileshk 16y ago
  I think Eclipse is in a better position to handle this because it uses SWT instead of Swing. SWT is not produced by Apple, and uses native widgets (for OS X, there is both a Cocoa and Carbon version). So in theory, Eclipse could run on something like Soylatte without having to use X11. It's the Swing apps (such as Netbeans, etc) that are potentially in trouble. Apple has been maintaining their own code for Swing. If they are going to stop maintaining this, I hope they contribute their changes back to OpenJDK so that someone attempting to maintain a Mac version does not have to reimplement this. I wonder if Apple is really going to stop maintaining their port of Java, or if this move is to be able to say "you can't use Java for App Store for Mac apps because we could possibly stop including it." Or maybe they are planning to hand over development to Oracle.
  - umjames 16y ago
    Or maybe they're not interested in being on the other end of an Oracle lawsuit. I don't know.
    - wmf 16y ago
      Apple paid for Java; they're not going to get sued.
      - wtracy 16y ago
        I wonder if Oracle just increased the price?
        wmf 16y ago
        That thought occurred to me; maybe Apple decided not to renew their license.
- Samuel_Michon 16y ago
  @nileshk: "I wonder if Apple is really going to stop maintaining their port of Java, or if this move is to be able to say "you can't use Java for App Store for Mac apps because we could possibly stop including it."" From Apple's Mac App Store review guidelines: "Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, [PowerPC code requiring] Rosetta) will be rejected." http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apple_issues_review_guidelines_for_mac_app_store.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apple_issues_r... Java in XCode was already deprecated, but it sounds like there won't even be a (standard) install of the Java runtime in Mac OS X Lion.
- rbritton 16y ago
  The product ordering software for every photographer-centric company I've ever dealt with is written in Java. Given that a large portion of photographers use Macs, this could have a big impact there.
- nevster 16y ago
  I'll have a lot of users who'll be sad if they can't run my app http://www.auctionsieve.com/ http://www.auctionsieve.com/ I don't use any Mac specific APIs except for checking/setting some properties to do things like put the menus in the right place. The rest is straight Swing. So no great loss as long as Oracle provides a good implementation.
rmc 16y ago
X11 is horrible on OSX. Applications that use it (e.g. The GIMP on OSX), are terrible and have many usability flaws, such as no clipboard between an X11 application and a normal application.
- masklinn 16y ago
  Yeah, OSX's X11 is utterly dreadful.
  - bnastic 16y ago
    Be it as it may, but xterm/X11 still kills Terminal.app in text rendering speed. Also, MacVim is, on my Mac at least, visibly slower in text rendering than the naked vim under xterm.
    - varikin 16y ago
      Text rendering speed? I type a letter Terminal, it appears. What are you doing that text rendering speed matters?
      - jdub 16y ago
        Running any kind of build process would be an easy first example. :-)
      - aidenn0 16y ago
        Builds. sbcl in particular is insanely verbose and is often limited by slow terminals. The readme for bootstrapping it even specifically suggests using xterm over gnome-teriminal/konsole.
      - bnastic 16y ago
        Try scrolling large amounts of text in MacVim, where the whole screen is refreshed, and then try the same in xterm+vim. MacVim is painfull to watch doing this, feel like working over a 300 baud modem. xterm/X11+vim are VERY fast combination for pure text editing, and that matters to me greatly. Same applies to Terminal.app (and it refuses to work in 256 colors, unlike xterm)

by lyso 16y ago

However it isn't just the Cocoa bindings that are important. AFAIK SoyLatte's Swing/AWT elements run through X11. Apple's Java allows for Java GUIs without starting X11.

pmjordan 16y ago

Indeed, this will presumably affect users of Eclipse, Netbeans and similar. Not sure how many non-developer apps make use of those APIs, though, especially as they don't quite produce native look & feel. (still much better than X11, which is indeed terrible on OSX)

nileshk 16y ago
I think Eclipse is in a better position to handle this because it uses SWT instead of Swing. SWT is not produced by Apple, and uses native widgets (for OS X, there is both a Cocoa and Carbon version). So in theory, Eclipse could run on something like Soylatte without having to use X11. It's the Swing apps (such as Netbeans, etc) that are potentially in trouble. Apple has been maintaining their own code for Swing. If they are going to stop maintaining this, I hope they contribute their changes back to OpenJDK so that someone attempting to maintain a Mac version does not have to reimplement this. I wonder if Apple is really going to stop maintaining their port of Java, or if this move is to be able to say "you can't use Java for App Store for Mac apps because we could possibly stop including it." Or maybe they are planning to hand over development to Oracle.
- umjames 16y ago
  Or maybe they're not interested in being on the other end of an Oracle lawsuit. I don't know.
  - wmf 16y ago
    Apple paid for Java; they're not going to get sued.
    - wtracy 16y ago
      I wonder if Oracle just increased the price?
      - wmf 16y ago
        That thought occurred to me; maybe Apple decided not to renew their license.
Samuel_Michon 16y ago
@nileshk: "I wonder if Apple is really going to stop maintaining their port of Java, or if this move is to be able to say "you can't use Java for App Store for Mac apps because we could possibly stop including it."" From Apple's Mac App Store review guidelines: "Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, [PowerPC code requiring] Rosetta) will be rejected." http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apple_issues_review_guidelines_for_mac_app_store.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apple_issues_r... Java in XCode was already deprecated, but it sounds like there won't even be a (standard) install of the Java runtime in Mac OS X Lion.
rbritton 16y ago
The product ordering software for every photographer-centric company I've ever dealt with is written in Java. Given that a large portion of photographers use Macs, this could have a big impact there.
nevster 16y ago
I'll have a lot of users who'll be sad if they can't run my app http://www.auctionsieve.com/ http://www.auctionsieve.com/ I don't use any Mac specific APIs except for checking/setting some properties to do things like put the menus in the right place. The rest is straight Swing. So no great loss as long as Oracle provides a good implementation.

rmc 16y ago

X11 is horrible on OSX. Applications that use it (e.g. The GIMP on OSX), are terrible and have many usability flaws, such as no clipboard between an X11 application and a normal application.

masklinn 16y ago
Yeah, OSX's X11 is utterly dreadful.
- bnastic 16y ago
  Be it as it may, but xterm/X11 still kills Terminal.app in text rendering speed. Also, MacVim is, on my Mac at least, visibly slower in text rendering than the naked vim under xterm.
  - varikin 16y ago
    Text rendering speed? I type a letter Terminal, it appears. What are you doing that text rendering speed matters?
    - jdub 16y ago
      Running any kind of build process would be an easy first example. :-)
    - aidenn0 16y ago
      Builds. sbcl in particular is insanely verbose and is often limited by slow terminals. The readme for bootstrapping it even specifically suggests using xterm over gnome-teriminal/konsole.
    - bnastic 16y ago
      Try scrolling large amounts of text in MacVim, where the whole screen is refreshed, and then try the same in xterm+vim. MacVim is painfull to watch doing this, feel like working over a 300 baud modem. xterm/X11+vim are VERY fast combination for pure text editing, and that matters to me greatly. Same applies to Terminal.app (and it refuses to work in 256 colors, unlike xterm)