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Apple Releases Java Updates for Leopard and Snow Leopard

Stella said:
I've long since installed Java 5, but why Apple why - remove Java 5? Java 5 is still widely used!
Click to expand...

At the United Nations we had a software monster for enterprise administration that specifically required one certain version of an Oracle 1.3(!) JVM, otherwise it wouldn't run. And it's the year 2010, that software is still actively used it still requires an extremely old Java VM.

But I think it's reasonable that Apple dropped support for the old Java VMs. I remember all the Java developers screaming and shouting at Apple for not immediately supporting Java 6 when it was released. And now the same guys are shouting because Apple is no longer supporting a JVM that everybody wanted to drop years ago? Java folks are a strange crowd, it seems... ;)
 
Winni said:
The very best FTP/SFTP client for Mac OS X, CyberDuck, (www.cyberduck.ch) is written in Java. I admit that this application is a rare exception since Java never really made it to the consumer desktop. Most of the other Java software probably doesn't concern you, since it's mostly business/enterprise related or used for academic/scientific/engineering purposes.
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Heh. That may be true in general, but... I like bucking trends. ;)

Installed with no issues, by the way. Mac runs great, pre- and post-update.

OriginalMacRat said:
OpenOffice is written in C.

Eclipse is a Java development tool. It doesn't really count. :p
Click to expand...
True, the majority is in C. Not all of it, though - OpenOffice.org Base requires a JRE.
 
This is why Apple fail consistently trying to push their wares in the corporate world: They simply don't understand it. If they did, Apple would keep Java 5 in Snow Leopard.

Its not unreasonable to expect Apple to keep old versions of Java around - at least Java 1.5, because 1.5 is still widely used. Likewise, Apple shouldn't lag with new versions of Java. If Apple won't then they should let Oracle write the Apple VMs. I now have to go through unnecessary hoops to upgrade my Java 5 with the latest just released on Snow Leopard.


Winni said:
At the United Nations we had a software monster for enterprise administration that specifically required one certain version of an Oracle 1.3(!) JVM, otherwise it wouldn't run. And it's the year 2010, that software is still actively used it still requires an extremely old Java VM.

But I think it's reasonable that Apple dropped support for the old Java VMs. I remember all the Java developers screaming and shouting at Apple for not immediately supporting Java 6 when it was released. And now the same guys are shouting because Apple is no longer supporting a JVM that everybody wanted to drop years ago? Java folks are a strange crowd, it seems... ;)
Click to expand...
 
OriginalMacRat said:
OpenOffice is written in C.

Eclipse is a Java development tool. It doesn't really count. :p
Click to expand...
The Eclipse IDE is an application build on top of the Eclipse RCP (based on OSGi standard). Other Java apps can be (and are) build on the Eclipse RCP. The same is true for Netbeans RCP. The app I work on is a Netbeans based application.
 
Stella said:
This is why Apple fail consistently trying to push their wares in the corporate world: They simply don't understand it. If they did, Apple would keep Java 5 in Snow Leopard.

Its not unreasonable to expect Apple to keep old versions of Java around - at least Java 1.5, because 1.5 is still widely used. Likewise, Apple shouldn't lag with new versions of Java. If Apple won't then they should let Oracle write the Apple VMs. I now have to go through unnecessary hoops to upgrade my Java 5 with the latest just released on Snow Leopard.
Click to expand...
I completely agree! Apple's always been a consumer-oriented company, and simply doesn't understand how corporate culture works. Mind you, Java is backward compatible (newer VMs run older code just fine), so in most cases there won't be issues with dropping older virtual machine versions. However, a few application developers hard-code their applications to expect and require a specific Java VM, and it is these which will fail to work when it is updated... we need to teach these developers to require a minimum VM version but not a maximum, and not to do this kind of hard-coding (which is bad programming practice anyhow).
 
Winni said:
...
But I think it's reasonable that Apple dropped support for the old Java VMs. I remember all the Java developers screaming and shouting at Apple for not immediately supporting Java 6 when it was released. And now the same guys are shouting because Apple is no longer supporting a JVM that everybody wanted to drop years ago? Java folks are a strange crowd, it seems... ;)
Click to expand...
The reality of it is Java developers need to have both -- it's not just screaming and shouting. Just because Apple decided to retire Java 5 doesn't mean we can. While we may do most new development with Java 6, we also have to support and maintain older apps for Java 5 and can't move them to Java 6 for various reasons.
 
RaceTripper said:
The reality of it is Java developers need to have both -- it's not just screaming and shouting. Just because Apple decided to retire Java 5 doesn't mean we can. While we may do most new development with Java 6, we also have to support and maintain older apps for Java 5 and can't move them to Java 6 for various reasons.
Click to expand...
Though I completely agree with the fact that older Java 5 applications still need to be supported, and cannot be migrated to Java 6... I do wish to point out that, even with a Java 6 JDK it is possible to compile Java apps that target Java 5. All hope is not lost.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
...However, a few application developers hard-code their applications to expect and require a specific Java VM, and it is these which will fail to work when it is updated... we need to teach these developers to require a minimum VM version but not a maximum, and not to do this kind of hard-coding (which is bad programming practice anyhow).
Click to expand...
That's not the issue.

Java is not always backwards compatible. For example, any app that used "enum" as a name in Java 1.4.2 or earlier needs changes to work in Java 5 or later. With Java 6 Sun put SwingWorker into the standard jdk. Any Swing apps that used prior versions of SwingWorker require code changes to compile and run in Java 6 (that happened to my app).

But even if everything runs, you can't always just push a newer VM to a production environment. You may need to repeat regression testing and QA first, and there's not always budget or desire to do that, especially if there's no compelling reason for it. Sometimes you deploy to machines that don't even support the latest Java. I've dealt with that on AIX.
 
RaceTripper said:
That's not the issue.

Java is not always backwards compatible. For example, any app that used "enum" as a name in Java 1.4.2 or earlier needs changes to work in Java 5 or later. With Java 6 Sun put SwingWorker into the standard jdk. Any Swing apps that used prior versions of SwingWorker require code changes to compile and run in Java 6 (that happened to my app).

But even if everything runs, you can't always just push a newer VM to a production environment. You may need to repeat regression testing and QA first, and if there's not always budget or desire to do that, especially if there's no compelling reason for it. Sometimes you deploy to machines that don't even support the latest Java. I've dealt with that on AIX.
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Good point - I forgot about regression testing and QA, vital components in any commercial or enterprise application.
 
zorinlynx said:
That's peculiar...

Why is Java 1.6 available only for 64 bit systems on Leopard 10.5, but available for both 32 bit and 64 bit systems on Snow Leopard 10.6?

This doesn't make sense; is it just another Apple "WTF moment"?
Click to expand...

With Leopard they seemed to get Lazy about updating Java, so they didn't make the 1.6 release available for anything other than 64 bit Intel processors.

With Snow Leopard, they only supported 32 and 64 bit Intel processors, so it would look stupid if the Macs with 32 bit Intel processors couldn't run ANY Java at all, so they had to release the newer version for 32 bit as well.
 
cant access my uni portal as bloody safari hangs. wonder what else will i not be able to use in the future. apple wants to control the way we use our computers :mad:
 
Unnoted consequences

Something that may be worth giving this a bit more notice--this update has fixed the bug with the Apple implementation of the JRE that was preventing Java applets from working with Chrome.

In other words, Chrome users can view Java applets now.
 
Ever since I installed the Java update last night, my Safari experience has been noticeably slower, with more spinning beach balls.

I'm hoping this is a coincidence.
 
Chuck Fadanoid said:
I don't think you need to worry about the future of Java. It's the jewel in the Sun crown and I would guess the main thing Oracle were after with the takeover. Oracle have always been strongly into Java.
Click to expand...

Which does not mean anything. Oracle isn't an angel, they are a company that's in it to make money. We have no idea what they'll do with Java, that's a fact.

We just have to wait and see. J7 is probably going to be delayed because of this merger.
 
Winni said:
The very best FTP/SFTP client for Mac OS X, CyberDuck, (www.cyberduck.ch) is written in Java. I admit that this application is a rare exception since Java never really made it to the consumer desktop. Most of the other Java software probably doesn't concern you, since it's mostly business/enterprise related or used for academic/scientific/engineering purposes.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the "very best." Transmit.
 
Winni said:
The very best FTP/SFTP client for Mac OS X, CyberDuck, (www.cyberduck.ch) is written in Java. I admit that this application is a rare exception since Java never really made it to the consumer desktop.
Click to expand...

Mostly IMHO down to its GUI APIs which leave a lot to be desired. Especially when you compare it to the Cocoa libraries and IB. But I guess that's a side effect of cross-platform support.
 
Can anyone explain to me after updating to the latest Java on Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and then I did an repair disk permissions. Today morning I did it again and I got this again:

Code: 
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Permissions differ on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/deploy.jar", should be lrwxr-xr-x , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Repaired "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/deploy.jar".
Permissions differ on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/deploy.jar", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Repaired "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/deploy.jar".
Permissions differ on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/libdeploy.jnilib", should be -rwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Repaired "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/libdeploy.jnilib".
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

Permissions repair complete

Before Java update 2 there was one that always said repaired but always seemed to come up again when i was disk repair but now multiple ones keep coming up after update 2. Please can someone explain this to me what is going on?:confused:
 
Code: 
Permissions differ on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/deploy.jar", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Resources/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Java/libdeploy.jnilib", should be -rwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Group differs on "Applications/Utilities/AirPort Utility.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be 0, group is 80.
... 375 lines omitted...
Permissions differ on "Library/Contextual Menu Items", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x .
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/flashplayer.xpt", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r-- .
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Holy cow! I have a LOT of permission errors. I wonder how many were caused by this update.
 
Winni said:
I remember all the Java developers screaming and shouting at Apple for not immediately supporting Java 6 when it was released. And now the same guys are shouting because Apple is no longer supporting a JVM that everybody wanted to drop years ago? Java folks are a strange crowd, it seems... ;)
Click to expand...

You're right. There was a lot of discontent, but bear in mind that it took Apple more than a year after the win/linux release to release Java 6, so I don't agree with you saying that people immediately started shouting.

Some years ago, Apple went on record saying that they were committed to being somewhat current with the other platforms with regards to Java. OS X is a nice platform to program on. As a result a lot of Java developers switched and were happy about the switch.

Then Apple changed their minds and kept quiet about it, which came as a bit of a surprise although it probably shouldn't have. It's not like it's the first time.

When java 7 eventually is released, I don't think you'll hear a lot of discontent among the developers. It's hardly a surprise if it takes Apple more than a year to provide developers with Java 7, it they ever will.

You can say a lot about Microsoft but they've always been very conscious of keeping the developers happy by providing them with the tools they need or delegating to other companies. The same is true for Linux. I think people were unprepared for Apple's attitude towards developers.

Today that attitude is clear. Apple is even doing the same thing with regard to the iPhone ecosystem. "Look, the point is that you're not gonna get fooled twice", as George W. Bush once said :)
 
Am I the only one who is not getting this update under Software Update??:confused:
 
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