Steve Jobs Comments on Apple's Java Discontinuation

[macsmurf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

C.

You may want to read the thread. All your questions are answered.

Just one example: The server side of iTunes is build on Java.

Your argument is equivalent to asserting that Intel is irrelevant because you never see the chips when you use your computer.

 

[Carniphage]

You may want to read the thread. All your questions are answered.

Just one example: The server side of iTunes is build on Java.

Your argument is equivalent to asserting that Intel is irrelevant because you never see the chips when you use your computer.

My argument is not that Java is irrelevant. Or invisible.
My argument that it's not in Apple's commercial interest to support Java.

C.

 

[macsmurf]

My argument is not that Java is irrelevant. Or invisible.
My argument that it's not in Apple's commercial interest to support Java.

C.

OK. That might be true. Java on OS X allows Java developers to use it which means more developers on the platform and perhaps some positive recommendations to friends and family.

It also allows businesses that use Java on the desktop internally to buy Apple hardware. The number of businesses that do that is not insignificant.

I would think that this would make up for the costs of maintaining Java.

However, it seems to be the case that Apple want to concentrate solely on the consumer market and in this market Java is pretty much irrelevant.

I don't fault Apple for making that decision. It's their decision to make. My point is that if businesses haven't learned before they should learn it now: Don't invest in Apple hardware in a way that makes it difficult or costly to get out again.

I already use Linux at work for development so it's not a problem for me per se. I also use the JVM on my macbook but that is mostly for other stuff such as GWT, Scala, etc. Since I do this a lot I would have to change platforms at some point, and I like OS X which makes it kind of annoying. Clearly Apple don't care and I not even saying they should. It would be nice if they did, but I'll live. It is, after all, just a computer.

 

[Carniphage]

OK. That might be true. Java on OS X allows Java developers to use it which means more developers on the platform and perhaps some positive recommendations to friends and family.

It also allows businesses that use Java on the desktop internally to buy Apple hardware. The number of businesses that do that is not insignificant.

I would think that this would make up for the costs of maintaining Java.

I suspect Apple have looked at the numbers and they don't add up.
Java is Oracle's baby now. It is their responsibility to support it as they see fit.

Perhaps there is a better way of getting Apple hardware in to Business:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-25/apple-enlists-unisys-to-help-with-corporate-customers.html

This is an interesting post on Apple & Java:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-25/apple-enlists-unisys-to-help-with-corporate-customers.html

C.

 

[pmjoe]

For Apple to do this, it signals one thing:

Java is commercially irrelevant to Apple. The cost of supporting it, exceeds the benefit it brings.

I think the Java community need to ask themselves why that is.

Mac App Store = Apple gets a 30% cut; OS 10.7+ = closed ecosystem.

The Apple community needs to take the blinders off and ask themselves why that is. It's obvious to the Java community.

I suspect Apple can afford to keep its tiny JVM/JDK development team on a $4 billion quarterly profit. But if Apple doesn't care about keeping Mac OS as an open platform for development - keeping that team is irrelevant, selling thousands of Macs to developers for other architectures is irrelevant.

 

[Carniphage]

Mac App Store = Apple gets a 30% cut; OS 10.7+ = closed ecosystem.

The Apple community needs to take the blinders off and ask themselves why that is. It's obvious to the Java community.

I suspect Apple can afford to keep its tiny JVM/JDK development team on a $4 billion quarterly profit. But if Apple doesn't care about keeping Mac OS as an open platform for development - keeping that team is irrelevant, selling thousands of Macs to developers for other architectures is irrelevant.

I don't think Apple has any intention to close the Mac.
I just think they are not seeing a return on their investment into Java. If Oracle believes in the platform, let them pay for it.

C.

 

[macsmurf]

I suspect Apple have looked at the numbers and they don't add up.
Java is Oracle's baby now. It is their responsibility to support it as they see fit.

Well, yes. I don't see Oracle stepping in. As you hint at yourself, companies do not feel responsible for more that turning a profit. There's no profit for Oracle in supporting Java on OS X, although there might be for Apple.

 

[pmjoe]

I don't think Apple has any intention to close the Mac.

Take the blinders off. Or Apple colored glasses if you prefer.

I just think they are not seeing a return on their investment into Java. If Oracle believes in the platform, let them pay for it.

I suspect Apple's Java JVM/JDK team is less than 10 people, maybe even 6. If Steve Jobs spends more than a few minutes discussing this - his lost salary for time on the topic would probably pay for them. Add in that they probably sell tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Macs to Java developers, and your argument holds no water. Try re-thinking what the motivation is.

 

[Carniphage]

Take the blinders off. Or Apple colored glasses if you prefer.

I suspect Apple's Java JVM/JDK team is less than 10 people, maybe even 6. If Steve Jobs spends more than a few minutes discussing this - his lost salary for time on the topic would probably pay for them. Add in that they probably sell tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Macs to Java developers, and your argument holds no water. Try re-thinking what the motivation is.

If the team size is so small, I am sure Mr. Ellison can take a couple of gold-plated taps from his yacht and fund the development himself.

Apologies for mis-linking earlier.
This is the article which is worth a read...

http://www.subfurther.com/blog/?p=1305

C.

 

[Maximara]

If the team size is so small, I am sure Mr. Ellison can take a couple of gold-plated taps from his yacht and fund the development himself.

Apologies for mis-linking earlier.
This is the article which is worth a read...

http://www.subfurther.com/blog/?p=1305

C.

That is a very interesting read and give very excellent reasons as to why Apple is handing Java the way it is. It give the impression that Apple realizes the handwriting is on the wall as far as Desktop Java is concerned and figured that continuing this project makes no sense.

 

[faroZ06]

another

Another reason to stay at Leopard 😉
Snow Leopard is Leopard minus a bunch of apps, screensavers, and cleanliness (seriously it uses way more RAM).

 

[KnightWRX]

Another reason to stay at Leopard 😉
Snow Leopard is Leopard minus a bunch of apps, screensavers, and cleanliness (seriously it uses way more RAM).

Staying at Leopard does not mean you're going to get Java updates from Apple in the future. 🙄

 

[krischik]

Right.
It's just silly how most of the people does not understand this. No Java developers on Mac means much less Objective-C devs too. That means smaller numbers of OS X/iOS apps.

Indeed - truly good programmers can/do use more then one programming language. And with Java being still the No 1 Programming language (TIOBE, The Transparent Language Popularity Index) Apple is going to loose quite a lot of developers and customers.

And yes I read all the fuss about Desktop-Java is dead. Well maybe. But not for Software developers. Those need/demand working IDEs and in most cases this means Eclipse or NetBeans. Both of which also support a host of other languages. More then XCode does. And using a simple text editor is not an alternative. An IDE - especially for server side development - does a lot more.

Without a viable alternative I will have to move back to Linux in about 2 years time 🙁.

 

[Bernard SG]

Indeed - truly good programmers can/do use more then one programming language. And with Java being still the No 1 Programming language (TIOBE, The Transparent Language Popularity Index) Apple is going to loose quite a lot of developers and customers.

And yes I read all the fuss about Desktop-Java is dead. Well maybe. But not for Software developers. Those need/demand working IDEs and in most cases this means Eclipse or NetBeans. Both of which also support a host of other languages. More then XCode does. And using a simple text editor is not an alternative. An IDE - especially for server side development - does a lot more.

Without a viable alternative I will have to move back to Linux in about 2 years time 🙁.

On the other hand the same TIOBE index is expecting to nominate Objective-C as Language Of The Year 2010, due to its very fast rise in popularity (+2.5%) while Java, still the most popular is, in fact, slightly declining (-0.5%).
I don't think there's much of a worry about the population of developers for the Mac and iOS.

 

[John.B]

Indeed - truly good programmers can/do use more then one programming language. And with Java being still the No 1 Programming language (TIOBE, The Transparent Language Popularity Index) Apple is going to loose quite a lot of developers and customers.

People are picking up Objective-C because that is what's required to natively code for iOS. Period.

Without a viable alternative I will have to move back to Linux in about 2 years time 🙁.

You don't think this will be sorted out by the time Lion ships and this actually becomes an issue (and not just Intarwebz hysteria)?

 

[Carniphage]

People are picking up Objective-C because that is what's required to natively code for iOS. Period.

And is that so wrong?

C.

 

[Maximara]

On the other hand the same TIOBE index is expecting to nominate Objective-C as Language Of The Year 2010, due to its very fast rise in popularity (+2.5%) while Java, still the most popular is, in fact, slightly declining (-0.5%).
I don't think there's much of a worry about the population of developers for the Mac and iOS.

Never mind you have the Oracle sues Google over Android and Java which involves "infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java" 😱


Perhaps Apple took a look at that mess in Aug looked at the somewhat fragmented mess Java seems to have become, noted java.com provides download to very version except the one Apple does and decided that doing their own version of Java simple wasn't work it.

 

[John.B]

And is that so wrong?

Not at all.

krischik stated that Java is still the number one language according to TIOBE.

I was just pointing out how that fact isn't really relevant when it comes to the people who are learning ObjC to writing code for iOS. They'll come from any number of languages to be able to target the iOS platform. 😎

 

[krischik]

JavaApplicationStub

I don't know why I did not think about this early but it is pretty simple to find out which Apps need Java. All you have to to is search for "JavaApplicationStub":

>locate "JavaApplicationStub" 
/Applications/Calculator/FX-602P.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/Calculator/Smart Math Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/Callpod Keeper.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/Internet/jDownloader.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/eBook/Stanza.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/iLive '09/myTuneSync.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Applications/muCommander.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Developer/Applications/Java_ME_SDK_3.0.app/Contents/Resources/device-manager.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Developer/Applications/NetBeans 6.9.1.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/javafx/javafx-sdk/emulator/mobile/device-manager.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Developer/Applications/NetBeans 6.9.1.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/mobility/Java_ME_platform_SDK_3.0/device-manager.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Developer/Applications/NetBeans Dev.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/javafx/javafx-sdk/emulator/mobile/device-manager.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
/Developer/Applications/NetBeans Dev.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/mobility/Java_ME_platform_SDK_3.0/device-manager.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub

 

[krischik]

Developers

On the other hand the same TIOBE index is expecting to nominate Objective-C as Language Of The Year 2010, due to its very fast rise in popularity (+2.5%)

Well at the current rate Objective C needs another 5.7 years to catch up with Java.

And in absolute term the Java rating is currently 5 times higher then the Objective-C rating.

And last year Go was language of the year and look what happen this year: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Go.html

They'll come from any number of languages to be able to target the iOS platform. 😎

Indeed. My company bought a couple of Mac to support iOS. And now the funny thing: We don't have a dedicated iOS team. iOS development is done by the Java team. More then Half our Java team has private Macs.

Before the announcement there might have been a chance that more Macs would be bought on the basis that an Mac is suitable for Java and iOS development.

If Oracle does not supply a Java suitable to run Eclipse this change is gone. And as for the private Macs. Who knows what happens if they have to be replaced.

BTW: The well acclaimed eBook reader and management software Stanza is Java. Will Amazon order a rewrite in Objective C?

And the world #1 (so they say) Password Manager Callpod Keeper is a Java as well. Tiny company only one software product. Unlikely that they make a separate version just for the Mac.

 

[Carniphage]

BTW: The well acclaimed eBook reader and management software Stanza is Java. Will Amazon order a rewrite in Objective C?

Oh I dearly hope so.
What a mess that program is!

C.

 

[macsmurf]

Oh I dearly hope so.
What a mess that program is!

C.

On the other hand, the same could be said for Obj C 😉

 

[Carniphage]

On the other hand, the same could be said for Obj C 😉

I should say, as someone trying a new venture based on iOS....

...That Objective-C is a truly horrible and utterly terrifying language. Some idiot had the idea of combining the syntax of the C language, with the flexible benefits of the Smalltalk object-oriented language.

What a disastrous idea! It's a train-wreck. A nightmare. No one has any chance of learning it. It's practically impossible to read. So simply stop right now. Don't bother. Go away.

It's syntax is arcane. It's development tools un-usable. It will take you years to learn this language. And even if you learned it, there's no point anyway. The iOS market is tiny, so you won't make any money. No one ever has. Not a penny. Nada. Zip.

So please. Don't even think about it. Don't learn Objective-C whatever you do.

And let's keep it at the bottom of the popularity list, eh?

C.

 

[macsmurf]

I should say, as someone trying a new venture based on iOS....

...That Objective-C is a truly horrible and utterly terrifying language. Some idiot had the idea of combining the syntax of the C language, with the flexible benefits of the Smalltalk object-oriented language.

What a disastrous idea! It's a train-wreck. A nightmare. No one has any chance of learning it. It's practically impossible to read. So simply stop right now. Don't bother. Go away.

It's syntax is arcane. It's development tools un-usable. It will take you years to learn this language. And even if you learned it, there's no point anyway. The iOS market is tiny, so you won't make any money. No one ever has. Not a penny. Nada. Zip.

So please. Don't even think about it. Don't learn Objective-C whatever you do.

And let's keep it at the bottom of the popularity list, eh?

C.

Well, I wouldn't go that far (although I believe you're being sarcastic (if ever so slightly)). 🙂

On the positive side: Easy to learn. Good tools
On the negative side: Atrocious syntax. Hard on the eyes. Nothing good ever comes out of supersetting an existing language in a different paradigm. Dot notation syntax is weird. Closure syntax is weird.

Then again, not everything is about syntax and saner languages may be alternatives (C#, Ruby) over time after Apple opened up a bit.

 

[Carniphage]

Well, I wouldn't go that far (although I believe you're being sarcastic (if ever so slightly)). 🙂

On the positive side: Easy to learn. Good tools
On the negative side: Atrocious syntax. Hard on the eyes. Nothing good ever comes out of supersetting an existing language in a different paradigm. Dot notation syntax is weird. Closure syntax is weird.

Then again, not everything is about syntax and saner languages may be alternatives (C#, Ruby) over time after Apple opened up a bit.

I came to Objective C, from C, Pascal, Algol68 and a lot of assembler.
I find it very readable. Especially the parameter passing.

I never could get a handle on C++, which always seemed to be a language designed to conceal the purpose of the code.

C.