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Java Businesses Programming Apple

Apple Updates to Java 1.4.1 148

Posted by pudge from the cup-o-joe dept.
A user writes, "Apple has caught up with the times and updated their Java to 1.4.1, bringing it completely up to date with the newest release from Sun. It now takes advantage of Aqua and Quartz Extreme, is usable via Universal Access, and can be controlled through AppleScript." It provides 1149 new classes over 1.3.1, a new native I/O API, updated XML tools (SAX 1.0/2.0, DOM 1.0/2.0, XSLT), I18N and L10N enhancements for Unicode 3.0, regexes, IPv6, faster loading of applets, improved caching, storing of certs in the Keychain, faster UI, more Aqua-like UI ... and native Java applet support for Safari.
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Apple Updates to Java 1.4.1 More

Apple Updates to Java 1.4.1

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  • Great (Score:4, Informative)

    by sconest ( 188729 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @06:26PM (#5480357) Homepage
    Time to try IDEA [intellij.com]
    • Alas the IDEA folks haven't updated their download page. I've been patiently waiting for this for a while now. IntelliJ's IDEA is one hell of an amazing editor.

    • Last I checked (a few hours ago), Intellij still didn't have a 1.4 compatible release for OS X. Do you know something I don't?

    • Great: WHY? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by tyrione ( 134248 )
      For the price why don't you buy WebObjects 5.2 and use ProjectBuilder with InterfaceBuilder already?

      Or better yet since you are discussing client-side apps you don't need to spend one penny and just download Apple's tools.

      Of course if you are adamant and have lots of use with IntelliJ great but you'd be surprised how nice PB/IB work.
  • Does this mean Limewire will actually be usable? I switched to Acquisition a few weeks back miss some of Limwire's more advanced features.

    • Re:Limewire (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by paradesign ( 561561 )
      god i hope so, its nearly unusable under Jag.3 on a g4 400! unfortunately nothing else works 'well' on the mac. iver tried direct conect, but its too much of a pain to use. what would be great is a native (or java i suppose) port of kazaalite to mac. oh well, heres dreaming.

      • Re:Limewire (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        XNap works great. Always finds more files than Limewire. Get it at http://xnap.sf.net
    • It should actually help Acquisition's performance too, since Acq uses the LimeWire backend.
      • NO it won't. Acquisition does not use any Java code they have used things from LImewire, yes, but that doesn't mean they used thier source merely that what Limewire does they also can.

        • Yes, it is (Score:3, Informative)

          by 90XDoubleSide ( 522791 )
          Acq is a cocoa frontend to the LimeWire backend. Look at your Console sometime:

          java version "1.4.1_01"
          Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.1_01-39)
          Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.1_01-14, mixed mode)

          LimeWire(Acquisition)/0.8
          LWMain A
          SettingsManager: loadDefaults()
          ConnectionManager initialize()

          And so forth.

    • Re:Limewire (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kplusplus ( 617856 )
      NO, it won't. The reason that Limewire sucks so bad is that way back when thier app didn't redraw things properly they added new code that messed with the window server in order to make Limewire draw properly. Every thing that touches any screen space with Limewire starts warping and can do wierd things. Everyone please email the Limewire people and tell them to stop doing this, it is the single reason i stopped using Limewire and have yet to ever install it again nor even bother with another release.

      • Re:Limewire (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sameb ( 532621 )
        i'm not really too sure what you mean. limewire ues java's swing implementation to do the drawing. if java does funky redraws, then so will limewire. either way, you can download the code yourself -- just look at the 'gui' project from www.limewire.org .

        and yes, improving java *will* improve acquisition, because acquisition literally runs limewire's java core and then provides a native interface for it. so if limewire's core is running faster (which it might, because it'll be using java 1.4), then the interface is updated faster and the program as a whole is faster.

        i can assure you there's no code that "messed with the window server". the warping you're probably referring to is java being slow and not allowing time for the Swing Event Thread to completely process all the redrawing. but, the code tries to make sure that swing is given as much time as possible to keep things updated.

      • If you want to look at and change the Limewire code, then you can visit their open source development site [limewire.org]

    • Re:Limewire (Score:2, Informative)

      by jode_sanders ( 657282 )
      Limewire is NOT compatible with 1.4.x at the moment, so it will actually revert to the 1.3 java installation, which, incidentally, is kept on your machine. Once limewire releases a 1.4 version, THEN we'll see some great improvements.

  • Yay for me! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Monday March 10, 2003 @06:37PM (#5480423) Homepage
    I do development work (well, or did, but that's another isue), and the Lnux systems use Tomcat with Java 1.4 - mainly because it has the Regular Expressions stuff built in.

    I usually develop things on my Mac laptop, then transfer thing over to the official test system. But since I only had Java 1.3, it was harder to develop my stuff for them - I had to have a separate Linux box just for me to use as a mini-server.

    Well, I no longer work there and am about to take another job, but at least I an update my system and work on my new web publishing system.

    My only fear? That Java 1.5 will be released in a few weeks....

    • Re:Yay for me! (Score:3, Informative)

      by tupps ( 43964 )
      IIRC Apple has had the Java 1.4 beta on the ADC website since the start of the year, you could have got it from there.

    • Re:Yay for me! (Score:3, Informative)

      by 2starr ( 202647 )
      Java 1.5 is scheduled for release at the end of the year. I would expect to see a preview release or at least some serious info in June around JavaOne time.

  • Documentation/Changelog/New futures (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeneag ( 441998 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @06:38PM (#5480430) Journal
    Full release notes [sun.com] from Sun Microsystems on release 1.4.1, includes overview of changes and detailed description on many updated packages, etc.
  • Did the developer preview from last Oct have the extra goodies? I hope it's really fast, but of course, I hope everything's really fast.
  • I've been waiting for this for months (from before java 1.4.1 even existed actually, when all I wanted was a small update to fix some bus with the previous JVM). It fixes alot of bugs in good ole fashioned AWT, from what I understand. Most were nothing I couldn't work arround, but it was still a pain.

    Hopefully this will provide a serious speed boost too.
    It's a good day to be a mac java developer.
    • I am the lead developer for a p2p app called Myster [mysternetworks.com]. myster is a 1.1 awt based program. Myster doesn't run too well with Apple's 1.4.1 as it still contains too many bugs. Luckly Apple has decided that all java apps inside application bundles shall continue to use 1.3.1 for now, which means that myster still works. To be honest, I think the 1.4.1 release is extremely rushed given the number of outstanding bugs and performance issues.

      Oh well....
  • I'm happy to see the points they have been working on, just hope it makes Java on the mac more workable, and especially, LESS a pain in the ass!
  • I have a weird question. Other than Limewire and JEdit, what end user applications that are *useful* are available for OSX? I mean I looked around and while Java seems great for servers, I just don't see that many useful applications I'd use. Even with JEdit, BBEdit is vastly superior.

    • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Pyrometer ( 106089 )
      This has to be one of the best tools I have seen written in JAVA ... Poseidon UML from Gentleware [gentleware.com].

      It is a little rough around the edges and really needs some fine tunning but runs like a dream on my PowerBook running on JAVA 1.3 no less. With any luck they will upgrade it to use the 1.4 code base they are already using for Windows and Linux clients. It is quite resource intensive, however on the Powerbook I don't notice that at all (just on the Windows development machine at work ~sigh~).

      • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @09:05PM (#5481441)
        I guess that's my point. All the good Java applications are Java development programs. JEdit, JBuilder, Poseidon and a half dozen other UML/workflow programs. There are many others I didn't mention.

        My point is that Java seems primarily used for client/server applications or XML based messaging. (Thus the large number of UML programs) The end user applications end up tied into that via support. Other than a few so-so chat or P2P clients, I just don't see many end user applications writen for Java.

        Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking Java. Some folks who work here swear by it. We're even going to start coming out with some nice Java libraries and toolkits ourselves. But it seems oriented towards custom programs and perhaps largely the enterprise. Sort of one step up above scripting languages like Perl or Python but not quite in the C++ territory.

        Yet I just never see applications outside of that market. Not a slam. Just curious. It just seems odd that there are more Basic programs for OSX than Java. (At least judging by what gets downloaded at VersionTracker)

        • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dhovis ( 303725 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @11:53PM (#5482317)
          Yeah, I kind of wonder why there aren't more Java apps myself. I took it upon myself to write a program for statistical design of experiments about a year ago. I wasn't happy with any of the software I had used, so I picked up a matrix library that NIST and Mathworks made available for Java.

          Now, I didn't know Java when I started. I learned Pascal in college and I've made a few attempts to learn C++, but I've never really succeded.

          I picked Java for this project because I intended it for educational purposes and I'm not delusional enough to think that anyone would adopt my program if it was MacOS X only.

          Anyway, long story short, I've written a beta quality piece of software for statistical design of experiments using the Java/Swing API. I thought it was pretty easy to work with, and the speed is more than adequate, even on my iBook/500.

          I think the reason you don't see more Java Apps is just that not many people have inscentive to write their programs for cross platform use. If I had been a Windows user, I probably wouldn't have cared about the people who don't use windows and just learned C++ and the Win32 api. There wouldn't be the inscentive to capture the other 5-10% that doesn't run Windows. Even most Mac or Linux programmers don't care. Even though Java really is "fast enough" for most things.

          BTW: if anybody would like to beta test some Java software for Statistical DOE, email me. Let's see... Take my slashdot username and email me with that at mac.com.

          • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by devonbowen ( 231626 )
            Interestingly, I chose not to write my current app in Java because of portability. It would actually be a lot easier to write it in Java. But the product is a small downloadable app that I want anyone to be able to trivially install on any platform. Now, I know I can count on having a JVM on the Mac. But I can't on Windows or Linux. I can't tell your mom that installation is easy... just grab this little app and then download a 20 Meg virtual machine, installed separately, through your little 28k modem. Even if she were to find the motivation and patience to do this, there is a good chance the install would get screwed up and there would be other issues.

            So I've chosen C instead. I know that I can write C in a portable way so that it will be trivial for the end user to install on any platform. I have the division between OS specific code and general code well defined. So I can call the C backend from, say, Objective-C in the Cocoa environment. Or I can link it into a GTK+ front-end. It's more work for me than a Java app would be and I don't get the many advantages that Java offers to developers. But I just don't see any other realistic solution. Java's portability is largely theoretical in this world.

            Devon
          • Well, I am the lead developer for a p2p program called Myster [mysternetworks.com]. Myster is a 1.1 compatable Java program. From my experience I'm not too surprised there are not more java based apps out there. here's why:

            1 - The phrase "write once test everywhere" still applies to Java. Even if you are very competent and write your java app carefully you still need to test it on all platforms you intend to deploy your app on because there are many small differences. These small differences are created by platform specific bugs, VM version specific bugs and all the differences between different OSes and what users expect. So many bugs between versions..

            2 - If you write an app on the mac, it will look odd on windows and vice versa. Windows and mac apps behave differently, they have different UI standards.. I mean even aqua and MacOS 9 have huge differences. In MacOS X, the preferences menu item is in a system menu. On eveyr other platform on earth it goes under the edit menu. On Windows all windows have their own menu bar, on mac systems the menu bar is global per program.

            3 - You never have enough control over the rest of the system. Sure you can do most common UI tricks but if you want to access resource forks or the like, you need platform specific code.

            4 - Deployment on windows really sucks.
            -The java VM does not come pre-installed.. well, actually there is a java VM pre-installed but it's 1.1 only, and crap.
            -There is no standard way of making a double clickable .exe java program (Or giving it an icon!)

            All these things make it very difficult to make a professional looking / acting application. I think Myster is about as close as anyone has come to making a java app that looks like it's a native macOS X application... and it still bugs me that it's not perfect..

            SPEED IN JAVA

            First off, java is not slow because it is not native. Java is compiled from byte code to machine native code before it is run via a mechanism called the just in time compiler. in tests this JIT can get code to within a few % of of C/C++ code!

            Java is not slow because of the garbage collector. Recently the garbage collector has gotten much better. It's now only a tiny fraction the a problem it once was.

            Java is slow because

            1) Swing is pretty damn slow (widgets do their own java based drawing) (usually awt is faster)
            2) Java encourages a style of programming that is not conducive to speed.

            On macOS X java is slow because many of the components do their own drawing and the type of drawing they do is hard to speed up *in Aqua/Quartz*. Also aqua is just slower than any other platform to begin with which means many programs don't bother to optimise many of their routines which work fine until thye are run on MacOS X. from what i've heard the java team is working on these problems. It's from their work that we now have quartz extreme so more power to them!

            oddly enough Myster is more popular on the mac than the PC!.. Also it's extremely popular in japan thanks to its use of UTF strings. (all the ??? you see in myster are japaneese characters.)

            As for beta testing Myster [sf.net].. Sure, tester are good.. Coders are better, (Myster [mysternetworks.com] is open source [sf.net] too). we're also looking for volunteer translators and people to help with the internationalization / documentation effort. Oh and martketing people are welcome too. Oh and we're loking for new web hosting/email.. weee. Mail here [mailto] to inquire. wow, that was a shameless plug :-)...

        • Well, I think that actually people *do* write lots for Java, but Java is better at different things than C or C++. It doesn't show up in consumer listing like Version Tracker Basic is good for nothing, and the only reason you see it on VT so much is the same reason you see VB for windows: tons of bad developers using drag-and-drop solutions.

          Java is good at non-GUI things. I mean *great* at it. C is much better at rendering graphics. So, Java lives with developers and server apps mostly. I have never found a lack of Java libraries to support in me any given task.

        • I think Java is as good at implementing self-contained functionality, and interacting over the network, as any other environment, and there are lots of builtin modules for that kind of thing. But Java has not been very good at interacting with the machine it is running on, at least not nearly so well as something like C or Python; also, the startup time for a Java application is at least an order of magnitude great than for those other environments.

          Java is a fairly nice language, and continues to be almost good enough to be better than the alternatives for a lot of applications. I think there is a pretty good chance that with JDK 1.5 it will have everything it needs to have quick interaction with the system on which it is running and to start applications quickly (usecs vs msecs). If the JDK/JRE can sort out the font/GUI situation enough to look like a normal program, I think Java will be used a lot more for programs with GUIs.

          Larry

    • http://www.intellij.com

      Download IDEA. You'll love it and never use Jedit again.

    • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:2, Informative)

      by CharRooster ( 658104 )
      "Useful" is a relative term but I use Thinkfree as my main Office suite. It is built on Java architecture.

    • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:2, Informative)

      by nilepoc ( 7329 )
      My personal best Java app for OSX is DVArchive. It requires Java 1.4.1, for which I installed the beta 10 version yesterday. Arrghh!

      Anyway, I am hoping that this will make DVArchive run even better.

    • Without a doubt, ReaderWare [readerware.com], a book, DVD & CD cataloging suite that has absolutely saved my life as I have all too many of all three and until I go ReaderWare and a :Cue:Cat I was helpless in trying to get them in order, keep track of who borrowed what, etc.

      It was a little slow on my B&W G3, but it flies on my new DP G4.

      Ted

      • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @02:59AM (#5482910)
        Without a doubt, ReaderWare , a book, DVD & CD cataloging suite that has absolutely saved my life...

        Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the scourge of the 20th century: hyperbole.

        Unless you'd care to post some kind of fascinating tale of adventure and suspense in which your book database saved you from certain doom, curb your enthusiasm a little, okay?

        • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:4, Funny)

          by cei ( 107343 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:06AM (#5483047) Homepage Journal
          "Give me the book, or you're a dead man," sneered the thug behind the revolver.

          "I can't," whimpered TedTodorov, "I lent it to my cousin Bruno."

          Cocking the gun the thug replied, "Prove it!"

          At which point TedTodorov slowly slid his laptop across the blotter on the desk, turning it to shine into the beady eyes of his foe.

          "See? It says I checked it out to him last week..."

    • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:2, Informative)

      by marmoset ( 3738 )
      Freeguide [sourceforge.net] is pretty cool. It didn't run at all on OSX's old 1.31-based JVM (nor on some of the earlier 1.4 betas), but I'm running it right now on top of the new JVM.

    • Re:Best Java Apps? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      crushftp found at http://crushftp.com/
    • 4Sight Fax has a very nice Java GUI client application for it's fax server that is virtually indistinguishable from a native app. I was very impressed with it.
    • If you have a ReplayTV 4xxx-5xxx, you can use DVArchive [sourceforge.net]), which is certainly one of the best Java-written end-user apps I have ever seen. (Full disclosure: I packaged the Mac OS X version, but I did not write the app.)

      Ivan.

    • These guys have a cool music application called MuSing that is basically a drum machine with evolutionary principles so that you can evolve new beats. It's really excellent and you can give it access to your own sample library so that all the sounds are your own.

      It's a packaged Java application, so you can work with it just like a native Mac OS X application. It's $25 or so.

      Geneffects [geneffects.com]

  • So far, so good. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rastachops ( 543268 )
    Well ive installed 1.4.1 from software update and so far its fixed some bugs that were annoying me (some applets didnt work in safari) and performance is definately up. A friend noted an almost 4 fold increase in loading time for one of his projects. Go Apple! :)

    • 4 fold increase in loading time

      I believe you mean to say a "4 fold decrease in loading time." If your original statement is correct, then this is one update I will steer clear from. My 400Mhz G4 without Quartz Extreme is slow enough as it is.

  • Browser bug is fixed (Score:4, Informative)

    by matthew ( 85177 ) <mjshekleton@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Monday March 10, 2003 @08:37PM (#5481287)
    Just installed it and now I can finally scroll a web page with an embedded Java applet without leaving behind artifacts in the broswer window from the applet. The difference is obvious in a page like news.bbc.co.uk were the news ticker no longer corrupts the whole page view when scrolling.
  • In Mac OS X, has anyone had an issue with running applets? I always get an error message telling me java has done something bad...

    Anyone? Or is it just me?

  • But I can't seem to get the Aqua Look n Feel working w/ swing apps? Am I missing something? It worked fine w/ Netbeans in Java 1.3.

    • Re:Swing Look n Feel (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You need to specify the new Look And Feel class name. This used to be 'com.apple.mrj.swing.MacLookAndFeel',but now is 'apple.laf.AquaLookAndFeel'.

      So from command line type: [Netbeans Home]/bin/runide.sh -jdkhome /Library/Java/Home -fontsize 12 -ui apple.laf.AquaLookAndFeel
    • BTW always provide an option not to use Aqua. There are exactly zero Swing apps which behave like Mac apps and having them look the same can be confusing as hell.
      • Look around developer.apple.com

        There's an example program there for changing LaF on the fly and checking which ones are available. It's meant to be used for aqua-metal but can be useful in any platform.

  • A cool java text editor (Score:3, Informative)

    by 1155 ( 538047 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @09:26PM (#5481621) Homepage
    and my favorite, Arachnophilia [arachnoid.com], finally works on my mac! I am now happy again..

    Well, that and my dos xx is right here as well :)

  • Java 1.4.1 Dev Tools Update is out also (Score:4, Informative)

    by foyle ( 467523 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @09:39PM (#5481693)
    The "Java 1.4.1 Developer Tools Update" available via https://connect.apple.com/ -- after you log in, it's under "Java" under "Download Software". There used to be "Recent Updates" section where they put stuff like this, but it seems to have gone missing.

    What I really want to know is why it's 48.6mb for the dev tools on top of the 26mb (I didn't write it down, so I could be wrong) for Java 1.4.1 itself.

  • Refreshing . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bedouin ( 248624 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @10:20PM (#5481894)
    It's nice to have OS X remind me of updates that actually IMPROVE performance. This is real nice coming from a Windows world where every week there's a new "Windows update," fixing some bug that was discovered 2 weeks before.

    The difference? In Windows land an update meant, "Fuck, what 'security patch' is ready to be downloaded now? This is so annoying." In OS X, when software update pops up I'm generally wondering what new improvements there are to things overall, and happy about it.
  • does this version allow one to run Cisco's CiscoWorks? Please, someone give me an honest yes!

    --Kimota!

    • Re:But... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Doesn't look like it. Just tried and no dice. I wish someone would prove me wrong, please.

  • Possible New WWDC Slogan (Score:3, Interesting)

    by webdev ( 605160 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @11:37PM (#5482229)
    "Come for the Java and stay for the Cocoa and the Java." Last year it was just "Come for the Java stay for the Cocoa".

  • Yeah But.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by seigel ( 94101 )
    Yeah But it broke my blender!!!!!!! www.blender.org ..and this is on topic, blender is a 3d rendering tool that apparently used java to do its work on OSX

    Cheers

  • Finally, I don't have to ssh into my account at work or run my Gentoo partition to have a working java 1.4.1. (don't get me wrong, I got lots of kudos for having a 10gig linux partition on my TiBook, but kudos don't get my applications working on OS X)

    And for those of you wondering what all the fuss is about, all I have to say is 'nio.'

    hugs & puppies

    • And for those of you wondering what all the fuss is about, all I have to say is 'nio.'
      Werd.

      Not eating up all the box's resources when getting your network on is a good thing. Thank you nio (NewIO).

  • much faster applet rendering (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i have a applet that creates cartograms [unl.edu] and the difference is amazing (go to the 'map' menu item and create a cartogram with 10 or so iterations). previously, one would see each iteration rendering, while 1.4.1 in safari almost instantaneously creates it.
    • ...then you'll love (?) the conclusions on this site [uiuc.edu] - We should have the guy that did that page restest with Safari.
      • From that page:

        "I put both Mac and Solaris together for abbreviation, their results were the same, and those computers only had Netscape."

        Now THERES a good balanced test... So he recommends IE on a PC while only testing Netscape on other platforms? Heck, *right now* I have IE, Camino(was:Chimera), Mozilla (Mach-O), iCab, OmniWeb, Safari, and Opera. I test with each and all. I could probably also add Netscape 7... Thats 8 possible browsers for Mac OSX alone... They *all* work good for something, and I prefer Chimerino... The Mach-O Mozilla is quick as well. I expect - when Camino-era hits the latest Gecko version - it'll be much tighter...
  • i noticed on reboot that 1.3 and 1.4.1 were loading up. java is not my forte', so i have 2 questions;

    1) is this supposed to happen?
    2) if the answer is yes, why? is apple going to remove 1.3 at some point, or are both required, kind of like a 'classic' enviroment for older java apps? or is 1.4.1 backwards compatible?

    (geez, that's more like 4 questions )

    • Re:1.3 and 1.4.1? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by pldms ( 136522 )
      i noticed on reboot that 1.3 and 1.4.1 were loading up. java is not my forte', so i have 2 questions;

      1) is this supposed to happen?

      Oh, I missed that. IIRC one of the improvements Apple were making was to have java preloaded. One of the big reasons java is perceived as 'slow' is that when you run any java binary the virtual machine has to be loaded. So 'java HelloWorld' takes a second to run - which looks bad.

      2) if the answer is yes, why? is apple going to remove 1.3 at some point, or are both required, kind of like a 'classic' enviroment for older java apps? or is 1.4.1 backwards compatible?

      1.4.1 is backwards compatible. However it isn't a bad idea having both around. Developers (like me) find it useful - for example Swing was very buggy in 1.3 and has been rewritten, so it's nice to be able to choose versions.

      Also, Apple are playing it safe. For packaged apps I think 1.4 is 'opt-in' - i.e. the default is 1.3, and you have to edit the info.plist to change that. (At least this was true in the recent developer previews).

      One situation I had recently was my (bad) code whose behaviour changed from 1.3 to 1.4 because I forgot that 1.4 can return ipv6 addresses (which I'd forgotten; doh). It's backwards compatible, but that doesn't mean crappy code won't make silly assumptions.

      Anyway, hope that gives you some explanation.

      • thanks for the input, just making sure my install didn't get hosed or something strange like that :)

      • Re:1.3 and 1.4.1? (Score:5, Informative)

        by IvanXQZ ( 576819 ) <ivanxqz@@@yahoo...com> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:14PM (#5484905)
        While it is (mostly) true that Java 1.4.1 is backwards compatbile with 1.3.1, it is not true that Apple Java 1.4.1 is backwards compatible with Apple Java 1.3.1, which is why both remain present for end users as well as developers. To wit, QTJava is different, JDirect no longer exists, the com.apple.mrj.* API's have all been deprecated or outright removed, a number of the environment properties have changed, etc. (this stuff is all documented in the Release Notes [apple.com], which is required reading IMO). In addition, there are a very small number of incompatibilities between 1.3.1 and 1.4.1 in Sun Java itself, at least during compile time.

        So if your 1.3.1 app uses any Mac-specific functions, you may need to rewrite them for 1.4.1 compatibility. However, if it is bundled as a Mac OS X app, it will (as stated above) get 1.3.1 by default, so end-users will have no problems with any existing applications (that's the Apple Way).

        The rules for whether you get 1.3.1 or 1.4.1 are:

        command line:
        You get 1.4.1 by default. If you want 1.3, you need to execute:
        /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versio ns/1.3.1/Commands/java
        (javac is in the same directory if you need the compiler or other tools)
        btw I have no idea why there is a space in "Versions" above: if you see it, it shouldn't be there

        double-clicked jar files:
        You always get 1.4.1.

        Mac OS X bundles:
        You get 1.3.1 by default. How to specify 1.4.1 depends on whether the app was made with MRJAppBuilder (from the 1.3.1 Dev Tools) or Jar Bundler (from 1.4.1 Dev Tools). For MRJAppBuilder apps, add this line to YourApp.app/Contents/Resources/MRJApp.properties:
        com.apple.mrj.application.JVMVersion=1.4*
        For Jar Builder apps, in the YourApp.app/Contents/Info.plist file, in the Java section add a key called JVMVersion with a value of 1.4* (you can use the Property List Editor or a text editor).

        All this and more is documented in the Release Notes.

        Ivan.
  • Enough with the fricken restarts... this isn't part of the OS.. I'm getting a bit sick of the restart requirements for most of the recent updates...

    • Re:Arrrg ( ... the price we pay) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pyrometer ( 106089 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:04PM (#5484824) Homepage
      Enough with the fricken restarts... this isn't part of the OS.

      I first thought of this but realised the following:

      1. When upgrading from JAVA 1.1.x to 1.2 on a Solaris platform I had to install a mirrad of software updates for the OS for JAVA to run. This has probably been the case for going to 1.3 and 1.4 although I havn't had to "administrate" a Solaris system to do this in the last couple of years.
      2. Apple seems to have integrated JAVA quite a bit in to the overall OSX structure (look at those pretty bubble diagrams showing all the OS layers). This probably explains why JAVA applications run so damn fast compared to Windows machines running the same application.
      3. As noted in point 2, your comment "this isn't part of the OS" is probably not correct. From what I see at the layer point of view ... it seems JAVA is a 'part' of the OS.

      I don't think it is a bad price to pay considering the performance of JAVA applications on OSX ... but your right it was annoying, I hate losing my uptime on the powerbook :)

  • Hopefully I'll be able to play Word Whomp from Pogo games (http://www.pogo.com) at a decent speed now.

  • Apple made improvements on Java? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Paladeen ( 8688 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @06:28AM (#5483282)
    From the Apple website:


    "On other platforms, each Java application consumes some system memory. So you might end up using more memory than you need to when running multiple Java applications. Other languages, such as C or C++, solve this problem using what?s called shared libraries. Apple developed an innovative new technology that allows Java code to be shared across multiple applications. This reduces the amount of memory that Java applications normally use. And it fits right into Sun?s Hot Spot VM, allowing Mac OS X to remain compatible with standard Java. In addition, Apple has given this implementation to Sun so the company can deploy it on other platforms. Just one example of how Apple supports standards and shares ideas to benefit all"

    That's very nice of them.

  • So I still have to use a Windows machine to access Hushmail. So much for "write once, run anywhere," huh.

  • Major Performance Increase (Score:4, Informative)

    by HotButteredHampster ( 614950 ) <s DOT biickert AT shaw DOT ca> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:50PM (#5485214) Homepage

    I installed and ran a perfunctory test of the new Java Runtime last night. I then fired up Robocode [ibm.com]. I have a Powerbook G4 550, and in the past, I would see around 12 fps during the battles. With the new Java, I was seeing 24 fps consistently!

    This is a great leap forward, IMHO.

  • Does this mean Eclipse will work on OS X?
  • Threw this together just in case anyone needed a
    quick way to get jbuilder working from the
    command line. I've only tested it with jbuilder 6.

    Paste it into a file called startJBuilder.sh
    or whatever and put the file into the /Developer/Applications/JBuilder/JBuilder.framewor k/bin
    directory and do a chmod +x startJBuilder.sh. Then you can run it from there with a ./startJBuilder.sh

    Should work with any version of jbuilder and will use the default jre you have installed.

    ------------- startJBuilder.sh -------------
    #!/bin/bash

    JARS=`find ../lib -name *.jar`

    CP=.
    for X in $JARS; do
    CP=$CP:$X
    done

    DEFS='-Dcom.apple.mrj.application.apple.menu.abo ut .name=JBuilder'
    DEFS=$DEFS' -Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true'
    DEFS=$DEFS' -Dapple.awt.showGrowBox=true'

    BOOTCLASS='-Xbootclasspath/p:../lib/lawt.jar:/Sy st em/Library/Java/Extensions/MRJToolkit.ja r'

    java $BOOTCLASS $DEFS -cp $CP com.borland.jbuilder.JBuilder

  • Ugliest ever without Quartz Extreme? (Score:3)

    by bo-eric ( 263735 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @05:49PM (#5487876)
    I use an old TiBook 400 that doesn't support Quartz Extreme, and line graphics in applets lost that beautiful anti-aliasing they used to have with Java 1.3. Sure, applets are faster now with 1.4.1, but I'd rather have a slower, good looking applet than this...

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