Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems are cooperating on a version of Sun’s StarOffice productivity software for Mac OS X, the companies said. Apple gains a friend to help counter its increasingly contentious relationship with Microsoft, which has been struggling with sales of its Office v. X suite for Macintosh. Currently, OpenOffice only runs with the aid of X11, but a native OSX version based on Java is under way, with Apple, Inc. developers giving a hand for the port. Update: Corey O’Connor emailed us regarding the Java and C/C++ parts of Star Office on OSX:“It supports the Java intergration features of open office (PLugins made in java for extra functionality of the
Calc program) The OS X status page clearly states that the Quartz port is being done in C/C++. You can check in the CVS also if you want.”
Sun to Push StarOffice for Apple’s MacOSX
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Then when I read Java, sorry OOo, it would be slower than Office:mac for sure. (proof? get thinkfree). So now, Sun wants Apple to dump AppleWorks for OOo, while Apple wants Sun to fill in the void of Office:mac. But it is kinda unfair, I would like a GTK+ or better still, QT version of OpenOffice.org… or better still, GNUstep (a port from OS X to GNUstep should be easy, they are working on Java now)… after all I’m now using WM. I would also like something that blends in with Windows XP, since Office XP fails miserably…
Hmmm, the Java version may be a bit slow.
The OS X Unix/Aqua environment is already a bit slow, throwing a JVM in the mix may slow it further. Time will tell but I remember Corel attempted a similar feat with WordPerfect and ran into trouble.
A native OS X version of Sun StarOffice would be nice. Even if Sun & Apple charge for it.
ciao
yc
and siggy will buy it 🙂
Well this is some really good news… I like both Sun and Apple and though I am happy with my version of Office:mac, I would like to see another great Office suite make its way to Mac OS X. To be honest I would like Apple to push AppleWorks to the next level, but I guess Apple knows best and will deliver something intriguing!
Abiword is being ported to OS X see :
http://www.advogato.org/person/hub
What’s needed is an alternative to XL.
—
http://islande.hirlimann.net
Abiword only works via X11 on OSX. Only a handful of OSX users have Fink and X11 installed. Most of the Mac userbase (around 90% atm) are still on OS9, while most of the rest 10%, the OSX userbase, wouldn’t bother with X11.
Hope MS don’t drop office for mac. Can’t help thinking that Apple WORKING WITH sun on this is going to send MS, already dealing with the nose thumbing of “switch”, into orbit.
Side issue, the Open/star office file format has been opensourced separately
http://xml.openoffice.org
hope apple gets behind this, adopts it for their own apps and tries to get other programs to accept/use it. We need a plaform/application agnostic file format, that MS Word ever became the standard for wordprocessed docs is a scandal.
I’m no Mac expert but that doesn’t look like X11:
http://www.abisource.com/~hub/about.jpg
But it doesn’t seem to be finished or even working.
Err…. Last time I was at the the OpenOffice OS X dev status they mention that Quartz build is working and it supports java. Not that it goes through java. http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/roadmap.html#OO638
They explicitly mention using C/C++ to access Quartz.
PLease correct. This’ll give them a bad wrap for sure.
i’m not a mac user but I am pretty sure that Microsoft’s “Support” for that platform is very iffy.. especially when you compare Office Vx features and cost against Windows alternative it looks very poor ( No Frontpage, no outlook, no Publisher, no Access AND costs more than Office Small Business Edition! )
What I’d also think beneficial is for Apple to provide development help to Mozila on OSX, which I understand isnt the best implementation of the cross-platform Opensource browser, as Mac users in these forae often complain that the MS Internet Explorer browser on OSX isn’t up to the job.
After Apple clobbering MSN with thier iChat , and a rival to Office – knocking off MS’ browser would be three strikes and OUT!
No problems with IE for mac here.
It looks like Apple might have been prepared for ditching Microsoft altogether by banning together with Sun. Things are heating up with the “Switch” campaign and Microsoft’s ultimatum regarding selling more Mac OS X or Microsoft would drop future Office development.
Can you see a world where Microsoft and Apple are the two major players in the desktop computing field who want nothing to do with each other, with many companies backing either one or the other? Perhaps Apple embracing open-source (1984, Think Different, etc.) while Microsoft (TCPA/Palladium) does not.
Somehow, someone has to go into Apple and kill all the Java freaks.
I know Java is a great strategy for forcing people to upgrade their machines, but as Apple machines are already slow, why make them even slower?
How much crap software has to be produced before we realize that Java sucks for writing any sort of end-user software?
I think like we have a standard on noxious CO2 emissions, there needs to be some worldwide accord on how much Java bytecode can be produced every year. If we don’t agree quickly, Global Slowing will get worse and worse.
It’s always a good laugh when companies go into the market, trying to compete with each other, that one company purposefully picks the most inferior technology available and expects to hear applause.
Those better be 2Ghz G4’s Steve, that’s all that there is to say. 7lb heatsinks warrant some damn serious Java-buster hardware.
#m
.. the mac emulation station guy? Think I’ve seen your name at E-maculation.com a few times 🙂
It certainly looks that way doesn’t it.. if Apple is going to court OSS developers to supply them with applications.. they could almost do without MS ( although what happens if gates pulls his investment in Apple.com has yet to be seen )
I figure that Microsoft probably wouldn’t port OfficeVX and MSIE5:mac to Mac X86 if the rumours are correct.. perhaps this is advance preparation, because nobody could stop OpenOffice ( and Mozilla, which it is designed for use alongside ) being ported…
in Apple is already over.
A lot of people think that MS will run from this but I have a feeling they will get move competitve. Being that 10.2 is the “Ready for Primetime” version, I think you’ll see a big push by Apple to transition people to OS X. Microsoft has invested alot of time and effort to develope Office X and I just can’t see them walking away from it. MS is just trying to bully Apple with “Dropping” support for Office. Gates and Co. will never walk away from money or dominance no matter how much or little it cost them.
5 years ago java was slow… Now it will barely be a noticible difference if any. Against office theres really no contest due to bloat, so theres no reason to complain. At least on a desktop machine. Desktop applications, due to their nature and how they are used do not have to be blazingly fast to be responsive anyway. And Java being slow has been BS for past 3 or longer years.
would be faster than any other interface on X, or pretty much any other OS out there. Why? On OS X, all Java graphics can be hardware accelerated. So, basically you get to use your video card’s hardware to render the Java graphics. Came before Quartz Extreme (ugh, I *hate* that name), but does more.
For details, read:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/java/ReleaseNotes/java131update…
That’s why I still have a TiBook even though I left Apple last week – it’s the best platform for Java development, IMHO.
Microsoft might catch up w/Longhorn, though – I think they’re still on track to have hardware accelerated graphics some time nexct year or so (it’s supposed to be a plug-in, IIRC).
Abiword only works via X11 on OSX. Only a handful of OSX users have Fink and X11 installed. Most of the Mac userbase (around 90% atm) are still on OS9, while most of the rest 10%, the OSX userbase, wouldn’t bother with X11.
Quite untrue, Abiword currently uses a lot of Cocoa. Sure, it is still not a complete port, but AbiSource’s screenshot page is outdated.
i’m not a mac user but I am pretty sure that Microsoft’s “Support” for that platform is very iffy.. especially when you compare Office Vx features and cost against Windows alternative it looks very poor ( No Frontpage, no outlook, no Publisher, no Access AND costs more than Office Small Business Edition! )
Accroading to Microsoft, Mac users prefer File Maker Pro to Access, QuarkXpress/ Illustarter to Publisher and BBBEdit or something like that to Frontpage, and therefore didn’t port it due to fears of lack of sales. Entourage is something like Outlook BTW. Office v. X would be better off being compared to Office XP Standard, NOT Small Business Edition.
What I’d also think beneficial is for Apple to provide development help to Mozila on OSX, which I understand isnt the best implementation of the cross-platform Opensource browser, as Mac users in these forae often complain that the MS Internet Explorer browser on OSX isn’t up to the job.
Apple wouldn’t support Mozilla because of the usage of an user interface that doesn’t follow at all the Aqua HI Guidelines ( http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/AquaHIGuideli… ). Besides, in an TechTV interview, Steve Jobs said he started using IE from 5.2 onwards because it started to use Quartz.
A lot of people think that MS will run from this but I have a feeling they will get move competitve. Being that 10.2 is the “Ready for Primetime” version, I think you’ll see a big push by Apple to transition people to OS X. Microsoft has invested alot of time and effort to develope Office X and I just can’t see them walking away from it. MS is just trying to bully Apple with “Dropping” support for Office. Gates and Co. will never walk away from money or dominance no matter how much or little it cost them.
They actually walk away from dominance if it makes a direct lose, and no indirect profits. Besides, Microsoft for a long time had already sold Apple’s shares. In fact, Apple was happy because of this, because they wouldn’t be under the direct control of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no dirrect money from Apple.
5 years ago java was slow… Now it will barely be a noticible difference if any. Against office theres really no contest due to bloat, so theres no reason to complain. At least on a desktop machine. Desktop applications, due to their nature and how they are used do not have to be blazingly fast to be responsive anyway. And Java being slow has been BS for past 3 or longer years.
Without Java, OpenOffice.org is considerably slower than MS Office. Besides, Thinkfree Office (I had tried it, shouldn’t had) is so much slower than MS Office, even know it is much less bloated than MS Office. Compared to native applications, Java is slow, once and for all (except for J2EE maybe….)
Microsoft might catch up w/Longhorn, though – I think they’re still on track to have hardware accelerated graphics some time nexct year or so (it’s supposed to be a plug-in, IIRC).
But Microsoft wouldn’t be able to integrate Java like Apple could. Because of the settlement between Sun and Microsoft, Microsoft can no longer make any new versions of its Java VM (except for security and bug fixes). It could use Sun’s VM, but it wouldn’t have the same level of integration as OS X.
the Sun sponsored open-source office suite project/product name is
“OpenOffice.org” (not “OpenOffice”),
or in short “OOo” / “OO.o” (not just “OO”).
as i known, it’s the trademark issue.
FYI
Time will tell but I remember Corel attempted a similar feat with WordPerfect and ran into trouble.
The difference is that Corel attempted to do this with either JDK 1.0 or 1.1; I don’t remember which it was. Both of them are very slow. Many improvements have been and are being made to Java (such as support for hardware acceleration, speed, etc). Java SDK 1.4 is exponentially faster than what Corel was trying to use.
I really think that Apple is smart enough to not run a Java based version unless it’s really going to be great.
I think StarOffice is a great product, except for the fact that indentations don’t line up correctly in some of their templates.
Somehow, someone has to go into Apple and kill all the Java freaks.
Why? Then they wouldn’t be able to produce the next cool office suite for OSX.
How much crap software has to be produced before we realize that Java sucks for writing any sort of end-user software?
Actually, there are several end-user applications used in corporate environments, which are 100% Java and run just fine.
I think like we have a standard on noxious CO2 emissions
Yes, let’s get rid of all the noxious C02 gas. Since it’s your suggestion, you stop breathing first and tell me if the Earth is cleaner in a year. Oh yes, and please explain to all the boys and girls how photosynthisis in plants is going to take place without C02. While you’re at it, since the oxygen producing plants will all die without C02, who’s going to create out oxygen?
It’s always a good laugh when companies go into the market, trying to compete with each other, that one company purposefully picks the most inferior technology available and expects to hear applause.
No kidding! Windows really does suck. Steve and Bill must feel like a ripe bunch of idiots.
Those better be 2Ghz G4’s Steve, that’s all that there is to say. 7lb heatsinks warrant some damn serious Java-buster hardware.
What was the last Java app that you created? I create them all the time and don’t have any speed issues with the newer SDKs. I’d like to hear all about your projects and what you are doing wrong to make them so unresponsive.
Ok, so Java SDk 1.4 is “exponentially faster” than previous versions (nice lack of stats/benchmarks). So where’s the boom in desktop end-user app development? How many packages down at CompUSA, BestBuy, etc. say “New! Improved! Now written in Java!” or who (other than maybe Sun) is touting a major productivity package written in Java?
The only place I’ve been seeing client side Java based apps show up is in odd places like the Sybase or Oracle database configuration client or the PVCS client. I don’t use any of these but the guys across the aisle do and they hate them (slow, buggy and prone to crash).
Almost as fast as a native app? Whatcha been smokin’ folks?
I believe Apple is going to make a significant upgrade to AppleWorks. I’ve belonged the the AppleWorks User Group for ages and it’s actually astonishing the things you can do with it.
Apple is really striking out on its own and MS is really teed off <g>. I too though cannot see MS pulling out as long as they make money. If Apple’s market share goes up even a little, they’ll make more money. The really great application in Mac Office is Entourage. It really is fabulous. Yet, in 10.2, Steve says Mail will be upgraded greatly and the now useless Address Book will become an integral part of the whole system. And, .Mac will have iCal in September which can be used both online or on your hard drive. So, he’s covering all bases.
I hope OpenOffice.org will come to fruition for OS X. It sounds like it may take awhile, but that would be great.
As far as Mozilla is concerned, I think Apple has its eye on Chimera, which just came out with version .4. It is a simple browser, but it is astonishing how quickly this application has become stable and useful. Others have said it, but it looks like iBrowser for Apple to me.
Java – LOL, Java is so strange. I’m not a (real) programmer, so I say this out of ignorance, but I don’t understand why it tends to be so slow. I don’t want to change the thread, but can someone post what the problem(s) are with Java? I use ThinkFree and LimeWire. They are funny – they take a long time to load and, when they do, they just sort of explode onto your screen. After that, everything is okay. I can connect to my ThinkFree cyberdrive ten times faster than I can my Apple iDisk. What is responsible for this type of performance? I don’t get it <g>. Thanks!
“Almost as fast as a native app? Whatcha been smokin’ folks?”
lol … yeah, that’s what I’m saying! So it’s been ‘exponentionally improved’, so now it walks instead of crawls
I use a 100% Java app at work and it’s the only app I run (out of 50+) that consumes more RAM than Mozilla.
IMHO, Java defeinitely has it’s place in the realm of programming languages, but client-side programming is definitely not it. Sure, maybe you could create a simple frontend with it, but an Office suite?
>>but it looks like iBrowser for Apple to me.<<
I think it will be call ‘iSurf’ maybe?!
I use a pure Java text editor named JEXT ( http://www.jext.org ) under Win32 a lot.
That’s my only comparing experience for a pure (100%) Java text/wordprocessing application and it’s not slow nor fast, just responsive enough on a 1.1 Celeron Tualatin. So I will conclude that java apps are not that slow anymore (just try Jext and you’ll see). In fact, it’s one of my win32 text editors (after NoteTab) since it has good highlight (almost like Kwrite).
On a mac G4 a version of 5.1 (StarOffice) would be quite slow (just guessing) but the new StarOffice and the sdk2 might make things very different (just guessing again) since both are not so slow or bloated anymore.
Microsoft doesn’t care about Apple since Apple and OSX aren’t trully competitive and Apple will loose market penetration to the point of having no expression. Who cares about apple and their version of Office X, anyway ?
I definately think that Sun and Apple will NOT re-write StarOffice in Java for MacOS X. It would just be too much coding to do, as they are already going to have to do a lot to get it Aqua-ized (for lack of a better term). Star/Open Office use there own custom toolkit, which, either will have to be rewritten to get an aqua look, or more likely, they will simply not use the aqua widgets. The fact remains however that Open-office is written for X11 and that creates a great difficulty in “porting” it to OS X. One has to replace all of the X11 calls in the code to Darwin/Aqua calls. That is a huge PITA. If you have ever ported even the smallest UNIX GUI application to MacOS X then you know how much of a PITA it is (check the [email protected] mailing list for more information).
I support any proposition that brings any UNIX app to MacOS X, since, it will help both the UNIX world and the Mac world closer, but, until Apple can make it easier to port UNIX GUI apps to Aqua, I don’t see this as happening any time soon. Trust me when I say this, StarOffice for OS X will not be out by the end of this year.
Skipp
PS: to all those that think Apple should have used X11 instead of aqua, no way, X11 is the problem, not the solution, I just wish that Apple would share it’d display technology with the rest of the UNIXs so we could stop using X11 all together.
>I just wish that Apple would share it’d display technology with the rest of the UNIXs so we could stop using X11 all together.
But that would be foolish. That is what they sell at the end of the day! Why would they want to “share”? If I was Apple, I wouldn’t share either.
That’s my only comparing experience for a pure (100%) Java text/wordprocessing application and it’s not slow nor fast, just responsive enough on a 1.1 Celeron Tualatin.
Java runs a TEXT EDITOR “just responsive enough” on a 1.1 GHz processor!? Wow! I am, like, so totally impressed. 😛
Christ! You’re talking about a freaking text editor! I’ll bet dollars to donuts that a native language version would run like greased lightning on a 1.1GHz machine.
I think Java has its place, but like Linux, the desktop ain’t it (we’ll fight that battle another day…). This whole notion of a VM is stupid anyway – let’s dumb down the coding and the interface so that it’ll run (slower) anywhere (supposedly).
What happened to the days of the C/C++ wizards when the true measure of one’s skill was how efficient the code was? I can’t believe that suddenly we’re counting on multiple-gigahertz processors to serve up applications with the same (or worse) speed that we had before. We somehow think it’s now acceptable to get a 2GHz processor to run like it’s a 233MHz chip.
Will you try the hardware accelerated java gui trick to run
limewire and let us know the results? I’m just trying to bringout the issue that it’ll be… fast
Or at least faster. And then we can stop these idiotic rants about how slow the interface will be 
Peace,
‘Rithm
PS
I could post my own results, but since everyone ignored the original post about the acceleration, I might be a tainted
maclot
I haer all this about Java being slow but thats the cost of cross platform development, and the way Swing works. Thats said it’s getting better, I’m using Forte4J 3.0 and I tried the jdk 1.4.1 Beta and the graphics at least spead up quite a bit, unfortunately itdidn’t get on with Forte3.0 so I had to switch back…
I quite agree about the memory usage BTW but remember there’s a lot in there… I won’t say bloated though because it’s useful stuff – Java makes life very easy for the programmer compared to C or C++ and this means faster development and less bugs.
However, what nobody seems to have noticed is that virtual machines seem to be pretty much dead these days as any SUN SDK includes a JIT compiler so it’s all compiled anyway.
I guess it could be Swings fault for being slow, when the underlying stuff could be fine.
According to a post on Slashdot (yes, some can be quite interesting sometimes) the JIT is only used for some code so this would explain why Java is sometimes amazing slow but not always…
>Will you try the hardware accelerated java gui trick to run limewire and let us know the results?
Where do I find that? Is that acceleration you are talking about part of Quartz Extreme? Because my Cube does not support QE you see. It has a 16 MB ATi Rage Pro in it and not a Radeon or a GeForce.
It doesn’t matter what you are doing — client software, enterprise software, middleware, whatever.
The code is slow. The runtime environment is bloated and full of arcane problems, especially if you have to keep a server up and running for a long time. There are serious problems with object lifecycles and garbage collection.
Java is popular but flawed language/runtime for building real applications. It is okay for an applet or other toy program.
Because of Java, there is much less art or craft in software development. It is assumed there are a bunch of mediocre monkey programmers slapping together beans and wiring up interfaces. Or that the code is generated using some god forsaken neo-CASE tool. How many programmers actually can read and write code anymore? Or know how their memory system works? Or what memory even is? It is pitiful and sad to watch the dumbing down of the software world.
The list of great Java apps:
<end of list>
When there is a list of 10 great Java apps, then we have something to go on. Ah, Java’s been around a long time. How about some great apps vs. great excuses?
As for MacQuartzExtremeJava, it sounds good to accelerate Swing. It reminds me of what Microsoft did with J++ (J/Direct) and then got sued by Sun. Of course, J/Direct was for all the Windows API’s, not just the Java graphics framework. I hope Java renders quickly on Apple. It would be a start at getting Java out of the dark ages. It still doesn’t fix the huge memory footprint and slowness of your basic Java code, though. Eclipse runs with native widgets and is still sluggish on a dual 1Ghz P3 1GB RAM system. Compared to a native code IDE, it is not fun.
Until programmers move off of Java, Global Slowing will continue to clog CPU’s and memory busses everywhere.
#m
TLFord,
very unfortunately, my graphics card is not supported in that list for the OSX Java hardware accelerated GUI. I have a Rage PRO 16 MB and it is not in the list.
I tried anyway though, just in case the other codes for the other Rage versions would work, but they did not work.
My test was for the Java-based ThinkFree Office which is very slow when trying to select many cells in its spreadsheet. After I made the required changes to the info.plist of the application to force hardware acceleration, the slowness was exactly the same as before, evidence that my card is not supported for this kind of Java GUI acceleration.
Only a handful of cards are supported for this thing… too bad they have Rage 128 support, but not for the almost identical Rage PRO (it just happens to have a different PCI ID), which comes with the Cube and a lot of iMacs…
>>Because of Java, there is much less art or craft in software development. It is assumed there are a bunch of mediocre monkey programmers slapping together beans and wiring up interfaces. Or that the code is generated using some god forsaken neo-CASE tool.<<
I think a lot of Java coders will beg to differ with you on most of your claims. Though I am not a Java programmer myself, I have talked to a lot of Java programmers who have said .Net has much overhead, and though it performs pretty well, it is not as portable as Java nor is it as flexible. This is coming from Java folks that tell me their opinions on the subject.
A very good friend of mine (who is a Java programmer/consultant) said that .Net is more hype than anything else and that there is more demand for Java programmers out there than .Net programmers and there is not advantage for switching to .Net for various reasons. I’ll let the super geeks enlighten you on the subject!
Java runs a TEXT EDITOR “just responsive enough” on a 1.1 GHz processor!? Wow!
It’s not about the text editor, it’s about the (java) user interface. There’s no real big difference between a text editor and a wordprocessor,(except text formatting, which doesn’t take many cpu to complete and the text save as a file format). I was refering to the UI only.
You’re talking about a freaking text editor! I’ll bet dollars to donuts that a native language version would run like greased lightning on a 1.1GHz machine.
So do I, but if it’s not possible with a native language you have to use something else.
We somehow think it’s now acceptable to get a 2GHz processor to run like it’s a 233MHz chip.
It’s acceptable only if you doesn’t have anything else to run on that OS and CPU, or to port it to that CPU and OS (which is the case) 🙂
“It supports the Java intergration features of open office (PLugins made in java for extra functionality of the Calc program) The OS X status page clearly states that the Quartz port is being done in C/C++. You can check in the CVS also if you want.”
Again, what programs have you written in Java? You tout a great understanding (yet show you have none by your last post) on the subject of Java. Please, give us details of your programming experience.
I write enterprise Java code all the time and it is great. My servlets, for example, perform much better and take up much less memory than the same functionality written in CGI scripts in an enterprise environment because each access of the servlet runs in a different thread instead of launching the executable each time the page is accessed, as CGI scripts do.
Sure, the servlet’s memory usage may be more than standard CGI scripts when only one person accesses the web app, but when 1000 people are accessing it at the same time, Java is slim and trim in comparison.
I don’t know what everyone is whining about anyway. I make a great living at Java so I don’t care what anyone else thinks, and if Apple and Sun valued these middling opinions, I’m sure they would have hired all the naysayers as consultants and dev managers already.
Just to clear up my last post…. Yes it did say that the port is written in C/C++. I have heard many ignorant comments, mainly on Slashdot, about OpenOffice.org being written in Java because it uses the JRE for some things and it takes so long to load. Get it strait people.
Also, stop bad mouthing Java. Its obviously used in places it has strengths and not in places its weak. Let it speak for itself.
Also, stop bad mouthing Java. Its obviously used in places it has strengths and not in places it’s weak. Let it speak for itself.
Some persons will say anything to bash Java.
I agree that Java is good; and many people talk about what they don’t know or haven’t never compared (however, the RAM will be more used in quantity but 128 MB must be assumed for an “average” user of the application).
>>A very good friend of mine (who is a Java programmer/consultant) said that .Net is more hype than anything else and that there is more demand for Java programmers out there than .Net programmers and there is not advantage for switching to .Net for various reasons.<<
I just took a class taught by a young consultant who has been doing Java for the last three years. By his own admission he said that he made a pile of money the first two years from corporations trying to get on the “bleeding edge”. Now he says the money’s drying up because the market is saturated with Java programmers (read: dot com crash) and he has had to adjust the rate he charges to compete. He’s taking classes on .Net (particularly C#) because he expects many companies will be looking for .Net help (since it’s official release was February 2002). Hard to compare a language that’s only been in release for 6 months to one that’s be around for a few years.
>I write enterprise Java code all the time and it is great. My servlets, [snip]…<
Servelets? We were discussing speed on the desktop/client side. Yeah, if you have a dual processor machine with a GB of RAM then I guess your “servelet” does run pretty speedily. That ain’t the point…
>Also, stop bad mouthing Java. Its obviously used in places it has strengths and not in places it’s weak. Let it speak for itself.<
So’s COBOL and FORTRAN and even Visual Basic but nobody minds bad mouthing those languages. But I would dare say there’s more code written and more money being made at the enterprise level with those languages than with all the Java and .Net stuff combined.
>Some persons will say anything to bash Java.<
Some people don’t want to face the truth. Java is slower (even when JIT’ed). Java is not the Holy Grail. Java is just another programming language. Java is NOT a religion. It’s not that we’re bashing Java – just pointing out it’s strenghts (server-side) vs. it’s weaknesses (client side).
>>Some people don’t want to face the truth. Java is slower (even when JIT’ed). Java is not the Holy Grail. Java is just another programming language. Java is NOT a religion. It’s not that we’re bashing Java – just pointing out it’s strenghts (server-side) vs. it’s weaknesses (client side).<<
Unfortunately there is also issues with .Net, and when you compare the overhead that .Net (C#) exploits with no real cross platform advantage, then Java is the more robust and flexible, which in the real world, Windows is not the only operating system in existance… something that people need to wake up to and smell the real coffee!
“…smell the real coffee!”
as opposed to what? Fake coffee?
Look I’m not shilling for .Net here – in my opinion it has the same shortcomings on the desktop as Java: it’s compiled byte code (or MSIL as M$ calls it) that runs on a VM (the CLR) and it has bloated libraries (the Framework) as well. But companies are gearing up to use it and want ads are already appearing for VB.NET and C#.NET coders.
>>with no real cross platform advantage…<<
I thought this subject was already dead. Unless you write the most generic, dumbed down, non-optimized code, there ain’t no real cross platform support anywhere. VMs vary from OS to OS and release to release. The Java coders I’ve met laugh out loud whenever someone trots out that chestnut.
First find a real commercially available desktop productivity app written in Java.
Then find the same program (not recompiled) running on any combo of Windows, Mac, Linux or the BeOS without an emulator.
Any luck? Didn’t think so…
Windows is not the only operating system in existance…
That’s 90+% on the client side. Wait for Mono, you would add 3%. 😀 More than 93% of the world could you your app (after a download of the Framework from MS, or Mono, though). So to me, 2.4% of the world’s market isn’t that important after all…..
Funny how people throw out this marketshare thing. We write big banking financial app/webapps and you want to know how many of our apps actually are written for the Win32 OSes? Zero, because our customers don’t use Windows/Intel hardware in the backend.
I’m sure that in other markets; print, video, music, law, publishing, education, web development, photography, film, advertising, packaging, 3D, recording, science and probably much more, the Mac OS has the largest marketshare over any other OS on the client, and maybe some on the server as well.
I don’t know about you, but have you seen or written anything in Obj-C? IMHO, its more elegant than JAVA. As a developer you ought to check it out, its very simple. Just something to think about.
I am really bored with people who thinks that Java is slow on the client side.
It will of course be slower than native applications. But it is fast enough (especially with JRE 1.4.1b rocks! They started to use hardware acceleration support for Swing.) to develop programs. Actually, it is getting better and better with the new high speed processors and JIT optimizations. For instance, JRE1.4.1b for Windows comes with graphics card acceleration support for Swing programs. JRE1.4.2 will contain generational garbage collector. OSX has hw bindings for graphics acceleration again. On Linux, it will further improve, since Sun is preparing its own Linux disto, and of course they will give better support for Java on Linux.
.NET is also VM based environment, and it is slow too. On windows it is a bit faster than Java, since MS folks can create direct bindings to windows code. But the speed difference is really not that much. And Java is cross – platform. It really is. I’ve written lots of programs which work on many platforms. Sometimes a bit tweaking is necessary, but its really nothing when compared with C/C++ porting.
By the way, if you don’t like Swing’s appearance or performance, there is an alternative created by IBM, called SWT. It is GUI framework for Java which uses native OS widgets. It exists for Linux and Windows currently, but coming to MacOSX in near future. It is an open source GUI framework for Java. Eclipse IDE (www.eclipse.org) is using it. I can easily say that it is considerably faster than Swing on both Linux and Windows. Frankly, on both platforms I am using Eclipse, and it is impossible to say it is a Java program, since it is working like a native program. If you still did not try it, please try it people. Eclipse is a fantastic open source IDE, (which is a universal IDE by the way. I mean not only for Java.) I believe it is becoming a de facto IDE of the future.
So, please people get real, and stop bashing Java. This is not true anymore. Java really works, it is getting better and better, and it is the only option for creating cross platform compatible programs.
Err…. Last time I was at the the OpenOffice OS X dev status they mention that Quartz build is working and it supports java. Not that it goes through java. http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/roadmap.html#OO638
They explicitly mention using C/C++ to access Quartz.
PLease correct. This’ll give them a bad wrap for sure.
I think the article missed something. Star Office is being built in Java for Mac OS X, Open Office is being written in C and C++.
Geez – what are you – all of 15 years old? I think we’ve gotten the message that you’re a Java fan and that you plan to employ every known rationalization for its deficiencies.
Thank you for making all of my previous points in one post. Java needs honking hardware to run at the level of other languages. Java is not truly cross-platform (tweaking my @ss). Java is almost what other languages already are. I could go on but I along with a number of other people have already made the point.
Junkman, first realize that to be wrong is human, but feeling pride and insisting to be right is not. I told you that I’ve written many Java programs which work on many platforms, which work without tweaking. You can shout constantly Java is not truly cross platform. Well, your choice.