Java Archive

The decline and fall of Java on the desktop part 1 (1999-2005)

This is the first in a series of articles about the history of Java on the Desktop, from my perspective as a developer who started working with Java in the late ‘90’s. I’m writing this, partly as a background for why I created jDeploy, a developer-friendly desktop deployment tool for Java. Despite the ominous tone of this article’s title, I believe that Java is a compelling platform for modern desktop applications. Stick around for the whole series to find out why. Isn’t Java still one of the languages every aspiring programmer learns in school?

The 25 greatest Java apps ever written

What follows is a list of the 25 most ingenious and influential Java apps ever written, from Wikipedia Search to the US National Security Agency’s Ghidra. The scope of these applications runs the gamut: space exploration, video games, machine learning, genomics, automotive, cybersecurity, and more. It’s posted by Oracle and thus it makes me feel dirty to link to it, but I guess it’s still an interesting list – albeit with one obvious, huge, giant, inescapable elephant of an mission.

Java’s new Z Garbage Collector is very exciting

Java 11 has recently been feature frozen and contains some really great features, one in particular we’d like to highlight. The release contains a brand new Garbage Collector, ZGC, which is being developed by Oracle that promises very low pause times on multi-terabyte heaps. In this article we'll cover the motivation for a new GC, a technical overview and some of the really exciting possibilities ZGC opens up.

Why would you look at that - I get to use the Java database category.

Sun’s Project Looking Glass debuted 14 years ago

Almost 14 years ago, way back in 2003, Sun Microsystems unveiled Project Looking Glass, a 3D desktop environment written in Java and making extensive use of Java 3D. The demo, by Jonathan Schwartz, always stuck with me over the years, and since YouTube recommended the demo to me today, I figured it'd be interesting to you remind you all of simpler times, when flipping windows around and 3D rendering in Java actually managed to get us excited (something no other project would ever manage to... Wait.).

Project Looking Glass was developed for about three years, and it actually saw a 1.0 release in late 2006. It's one of those random projects exploring what we then thought could be the future of computing, right before the iPhone came onto the scene and changed everything. While nothing came out of Project Looking Glass, Schwartz' demo did teach me the phrase "arbitrarily clever", which I'm unusually attached to.

LWJGL 2.9.0 released

The Lightweight Java Game Library provides a simple API to OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL and Game Controllers enabling the production of state of the art games for Windows, Linux and Mac. Version 2.9.0 contains a complete rewrite of the mac backend, support for FreeBSD, new OpenGL/OpenCL extension and bug fixes. The library is used by many high profile games such as Minecraft, Spiral Knights, Revenge of the Titans, Project Zomboid, Starsector, JMonkeyEngine, etc.

RoboVM 0.0.1 released

The first preview release of RoboVM has just been made available. The primary goal of the project is to make it possible to develop native iOS applications in Java that use native iOS Cocoa Touch APIs. The RoboVM compiler translates Java bytecode into ARM or x86 machine code. The core classes (java.lang, java.util, java.io, etc.) are based on Android's runtime classes. RoboVM's compile time tools are GPLv2 licensed while the runtime is released under business-friendly licenses, mostly the Apache License v2.0.

Project Sumatra improves Java performance with OpenCL

"Java is a programming language that allows developers to write once and deploy everywhere - from high-end gaming desktops to smartphones. Its OS-agnostic and widespread nature is one of its strongest selling points, but one area where it can fall flat is performance. Generally, Java applications are not going to perform as well as native applications written for a specific OS. However, thanks to Project Sumatra that performance gap may soon become less of an issue."

Oracle’s Latest Java Moves Draw Industry Ire

Two years hence, Oracle's stewardship of Java continues to raise user and vendor ire, this time due to modularization, licensing, and security concerns. 'Plans for version 8 of Java Platform Standard Edition, which is due next year, call for inclusion of Project Jigsaw to add modular capabilities to Java. But some organizations are concerned with how Oracle's plans might conflict with the OSGi module system already geared to Java. In the licensing arena, Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu Linux, says Oracle is no longer letting Linux distributors redistribute Oracle's own commercial Java, causing difficulties for the company. Meanwhile, security vendor F-Secure views Java as security hindrance.'

Java To Be Removed from Ubuntu, Uninstalled from User Machines

Oracle's Sun Java JDK packages are to be removed from the Ubuntu partner repositories and disabled on users systems. Oracle, in retiring the "Operating System Distributor License for Java," means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package. The change will affect Ubuntu 10.04 LTs, Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 users only. Users who have the "sun-java-6" package installed on their system will see it removed via a future software update -- the exact date of which is "TBD."

Java Tops for Hackers, Warns Microsoft

Patch up warmly this winter if you're running Java. That's the advice from .NET shop Microsoft, which reckons Oracle's platform is the single biggest target for hackers. Java proved the single most popular target in the 12-month period to the end of June, according to Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report has found here Running Java as a Web-browser Plugin is much more dangerous than Flash, and should disable the Java Applet Plugin.

Java Cloud Platforms Compared

InfoWorld's Peter Wayner provides an in-depth comparison of four Java cloud platforms, putting CloudBees, Google App Engine, Red Hat OpenShift, and VMware Cloud Foundry through their paces to 'reveal the pleasures and perils of coding on a public cloud platform.' 'The danger of lock-in seems to lurk around every corner, and that's not necessarily the worst part. What if we're happy with everything about our cloud except we need one missing feature that the cloud's masters either can't or don't want to deliver?' Wayner writes. 'Some of the clouds rely upon standard tools that take standard WAR files and deliver their information to the world. Others have so many proprietary twists that you might as well tattoo the code on your arm -- it's going to be with you for the rest of your life.'

Java SE 7 Released

"Java SE 7 is officially released today! After nearly five years of collaboration within the worldwide Java community, Java Platform, Standard Edition is ready for download! It's an important step in Java’s evolution. Thanks to everyone who suggested features, reviewed specs, argued on mailing lists, talked about Java 7 at your JUG meeting, submitted bugs, wrote blogs and tweeted about #java7."

JDK 7 RC1 Released

"After an initial round of testing we've declared build 147 to be the first Release Candidate of JDK 7. There are only thirteen changes in this build. Over half of them are administrivial updates that don't affect the actual code; the remainder are true showstoppers, including several hard VM crashes and a JIT correctness bug identified by an Eclipse unit test. If no new showstopper issues are reported, and if JSR 336 and the component JSRs pass their Final Approval Ballots in the JCP, then this will be the GA build for release later this month per the schedule posted back in January."

Oracle Making Java, Solaris Certifications Pricier

Later this year, Oracle will begin requiring people interested in gaining Java and Solaris certifications to attend "hands-on" training courses, at an additional cost of thousands of dollars. The new rule goes into effect Aug. 1 and regards Java Architect, Java Developer, Solaris System Administrator and Solaris Security Administrator certification paths, according to a notice on Oracle's website.

The ASF Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee

"The Apache Software Foundation concludes that that JCP is not an open specification process - that Java specifications are proprietary technology that must be licensed directly from the spec lead under whatever terms the spec lead chooses; that the commercial concerns of a single entity, Oracle, will continue to seriously interfere with and bias the transparent governance of the ecosystem; that it is impossible to distribute independent implementations of JSRs under open source licenses such that users are protected from IP litigation by expert group members or the spec lead; and finally, the EC is unwilling or unable to assert the basic power of their role in the JCP governance process."

The Coming War Over the Future of Java

Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes about what could be the end of the Java Community Process as we know it. With the Apache Software Foundation declaring war on Oracle over Java, the next likely step would be a vote of no confidence in the JCP, which, if the ASF can convince enough members to follow suit, "could effectively unravel the Java community as a whole", McAllister writes, with educators, academics, and researchers having little incentive to remain loyal to an Oracle-controlled platform. "Independent developers could face the toughest decisions of all. Even if the JCP dissolves, many developers will be left with few alternatives", with .Net offering little advantage, and Perl, Python, and Ruby unable to match Java's performance. The dark horse? Google Go - a language Google might just fast-track in light of its patent suit with Oracle over Android.