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The only problem is that developers use Java, not just to develop, but also for using xplat coding apps -- like Eclipse or phpStorm. Or SQuirreL-SQL. Java's a place that xplat partnerships can happen, even if the end result is a tool for coding [non-Java] rather than an end-user, client-facing app. That's exactly how Apple used Java in Mac OS X Server. There's a reason so many server admin tools started out with a Java GUI, and a reason WebObjects was Java.
And the more Java developers you have on OS X, the more developers you'll have considering and learning Objective-C.
So either Apple already knows Oracle's going to support Mac Java (which is a perfect world) or they're potentially misstepping, taking one too many lessons from the iPad back to the Mac.
From once being the heart of Apple's own WebObjects (Apple's attempt to be serious about servers), Java's now getting shoved off the platform, at least for your typical end user.
Apple's submission guidelines specifically target Java and Rosetta (PowerPC legacy code) as being among the 'deprecated or optionally installed technologies' that approved apps must avoid. While developers can continue to release Java apps for Mac, or use Macs to build server-side projects in Java, it won't play any role in creating software for the Mac App Store.
These (this and my last post about no Flash plugin in Safari by default) are both iOS lessons making their way "back to the Mac". Jobs is closing all of his platforms, at least to the degree possible without compromising each platform's individual raison d'etres. Goodbye Flash, goodbye Java, goodbye 3rd party headaches. Apple sees OS X as a platform strong enough to stand on its own merits now. If the strong adoption and support of Safari on the web and with web systems shows anything, they're probably right.
The next (and maybe last?) crutch? Microsoft Office. Good luck with that one.
posted by ruffin
at 10/21/2010 06:09:00 PM
Engadget revealed today that Apple's new MacBook Air doesn't ship with Adobe's Flash plug-in.
Hilarious. I wonder if Safari is smart enough to suggest you use HTML5 if you visit YouTube without Flash. That would be, as they say in the biz, cahlassic.
posted by ruffin
at 10/21/2010 09:07:00 AM
The item that hit me most squarely is the processor in the new 11" MacBook Air. It's an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 1.4 GHz. That's not a misprint -- it's .4 GHz slower than the previous MBA lowest rung and about a third slower than the one I'm using in my year-old MacBook now. This reminds me of the Atom processors in netbooks, as does the size, price, and lack of ports. The 11" MBA is, essentially, Apple's netbook. Why does Jobs say it isn't one? Well, because they're charging more than $200 for it. Even with the Mac Tax, a netbook shouldn't be more than, what, $7-800?
The MBA for a grand is tempting. I'd love to lose two pounds, and the new MBA takes 4 Gigs of RAM, twice the soldered-on amount previously offered. Still, it just ain't fast. Goodbye, Moore.
If it had 3G for a grand, however, I'd be more tempted. Honestly, I half-way expected to hear 3G was the third iPad lesson to be brought back to the Mac.
I'm watching the stream of "Back to the Mac", and he's a poor parrot of Jobs. The jeans and the hyperbole are both pretty sad emulations of the CEO. I'm already scared with the growth of the Mac in the last year, as it's not sustainable, which helps limit stock growth. Now I'm more and more scared that the company without Jobs will, as everyone expects, be a shell. It'll carry forward for a while, but Mr. Copy Pants and his turned up fleece collar (parroting another stereotype) doesn't have the ability to lead.
(Note: Gruber disagrees via twitter:
Love how Cook is just wearing a windbreaker. 11 minutes ago via Tweetie for Mac
I wonder what that means.)
I mean, come on, Jobs looks dumb. Black turtleneck is fine, but tucking it into jeans with running shoes every day all the time is idiotic. He's a dork. And he's powerful and charismatic enough that we ignore the faux pas. Cook looks like a doofus without the charisma. He's stumbling through his hyperbole, showing he has to think about what he's saying, translating his message into the foreign tongue his peeps are used to rallying around. Jobs is Trump, Cook is Merv Griffin.
There's still a ton of potential at Apple. HDTVs and iPhones on new carriers are growth areas. I would expect the stock price to go up a great deal more. But without the direction of the perfectionist at the top, they're toast.
EDIT: Looks like Don Draper is working on iPhoto 11.
'Many Android apps work only on select handsets, or select Android versions,' Jobs said Monday. 'This is for handsets that shipped 12 months ago. Compare with iPhone, where there are two versions to test against -- the current and most recent predecessor.'
I'm holding you to that, Jobs. Apps should work on hardware up to 12 months old. Sometimes I wonder if Apple goes that far back...
posted by ruffin
at 10/19/2010 01:54:00 PM
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications โ including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct โpeer to peerโ messaging like Skype โ to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
Note how this is written as if the only people doing message scrambling/encrypting are ISPs. I've been wanting to write a mail handler that made encryption easy (and, at least initially, it's only job). I need to write it sooner than later.
(Which reminds me, tried encrypting with Thunderbird? Sheesh, non-intuitive. It's all about barriers to entry, Gladwells.)
posted by ruffin
at 10/18/2010 11:04:00 AM
I'm listening to Dan Patrick and Rich Eisen right now on the radio. Please folks, Favre's only going to let his elbow bench him for one of two reasons. (They're not the only ones being thick headed, of course.)
1.) He's about to be suspended publicly for the Sterger scandal, and wants to control who breaks his consecutive game starting streak. 2.) He's about to be suspended privately, and wants a good cover story for why he's taking time off.
Either way, the "tendonitis might sideline me" angle is Favre preparing his story if 1 or 2 happens. With 1.), he's that conceited, which helps make him a great competitor. With 2.), that's just smart PR.
But let's stop being naive. Favre's elbow is a convenient cover story. As Mark Brunell proved with the Redskins, short of LT's hit on Theisman, if a QB can play, he will play until his coach puts him on the bench. I've had awful tendonitis myself, but it's not something that starts immediately. You can play through a great deal of it, and often don't know how bad it's going to be until you go full speed for a while. Often, it really hits you only after going full speed and then stopping. That gives you one good series before you hit the bench, which Favre would take.
As a student suggested to me yesterday, if Arenas can fake an injury to give another player playing time, Favre can sure as heck lie about his to block the Sterger scandal.
Can we stop using "cannibalizing", please? You're being out-competed; this isn't stealing from Peter to pay Paul.
Did laptops cannibalize desktop sales? Did the Apple II cannibalize calculators? Did calculators cannibalize ledgers? Good grief, heaven forbid somebody gets tablets right.
posted by ruffin
at 10/15/2010 08:09:00 AM
I've recently picked back up a small project I had to put down for a, um, more regular paycheck, and the owner had hired another programmer to hack on it for a while, which is fine except that he didn't involve me when he did it. No serious problem, but the new guy not only doesn't understand when to use UNIONs in his SQL, but also went hog wild with OO php. "When the only tool you have is a hammer..."
There's certainly nothing wrong with OO php. It's often The Right Thing to use, and makes MVC a lot easier to set up my old skool $myrow['fieldName'] calls in the page creation code. For me, a gvim user, I just prefer to keep it all in the recordset, ASP style. I usually separate larger pages into "engine" files/includes that create the dynamic html or at least set up variables to spit into the page, which is close to the same thing as moving the SQL into an object.
But OO php + old skool php == one f'n mess. At times, the temp dude wrote a few lines into my old code, or wacked the SQL into something that's hardly normalized, and for others he wrote brand new OO code and replaced a page or two at random. It's a real amalgam of style now, without any docs explaining the changes, and is a real b!tch to debug.
Now I could probably be convinced to go to OO if my tools were OO savvy. PHPStorm, a crossplatform Java editor for PHP, seems to do code completion based on your own objects, Visual Studio style. That's pretty kewl, and much easier than typing it all in by hand with VIm.
Why can't we have a good JTextPane extended with VIm shortcuts? Honestly, I'm more than sold on VIm (and have tried some VIm code completion extensions with varying degrees of FAIL). Not using the mouse means you're faster. Perhaps I should give PHPStorm a shot. I don't do large Java projects in VIm, for instance. I use Eclipse. I love using Visual Studio for C# and VB. At some point, I guess there will be a good enough editor to pull me away from VIm for php too...
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