Java 7 for Mac OSX

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi Richard,

On Tue, 21 Feb 2012, Richard Bair wrote:

> A *huge* (I would say, central) reason why Java deployment is
> chronically struggling is related to installed JREs and
> incompatibilities from one release to the next.

That is what I referred to when I said "pushing the burden".

I grant you that it would be easier on the JDK/JRE developers.

> In addition, every single time we fix a bug with a semantic side effect,
> somebody out there is going to be broken.

You know, that is why some developers refrain from relying on undocumented
behavior.

> As an application developer, I would never, ever, release software
> without tying it to exactly a specific version of the JRE. I would never
> rely on Java being preinstalled, in any circumstance.  It is guaranteed
> to break at some unspecified time in the future.

By that reasoning, we should all ship our software together with specific
OS versions (not allowing for system updates, that might change the
behavior and break the application). Just completing the logical argument,
is all I did.

The way you are suggesting things to be done guarantees that some security
flaw which was fixed in Java for decades will still come back to bite the
users.  Or that improvements in the JIT do not reach them.

Just to be ultra-clear: is what you suggest -- to stop having a
system-wide, well-maintained JRE in favor of JREs bundled with each and
every Java application -- the official stance of Oracle, or is this just
your personal opinion?

Ciao,
Johannes