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Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

blogs.oracle.com

11–20 of 84 posts

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#11
post #6

The Java way has always been: To run this, click on the .bat file or type java -jar myapp.jar. And some people wonder why Java has been such a failure on the desktop. This should have been in Java from the beginning, instead of outsourcing this functionality to third parties (Mainly Windows only installer applications that sucks, and also isnt used that much). That said, I think it is misguided to include a JRE in th…

At least on Mac OS X, you can double-click .jar files and they will get launched as the user expects, complete with Dock presence.

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#12
post #6

The Java way has always been: To run this, click on the .bat file or type java -jar myapp.jar. And some people wonder why Java has been such a failure on the desktop. This should have been in Java from the beginning, instead of outsourcing this functionality to third parties (Mainly Windows only installer applications that sucks, and also isnt used that much). That said, I think it is misguided to include a JRE in th…

At least on Mac OS X, you can double-click .jar files and they will get launched as the user expects, complete with Dock presence.

Yes, that is a bit better than Windows, were this functionality would have mattered the most to have from the beginning.

Still, its not 100% the way OS X users expect apps to work.

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#13
post #8
post #6

The Java way has always been: To run this, click on the .bat file or type java -jar myapp.jar. And some people wonder why Java has been such a failure on the desktop. This should have been in Java from the beginning, instead of outsourcing this functionality to third parties (Mainly Windows only installer applications that sucks, and also isnt used that much). That said, I think it is misguided to include a JRE in th…

IMO the correct way is to include subset of JRE that's actually required for given application. This can lead to relatively small total application size and deployments that do not require any knowledge of java and java world from end user. Having one JRE for all apps on the system is nice but it's usually not needed.

Yes, but still parts of the JVM would be duplicated between apps and updated on app developer X's own schedule.

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#14
post #3

Finally - why did this come now, and not 4-5 years ago? I apologize for asking such a question, but it's the first thing that comes to mind. Principally I do like JavaFX, and this approach will work - given that these binary bundles don't end up like 80MB monsters.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Java developer since 1.0)

For the same reasons that Sun had no nice theme and no nice icons for 15 years for Swing applications (do they now?)

They are horrible thinking about desktop deployments, end users, marketing etc.

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#15
post #3

Finally - why did this come now, and not 4-5 years ago? I apologize for asking such a question, but it's the first thing that comes to mind. Principally I do like JavaFX, and this approach will work - given that these binary bundles don't end up like 80MB monsters.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Java developer since 1.0) For the same reasons that Sun had no nice theme and no nice icons for 15 years for Swing applications (do they now?) They are horrible thinking about desktop deployments, end users, marketing etc.

Surely that's just because the money is in backend business processes, rather than desktop stuff?

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#16
post #10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about Java. There are a bunch of apps written in Java web start(ie yEd), which involves just clicking on a link. Off the top of my head, some very popular Java apps are Eclipse/Intellij or Azureus.

I use IntelliJ daily, and the install experience is "devloper friendly", not exactly end user friendly. Dont get me started on Eclipse install process. JWS is awful. It is totally not the way users expect to install applications.

which part of intellij installation that is more developer friendly? i just download the DMG and drag the icon to Applications, just like other apps.

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Java developer since 1.0) For the same reasons that Sun had no nice theme and no nice icons for 15 years for Swing applications (do they now?) They are horrible thinking about desktop deployments, end users, marketing etc.

Surely that's just because the money is in backend business processes, rather than desktop stuff?

Then why even bother with Swing and desktop? Why then add JavaFX?

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on Mac OS X, you can double-click .jar files and they will get launched as the user expects, complete with Dock presence.

Yes, that is a bit better than Windows, were this functionality would have mattered the most to have from the beginning. Still, its not 100% the way OS X users expect apps to work.

You seem to be under the impression that Windows doesn't do the same. That's wrong.

Windows does the same thing as OS X. You can do the same on Linux, even on the console over there (using binfmt_misc, see [1]) without a desktop environment.

For as long as I can remember Java installed an entry in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT for .jar files. On my machine it's currently set up to run

  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe" -jar "%1" %*
whenever I want to 'launch' a jar file.

1: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1667830/running-a-jar-fil...

Re: Java is preparing to co-bundling and native binaries

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's just because the money is in backend business processes, rather than desktop stuff?

Then why even bother with Swing and desktop? Why then add JavaFX?

For mobile applications?
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