On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:23:32 -0700, matthewoconnor1982@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<matthewoconnor1982@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> [...]
> Also, as an aside- compared to native programming languages, how
> suitable is Java in the opinion on the group for cross platform
> desktop software/solutions?
I agree with Lew that it would have been better to cross-post correctly to
start with. In your explanation to him, you claim "I have also tried to
qualify this above topic into another discussion - mainly that of java as
suitability for cross platform software products", but the above quote is
really the only evidence I see of that. The bulk of your question is
presumably the same as it was in the GUI newsgroup, and you still seem to
be primarily asking for help with the GUI design.
Now, that said...on the question of cross-platform...
It seems to me that the fact is, Java is about the best cross-platform
solution you're going to find. Or, if not the best, at least the most
widely used and sup****ted.
I started learning Java a few months ago, because I got fed up with
Cocoa. I have found the Apple development forums to be too religious for
my tastes ("Apple can do no wrong"), difficult to use (they are
email-only, with lame search capabilities and an annoying habit of the
users to change the email subject exactly when they've found a solution,
ensuring that the solution cannot be found next to the question when
searching), the Apple docs themselves are frustratingly vague and also
difficult to navigate, and on top of that, Objective-C lacks many of the
code-correctness and safety features I've come to know and love in C# and
Java (and C++, for that matter).
On the topic of language annoyances, two (of many) that come immediately
to mind include: in Objective-C, it is actually possible to have an
incorrectly constructed object (imagine if in C++, Java, C#, etc. you
could create a derived class A, but only call the constructor for its base
class B), and the syntax is surprisingly annoying (because of the nested
bracket syntax, you cannot as easily chain method invocations...you either
need to know in advance exactly how many methods you're going to invoke,
so you can put the right number of brackets at the beginning, or you need
to go back after you're done and fix it up).
These are just a couple of my least favorite things. :)
My first Cocoa project was a ****t of a .NET application that took less
than a week to write originally. The ****t to Cocoa took me the better
part of a summer. In the end, the code between the two is actually quite
similar. But some aspects of it were definitely more complicated in
Cocoa, and I wasted a _lot_ of time just trying to figure out how to do
things.
Sorry...this wasn't really mean to be a rant about Cocoa. However, that
does lead me to my rant about Java on the Mac. On other platforms, you've
got Sun's implementation, either created by Sun specifically for the
platform, or at least a ****t of the Sun implementation. However, Apple
being Apple, they have to write their own implementation.
As a result, you have a few issues: their implementation doesn't always
match the Sun implementation (I found some subtle differences in the audio
playback API, for example); their implementation is _well_ behind Sun's
implementation (Java 1.7 is "right around the corner", while the currently
released implementation on OS X is still Java 1.5); and worst of all,
Apple seems happy to tie the Java implementation to the OS version (in
other words, even if and when they get Java 1.6 done, it won't run on OS X
versions prior to 10.5).
Out of the three "modern" high-level framework/language combinations I've
been using lately, my order of preference is: .NET/C#, Java, and
Cocoa/Objective-C. In that list, Java is the only one that has a good
cross-platform story, and it's nearly as good as a platform as the .NET/C#
combination (frankly, I suspect the main reason I like .NET and especially
C# better is that .NET/C# had the advantage of looking at Java's
example). Cocoa/Obj-C comes in a VERY distant third. As in, I really
love working with .NET/C# and Java both, but I dread the thought of having
to fire up Xcode and do some Cocoa programming.
It's unfortunate that Java isn't better-sup****ted on the Mac. However,
the poor Java sup****t is still better than the existing Cocoa/Objective-C
sup****t, and it gives you a real cross-platform solution. Obviously Java
isn't going to get you all of the OS-specific features, but it's a very
capable framework. Unless you need direct access to OS-specific things,
it should do just fine (certainly Apple's Java implementation does fine
with Mac "look-and-feel"), and my understanding is that there are even
ways to include platform-specific stuff (I keep seeing "JNI" mentioned?).
Some people really seem to love Cocoa. But I've yet to meet someone who
wasn't already a Mac-ophile who loves Cocoa. There's a certain kind of
person predisposed to viewing anything Apple does with rose-colored
gl*****. For those people, Cocoa's great. Certainly from a functionality
point of view, it doesn't seem to be lacking. But for the rest of us, its
ties to Objective-C and lack of good developer resources can be a
significant barrier.
Just my two cents.
Pete
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