smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I note there seems to be yet another reason for part of the Apple community to complain first and ask questions later. This time, rather than consumer cries of unfair practices, it’s Java developers that are raging against the machine.

It does appear some cooler heads have surfaced with a little voice of reason regarding the decision by Apple to not roll Sun Java 1.6 into the first release of Leopard. Ben Galbraith, co-founder of Ajaxian, has stepped up and writes:

"So, what, there are some bugs in OS X 10.5.0? They didn't have 1.6 ready out-of-the-chutes? Big deal. Give it time, just like we have with every release of Java since OS X first shipped with 10.3."

Ben also points out a working solution for anyone looking to develop that has made noises about shifting platforms:

".. now, thanks to Parallels/Fusion, we actually have a great alternative for the impatient."

It's not exactly breaking new ground using a virtual environment for development, indeed some might suggest it's the ideal approach. So as Gruber has pointed out, this is little more than a storm in a teacup.

He's not alone in that view either as Eric Burke points out:

"Panic! Panic! No, wait. Let’s learn from history. I spent some time this afternoon putting together [a] timeline comparing Sun’s Java releases with Apple’s Java release.."

The timeline clearly shows that Java updates have universally occurred within short order of a major milestone release. Certainly for both Panther and Tiger. This isn't a new thing. It's also not just an Apple thing. Unlike our solar system's celestial bodies, most Operating Systems do not revolve around Sun.

From my point-of-view, Java may well be one of 'the' platforms of choice for the mobile space, but it's place is far less cemented on the desktop. Where Leopard is in use. I seldom see Java outside of the web browser, be it in Windows, OS X or even Linux; indeed aside from a small handful of applications, few actually will.