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.

There has been some recent activity around a re-born Mozilla application, previously named
WebRunner, now called named
Prism1.

There is some
good coverage of Prism, particularly via
dailyapps, as well as
developer notes, which all do a damn fine job of describing it’s purpose.
If you want to skip the detailed view, it can be most succinctly […]

There has been a recent trend of late that suggests suspending good sense, logic and reason is the order of the day.
I believe an example is in order. Tony Celeste
writes:
Does Steve Jobs have some secret business vision that none of us can comprehend, or has he just reached the point of being so […]

Cameron Hunt1
writes:
Paul Thurrott, popular Windows pundit, is overzealously promoting an article he hasn’t written yet, calling Leopard “nothing to switch about.” A little preemptive to sum-up an article that’s not written yet. What if he actually likes Leopard?
It is highly reminiscent of the ubiquitous “spoilt child”, who at the worst possible moment screams “do […]

Michael posts about the
Lifehacker Does Xbox Media Center article:
“I’m a huge proponent of
Xbox Media Center. That is, an old Xbox, chipped and with
XBMC installed on it, to make it the ultimate SD media center ever in the world of the history of everything..”
I’ve had an Xbox for something like 4 years now. […]