I'd like to interject with a bit of my anecdotal understanding because I think the problems with newer Java's on OS X are being unfairly misplaced on Oracle. My understanding is that Apple originally insisted on keeping some of the JRE implementation related to OS X graphics closed source. This would include drawing images, 3D graphics, and windows that IJ uses extensively. So, they told Oracle they would take Oracle's reference implementation, sprinkle in the OS X-specific graphical bits so that things were optimized [probably using undocumented APIs], and distribute it themselves. In recent versions of OS X, for whatever reason, they no longer want to play nice with Oracle and have left Java-dependent people at the mercy of Oracle's poorer, more general, implementations. And frankly, from Apple's POV that may make sense because the only graphically-intense Java application I use is ImageJ, and I imagine most Apple users use even less than I/us.
Without changing Apple's practices, the only practical long-term way forward in my view is to jump to the newer Oracle version and vigilantly report JRE bugs and hope they get fixed ASAP. It's not very satisfying though -- fortunately, unlike Windows PCs, there should be a relatively limited number of Apple hardware/software platforms to accommodate.
All that said, I'm still on OS X 10.6.8 and JDK 1.6.0_65 and only plan on upgrading after a lot of kicking and screaming. :)
P.S.: The only compelling reason I have heard to force an upgrade to the newer Java versions is the gaping security holes in Java 6, but I _think_ they primarily would affect Java browser plugins or people that already had physical access to our computers.
Le 20 juil. 2015 à 17:32, Herbie a écrit :
> Dear Curtis,
>
> thanks for clarifying at least part of the previously rather foggy area.
> In the first place I mean Apple's statement which, taking into account previous abrupt and severe changes, doesn't surprise much and must even be called comparably moderate.
>
> "[...] unfortunate reality of small development teams."
> I'm sure you aren't speaking of the small development team at Oracle.
> Why can't a large and terribly wealthy company provide ripe bananas? Maybe they aren't interested in Java any more and green bananas are an elegant way out of the situation?
> No, because Java is still one of the most used languages -- but who cares...
>
> Metaphorically addressed to Oracle (because I'm not even a small development team):
> We all know that image processing most often means big data, at least for personal computers, and I'm really shocked that one of the finest software packages that is available for free is to suffer from people who evidently don't think of the user's needs but of what they think is innovation. Well, nothing against fixing bugs, but that won't affect execution speed.
>
> I've no experience with Java 7.
>
> _Are there any speed penalties compared to Java 6?_
>
> As far as I understand the situation with Apple and Java support, Oracle's Java should run on Macs independent of Apple's OS version.
> So Java 7 looks appealing -- does it?
>
> Curtis, is your and the team's work on ImageJ-2 still, at least partially, funded by national agencies?
> If yes, this could be a lever to be pulled -- no?
>
> I can't remember a single ImageJ-1 crash under Java 6 and I use it a lot since years. If I've encountered a problem it was due to my coding but perhaps my projects deal with toy problems.
>
> Anyhow, if Java 8 is unripe and if there is realistic hope that it will mature, why not stick with Java 7 for the time being, even if it's going to be a long time.
> Perhaps Oracle is unhappy that nobody uses Java 8 or Oracle is unhappy that nobody does the debugging for them -- or both.
>
> Who needs Java 8? Oracle?
>
> Enough speculations for tonight.
>
> Best
>
> Herbie
>
> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> Am 20.07.15 um 22:09 schrieb Curtis Rueden:
>> Hi Herbie,
>>
>>> ...you agree that it is ok that software is comparable to green
>>> bananas and that the user is responsible for debugging.
>>> Isn't this a bit strange?
>>
>> To an extent, yes. I wouldn't call it strange, so much as an unfortunate
>> reality of small development teams.
>>
>>> Does that mean that you can't run Java 6 under the latest Mac OS? I
>>> don't think that this holds true.
>>
>>> From Apple's release notes [1]: "OS X El Capitan is the last major release
>> of OS X that will support the previously deprecated Java 6 runtime and
>> tools provided by Apple. Applications or features that depend upon Java 6
>> may not function properly or will not launch when Java 6 is removed.
>> Developers should move to a newer version of Java as provided by Oracle."
>>
>>> What's wrong with running Java 6 on an up-to-date personal computer,
>>> especially if code, such as ImageJ, runs much smoother and faster?
>>
>> Nothing at all. I would encourage users to use whatever version of Java
>> best fits their needs. That said, Java 7 fixes many, many bugs that were
>> never backported to Java 6. Our group's personal experience is that ImageJ
>> crashes under Java 6 much more often than with Java 7—e.g., when performing
>> image stitching operations taking many hours.
>>
>> But if your workflows in ImageJ work well in Java 6, then by all means
>> stick with it as long as you can.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Curtis
>>
>> [1]
>>
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releasenotes/General/rn-osx-10.11/>>
>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Herbie <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> Good day Curtis,
>>>
>>> by stating...
>>>
>>> [...] Java 8 still has some problems, the only way they will realistically
>>> be addressed is to do the migration and deal with the fallout."
>>>
>>> ...you agree that it is ok that software is comparable to green bananas
>>> and that the user is responsible for debugging.
>>> Isn't this a bit strange?
>>>
>>> Michael Ellis wrote:
>>> "Beyond this all I wish to add is a note to anyone involved in ImageJ
>>> development that moving to newer JVM’s becomes increasingly important as
>>> the older JVMs become increasingly difficult to get support for on the
>>> Apple platform [...]"
>>>
>>> Does that mean that you can't run Java 6 under the latest Mac OS?
>>> I don't think that this holds true.
>>>
>>> What's wrong with running Java 6 on an up-to-date personal computer,
>>> especially if code, such as ImageJ, runs much smoother and faster?
>>>
>>> Just my 1 Euro Cent questions
>>>
>>> Herbie
>>>
>>> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>>> Am 20.07.15 um 18:03 schrieb Curtis Rueden:
>>>
>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>
>>>> Beyond this all I wish to add is a note to anyone involved in ImageJ
>>>>> development that moving to newer JVM’s becomes increasingly important
>>>>> as the older JVMs become increasingly difficult to get support for on
>>>>> the Apple platform and also that anyone doing any development for
>>>>> plugins is increasingly likely to be tooled up to reply on Java 8.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Indeed, the ImageJ team at LOCI 100% agrees with you, and as announced
>>>> earlier we do plan to migrate to Java 8 by the end of the summer:
>>>>
>>>>
http://imagej.net/2015-06-15_-_Major_updates_in_the_works>>>>
>>>> We are definitely feeling the same pain you describe—especially as more
>>>> and
>>>> more underlying libraries raise their minimum requirements—and even though
>>>> Java 8 still has some problems, the only way they will realistically be
>>>> addressed is to do the migration and deal with the fallout. But of course
>>>> we being as careful as we can to minimize the chances of backwards
>>>> incompatible updates.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Curtis
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Michael Ellis <
[hidden email]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I too rely on plugins that require Java 8 (lne we build ourselves) and
>>>>> have also found some problems with ImageJ under Java 8 (slow image
>>>>> updates
>>>>> used to be a big problem). These problems seem to have been improving
>>>>> with
>>>>> ImageJ releases and also with Java 8 releases.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would make sure you have the latests Java 8 installed (some early
>>>>> versions had show stopping bugs which have since been fixed).
>>>>>
>>>>> Beyond this all I wish to add is a note to anyone involved in ImageJ
>>>>> development that moving to newer JVM’s becomes increasingly important as
>>>>> the older JVMs become increasingly difficult to get support for on the
>>>>> Apple platform and also that anyone doing any development for plugins is
>>>>> increasingly likely to be tooled up to reply on Java 8.
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand that desire for backwards compatibility but there’s always
>>>>> going to be tradeoff!
>>>>>
>>>>> — Michael Ellis
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>>
>>
>> --
>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>
>
> --
> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html