[gee308]

Sorry to word it like that, but I'm thinking about writing a couple of apps on mac, and later port to windows, so I was thinking about the portable-ness of java, but then I remembered that most of the java apps I ran on mac 10.2 suck as in dog slow. Do you guys know of any fairly large java apps on OSX that I could try to see if the apps I tested were just poorly written, or it is true that java is just too slow on macs. The main example I think of when I think of macs and java, is limewire, which really does suck. Anohter app I have used is some napster client written in java, which was better than limewire in terms of responsiveness, but still not very good.

[NeXTLoop]

One other big app written in Java is ThinkFree Office. Overall its gotten good reviews. The one thing where it has gotten some negative feedback is in its speed. However, in all the reviews I've read, that's pretty much been a side-point, not big enough to discredit the app.

Personally I've never used ThinkFree Office, so I can't attest to its speed/slowness. But it would probably be a good one for you to take a look at.

[Kristoff]

I use Think Free, Forte 4 Java, Smart CVS, Visual 3270, and a bunch of stuff I have written.

They are fast enough on my dual 800 and are reasonable on my Pismo 500 with 640 megs of ram.

Remember, the JDK for OS X is a bit immature-- full featured (1.3.1) but immature in the sense of optimizations.

1.4.1 should be out soon and will be a much better performer on Jaguar.

Also, processors are only getting faster. It's not like the JVM will get slower over time. So, there will be a point where the difference (in terms of speed) between java and native apps will be indecernable.

my $0.02

[mrburri]

I have used Think Free Office, and I continue to use it. The speed question is redundant, as with Hardware acceleration option turned on it is a fast MS Office, no speed demon, but well with in the usability range.

You want to see how fast a Java application can get get a copy of getAmped a manga style game from Japan written in pure Java and portable.

http://www.getamped.org/en/


Java programs are as fast as most other programs, it however, suffers from poor GUI implementation by developers using swing. Their is now an option to build your Java GUI applications using XUL, and cross platform GUI toolkit written in XML. Here are some link.

http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/
http://www.xulplanet.com/
http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/post/links.html

XUL is much faster then Swing, it is not supported by SUN, but IBM and the Eclipse group are backing it.

Their are no bad bad Java programs just bad programmers.

Plus with JVM 1.4.1 from Apple almost ready, Java will be using native cocoa GUI widgets, thus making Java as native looking and feeling as any Obj-C application on the Mac. JVM 1.4.1 rules, I love how polished all my Java apps become under it.

[V0ID]

If you're concerned about GUI speed you could write your app in cocoa-java. I don't think it's as bad as some people make out. Just not everything you'll find in regular cocoa is available, so you have to make some workarounds.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by V0ID:
If you're concerned about GUI speed you could write your app in cocoa-java. I don't think it's as bad as some people make out. Just not everything you'll find in regular cocoa is available, so you have to make some workarounds.

Cocoa/Java actually seems to be less portable than writing in Cocoa/Obj-C. There's GNUStep for running Yellow Box programs written in Objective-C on other operating systems; Java programs that depend on Cocoa are pretty much tied to Mac OS X unless you want also want to write a Swing or AWT GUI (in which case I kind of wonder why you bothered with the Cocoa version).

[mrburri]

XUL gives you the GUI speed, and gives you true cross platform portability. XUL calls native system widgets. Thus your Java application uses the same widgets as C/C++/VB on Windows and C/C++/Objective-C on Mac OSX.

I also believe that the same XUL can me hooked into different C/C++/Objective-C/Java code, thus removing the need to code OS specific GUI elements.

Thus your interface in completely native, and runs at full native speed.

One of the largest examples of XML style GUI interface is Eclipse IDE. Still beta for OSX, but a good working example.

Having said all that - Swing is still fine, for most small Java GUI applications but you do have opitions.

[Angus_D]

Actually Alias: Underground appears to be written in Java (and using SDL).

[absmiths]

Originally posted by mrburri:

Their are no bad bad Java programs just bad programmers.

This is equivocating - bad programmers almost always write bad programs. Trust me, there ARE bad programs.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by mrburri:
XUL gives you the GUI speed, and gives you true cross platform portability. XUL calls native system widgets. Thus your Java application uses the same widgets as C/C++/VB on Windows and C/C++/Objective-C on Mac OSX.

I also believe that the same XUL can me hooked into different C/C++/Objective-C/Java code, thus removing the need to code OS specific GUI elements.

Thus your interface in completely native, and runs at full native speed.

One of the largest examples of XML style GUI interface is Eclipse IDE. Still beta for OSX, but a good working example.

Having said all that - Swing is still fine, for most small Java GUI applications but you do have opitions.

I pity the poor soul that has to write an app in multiple languages - but if you did have to, that is the only reason I could imagine using XUL. If you want native widgets in your interface, use AWT - that's always how it is implemeneted - and it is very simple to use.

I wouldn't tie myself to yet another vendor unless it was absolutely unavoidable (which is not the case with AWT OR Swing).

[iJed]

Originally posted by absmiths:
This is equivocating - bad programmers almost always write bad programs. Trust me, there ARE bad programs.

Micro$oft must have a lot of bad programmers working on that Windows thing...

I've recently found Java performance to be quite reasonable in Jaguar. I've tried ThinkFree Office and commonly use ArgoUML and LimeWire and they all seem quite usable on my G4-450. I always found Java performance to be quite bad on my iBook 500 but that was under 10.1. The damn thing is currently getting its motherboard replaced for something like £350!!!!!!! Apple really need to lower their part prices.

I also find Java start time and compile time is much much faster on my G4 than the 1GHz Linux P3s I use at university every day. I'm not sure about actual Java performance though.

[mrburri]

I wouldn't tie myself to yet another vendor

XML style GUI development is not a vendor solution rather an attempt by developers and groups (Eclipse and Mozilla for example) to find a solution to the problems the language specific GUI development for any language.

Go and have a read about XML based options like XUL. They all look very promising, I would say the only draw back's at this time is are that their are a few options and no real standard (winner) yet, also SUN opposes XML GUI development because it resisting the change that it cannot control under Java.

However SUN is on the loosing side as every major vendor that makes up the Java Community is exploring XML GUI alternatives to Swing and AWT.

XML is an open standard Swing is only SUN's rather bloated solution.

The coolest thing that noticed about XML GUI based applications was when I went to save a file it brought up a completely native file viewer for Mac OSX, rather then that horrid Java imitation of the Windows file viewer. And off-course the speed.

I must confess I am news to Java, but it is clear were what option is faster easier and cleaner. However many will disagree, with me, but time should prove me right.

[itai195]

the java app I'm writing right now doesn't suck

[absmiths]

Originally posted by mrburri:
XML style GUI development is not a vendor solution rather an attempt by developers and groups (Eclipse and Mozilla for example) to find a solution to the problems the language specific GUI development for any language.

Any new dependency is just that - an external out-of-your hands piece of code that must be maintained and kept up with. The promise of open source is really lost here because what developer wants to take over maintenance of more code? I also don't see any problem with language specific GUI development - in my experience you always need to do something specific that those tools don't quite support, so you end up having to go to great lengths to work around them.

If you really want a native file browser, why don't you just open a FileDialog? I am not new to Java, and I can tell you that ALL AWT components are native Aqua components (possibly Carbon, but supposedly Cocoa soon) and I believe that Apple is actually working on making the Swing UI also native Cocoa.

Besides, Mozilla is hardly a poster child for successful UI metaphor. It might be easy to code, but Mozilla looks inappropriate on every platform.

I think developers need to grow up - it isn't that difficult to build a UI. I have personally never used UI builders like Visual Age or Forte's form tools, and I have written many Swing/AWT programs.

In response to the original question, BugSeeker2 from Karmira is an excellent all-around debugger and runs well in OS X.