[kepler-dev] Hypothetical Question: Are there any stakeholders who would object to requiring Java 1.6. Why?

[David Welker]

Thanks for your input Dan.

Well, I tested the use of SoyLatte and it seems to works okay. The 
splash screen does not come up properly and the GUI looks a little more 
clunky because it uses X11 though. I would definitely consider having to 
use SoyLatte as inconvenient at best. (Although that is certainly a step 
up from impossible, I don't think it is very satisfactory.)

I think I want to expand this discussion a little bit. Does anyone need 
to use Java 1.6 instead of Java 1.5 for any of their work, and why? I 
think we have a pretty good idea of the costs of moving to Java 1.6. 
What would be the benefits? Keep in mind that if all you want to do is 
run Kepler with 1.6, that is perfectly possible now with a fairly 
minimal number of manual steps. So, if what you want is the increased 
speed of Java 1.6, I don't think that qualifies as a reason to require 
use of 1.6. What I am really looking for is someone to say that they 
need such-and-such feature from 1.6 that is not available in 1.5 so we 
can get an idea of what benefits, if any, would be derived from 
requiring 1.6.

By the way, part of me is tempted to go on a rant about right now about 
how Apple should really should get their Mac support for Java together, 
but I am definitely going to restrain myself. =)

David
> Hi,
>    I think the problem with Java 1.6 on the Mac is bit more subtle 
> than just OS X 10.5 and an Intel chip. Note that Apple specifies Intel 
> 64 bit processors and OS X 10.5 for the 'official' Java 1.6. Well, I 
> have an early MacBook Pro and it happens to use an Intel Core Duo 
> processor. Apparently this is NOT a 64 bit chip. Later Intel Macs 
> apparently have Intel Core 2 Duo processors which I think qualify as 
> 64 bit. In any case, I cannot get Java 1.6 running on my MacBook Pro. 
> So requiring 1.6 for Kepler would create problems for all PPC Macs and 
> some Intel Macs.
>
> Dan Higgins
>
> David Welker wrote:
>> Thanks for the link David. I wonder if you it is correct that a 
>> majority of our Mac users would be unable to use Java 1.6. Right now, 
>> everyone here at UC Davis is using Java 1.6 just fine. I would 
>> definitely like to here from specific stakeholders who say that they 
>> specifically would be affected.
>>
>> In the meantime, I am going to go ahead and test the use of this 
>> other version of Java 1.6 on my Mac (which is an Intel-based machine 
>> running OS X 10.5) and see if I run into any problems.
>>
>> David
>>> Java 1.6 is only officially supported on OS X 10.5 on Intel 64bit 
>>> processors, so this would cut out the majority of your Mac users.  
>>> However, there is a non-apple supplied Java 1.6 at 
>>> http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/static/soylatte/ that extends support 
>>> to PPC and OS 10.4.  I've only talked to one person who has used 
>>> soylatte on OS X for their Java 1.6 code, but they seemed to think 
>>> it worked okay.
>>>
>>> David Groulx
>>>
>>> On 29 Jan 2009, at 16:39, David Welker wrote:
>>>
>>>> Right now, I am trying to evaluate whether the build system and 
>>>> Kepler should require users to upgrade to 1.6. I was curious 
>>>> whether anyone is using Kepler on a system where upgrading to Java 
>>>> 1.6 would be a problem. If so, I think it would be very helpful if 
>>>> you could either reply to this email with your reasons or, better 
>>>> yet, include your thoughts at the discussion on the forum available 
>>>> at the following link:
>>>>
>>>> https://dev.kepler-project.org/developers/kepler-development-forum/build-and-release-team/496635000 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks! I am looking forward to hearing any thoughts or objections 
>>>> about requiring the use of 1.6.
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> Kepler-dev at kepler-project.org
>>>> http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/kepler/mailman/listinfo/kepler-dev
>>>
>>>
>>
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>