Apple decided to discontinue Java on the Mac. In other terms, Java will not run on OS X in future. And that means Java is not longer platform independent – an argument which was one of the bullet points on every slide promoting Java. Mac owners will not be able to run future programs – this brings us back to the dark ages were we dreamed of platform independence.
This shows how important a free implementation of Java is. Apache Harmony could be ported to run on a Mac, if Oracle would give a TCK to Apache. But until now, all Mac users who want to run Java apps have to hope and rely on Oracle.
Maybe it’s time for Ruby. Software Developers should start learning new programming languages – probably there are not enough Java jobs in the future.