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March of the Mac IDEs

Four Java development tools for Mac compared

By Dave Makower<br> Technical Editor: Doug Bell, JavaWorld.com, 08/01/96

When the first alpha versions of Java hit the Internet, developers who chose to work on the Macintosh platform felt more than a little left out. Soon, there were beta versions for Solaris, Windows 95, and Windows NT, but still only the vaguest of promises from Sun that a version for MacOS 7.5 was in the works. Nearly every day, it seemed, someone would post a message to the comp.lang.java newsgroup asking whether there was a version of Java for the Macintosh. (Such postings were met with angry responses from non-Mac-oriented readers as the months wore on.)

When I wrote my first Java applets, the only way I could see them run from home on my Power Mac was to use X server software over my 14.4 kbps modem connection to a university SPARCstation running Solaris. Fortunately, Mac users no longer have to use this method to develop and run Java applications and applets, thanks to four currently available tools: Natural Intelligence's Roaster, Sun's Java Developer's Kit, Symantec's Café, and from Metrowerks, the Java component of CodeWarrior. To varying degrees, all of these packages are either beta versions, "developer releases," or simply beta-quality software labeled as a final release (see Truth in advertising, below).

Regardless of where the blame for the delay lies (see JavaWorld editor-in-chief Michael O'Connell's May 1996 editorial), Java has been a long time coming for the Mac. As new technologies have become ascendant in the past few years, Mac users have become accustomed to waiting just a little longer than everybody else. When it comes to Java, Mac users are finding that if they want to live on the "bleeding edge" of technology, they must also be prepared to bleed a little more profusely than everybody else.

The tools

Natural Intelligence's Roaster DR2

Released in January of 1996 -- albeit in developer-release form -- Roaster was the very first available tool for Java development on the Mac. This integrated development environment was created explicitly for Java. Although it is intended primarily for applet development, it's possible to use Roaster to create and run Java stand-alone applications as well, with some limitations. The current release, DR2, was originally announced as Final Release 1, but cooler heads prevailed, and Natural Intelligence (NI) decided to call the current release by the more appropriate name of Developer Release 2.

The product comes on CD-ROM and sells for a hefty 99, but if you qualify for an educational discount you can get it for 9. The purchase price includes all developer releases, as well as Release 1 and Release 2, shipped on CD. The basic subscription model is similar to that pioneered by Metrowerks with its CodeWarrior product.

Important! See Update.

Sun Microsystems' JDK 1.0.2 for MacOS

Released in beta form a few weeks after Roaster hit the scene, and on the other end of the price spectrum, is Sun's Java developer's kit (JDK), which is available for download at no charge from the JavaSoft Web site at http://www.javasoft.com/java.sun.com/products/JDK/index.html. Now at version 1.0.2, the kit includes four applications: a Java compiler, an applet viewer, Java Runner (an interpreter for running Java stand-alone applications), and JavaH (a utility for generating header and stub files for native methods written in C).

 

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