Is Java Dead?

Well, if not dead, it's definitely not a high priority.

I've seen a lot of things saying that C++ is dead and that Java is the future, and, conversely, I;ve seen a lot of things claiming Java is dead leaving us to fall back on C++. I'd say Java is certainly more used than C++ because of its 'beginner friendliness' and C++'s feeling of low level thrown in with high level stuff, but all in all I think people overreact when they say a language/platform is dead. Java is being taught in many schools now where it used to be C++, and I don't think it'll change for a few years. [/opinions&observations]

Does everything have to be black and white?

Our Java runtime isn't very popular, mostly due to Java as a platform not being very useful compared to something like Flash or iOS. That doesn't mean "Java is dead" or whatever (what is it with the tech community these days and having to be sensationalist about everything?)

(oh, a third thread about this, exactly what we needed...)

From the feedback I get - I personally never hear from any forum users using the Java export modules and I get a lot of email and messages

so either:
Its so great it doesn't need any work done on it right now
or
No one is using it
or
No one is talking to me about it -- which could be possible but would be odd as as I said above .. I get a lot of email and messages

MMF2 is a game authoring tool.
Right now Java doesn't look like a viable gaming platform in the long run. Games get more and more demanding and we therefore have to push functionality like HWA and heavily optimized C++ code to keep up with the demands. Java isn't up for that any longer I'm afraid.

A java runtime has it's uses for simple things (like if you want to make a MMF2 made chat application or a super simple platformer).
Especially J2ME (Java mobile) will suffer from this. You might be able to do some few things well, but not more than that.
Having such a reduced (practical) feature set you get a lot of confused users: "Why can't this runtime do X and Y when the other runtimes can?"

IMHO it is best to focus primarily where the long-term development is. Spending too much time on unpractical technologies will just slow down development on everything else - which hurts everyone.

Java is great and the platform has always been strong, however regarding MMF2's runtime it's not as popular as others for some people and probably due to not as many extensions and the fact a lot of people want to monetize games and you don't have that much for Java. I think the runtime is great though and it's nice having the option to code extensions in java, i am also hoping there will be a Java runtime for MMF3.

Quote from Atom

I am also hoping there will be a Java runtime for MMF3.

Likewise. Java is a wide-spread, diverse language, if nothing else.

Quote from Atom

i am also hoping there will be a Java runtime for MMF3.

me too...

Quote from Atom

i am also hoping there will be a Java runtime for MMF3.

+1

Any Good argument WHY it should be there, as long we got Anaconda (which is much faster than everything else) and Native runtimes?

While Java is great and all, I don't think it would be necessary for MMF3 to export to it. There's not much you can do with Java that you can't do with another of the platforms.

I disagree. Install the latest Java to get a nice list of what uses Java.

Quote from RickyRombo

There's not much you can do with Java that you can't do with another of the platforms.

Well you could say that for any other platform supported also because within MMF2 it's based around the extensions available, as for the actual programming language it can do a load of things. With Java it's basically like a combination of Exe, mobile and flash and can do a lot of what they do with both system things and graphics stuff then there is a load of web based things Java can do the MMF2 runtime doesn't allow. Out of all the platforms you could probably port more Exe objects to java than the others due to it's system support unlike flash, ios etc which have sandboxed things, you could also port a load of the flash only objects to java.

Android can also be included on the list because it's basically Java and XML with some extra classes for the device specific stuff, so it should be fairly simple to port between the 2 platforms if the object doesn't use device only features.

It's like i have said before and people just don't realize what java can do, think of it just as the web plugin or simply want to monetize games so it's less popular than other runtimes and they get focus instead because of that, simple as that really.

Quote from James

Our Java runtime isn't very popular, mostly due to Java as a platform not being very useful compared to something like Flash or iOS.

Java as a platform is very useful if you are worried about targeting multiple OSs. I think Java can perform very well and provide an appropriate solution in a good number of cases. The libraries in Java are rich (or bloated if you are negatively inclined), which would allow MMF to provide a richer feature set. That said, I would have to be honest and say that the Java runtime isn't very popular because it's buggy and slow. Anyone looking for a stable cross platform solution is more likely to look at the python runtime, which does indeed appear to be a very good runtime, and support will obviously be very forthcoming. Given that a large portion of the MMF user base are newbies to programming, Java may also provide a stepping stone into conventional programming for these people by way of extension development, but people are not going to be interested in it when it lacks the quality of the other exporters. The XNA runtime or python is probably the next best bet. I don't blame Java as a technology, you just have to learn to work with it. I am sure if I had released a collection of 3D extensions for the Java runtime the interest would have shot up quite considerably. The tools are ready for this implementation. LWJGL or JOGL would make this much simpler. I did report a bug some time ago but didn't hear back. I'd gladly take the source code and debug it myself sometime.

Java is far from dead. As far as an application platform goes it's great. You don't need to worry about speed unless you are hell bent of producing a game but for an application platform it's been going longer than a lot of other interpreters. If extension devs could spend the same amount of time on this as Flash and the Native MMF runtime we could be building apps just like the windows executables. I guess because coding is similar to C it would be like rewriting the windows exporter no one likes trping out code that's why we have MMF bus someone has to do it in order to create the exporter and extensions Java is too much hard work me thinks.. IMO being able to build a Java based solution is a must.

Quote from nivram

I don't think it is dead.

It's not dead. Too many devices support it - but it's not as used as it was; sadly.

I just think a decent Java runtime benefits both the user base and the product. With good cross-platform exporters MMF2 becomes a more attractive proposition to both the existing user base and a wider professional user base. Clickteam will definitely have far greater priorities than supporting a Java runtime. One of those will be the Android runtime which could be absolutely brilliant. It's extremely valuable to be able to export to Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 from a single application, and it's easy to see why this should be higher up the priority list than Java support.