Seems Apple will be dropping Java as a supported programming language for its GUI features. From this point on, developers are encouraged to write their programs in Objective-C. I’m surprised, but not too surprised… Apple does have a long history of NIH decisions.

It is interesting because Apple has been implementing native peers for the Swing toolkit. This, and the thought that GNU’s Classpath will be doing the same (their work is already underway), is what has kept me wavering between SWT (or Java-Gnome/GTK) and Swing (though, I don’t do a lot of client side programming at all). I think the decision has been made for me now.

SWT seems to be the way into the future for Java client-side development. It might be possible that the Java-Gnome GTK stuff will run on Windows and on a Mac (there are ports underway for the later and the former is already working), but SWT definitely has more momentum. One outstanding reason to use the Java-Gnome stuff, though, would be if you only develop for Gnome or you need a GPL compatible license (since EPL/CPL has been listed as incompatible by the FSF; this would mean if you reference any GPLed program from your code).

Wow. Well, that was big news and a bit disappointing, but at least there are alternatives already out there and thriving… Perhaps this has been in the works for awhile (and might be one reason the SWT port was not picked up by Apple as the Eclipse people would have liked — they want out of everything but the Objective-C business). Oh well… time to start digging into CookSWT I think.