Considering Java apps are banned from the Mac App Store, and there is currently no Oracle JDK for the Mac, I find it hard to call his comment decent. In the interest of not being inflamatory I refrain from calling it something else.
;)
Now that I know it's Java, I'm not surprised.
By default it just sits there waiting for an app to spin for 5 seconds, at which point it starts sampling the app's activity (as in sample(1)). You can set preferences to make it watch a particular named app, and can set the minimum spin time required for it to notice and start sampling the spinning app. The app produces a text report of the output so you can see what functions it's spending its time in.
Might be useful. It seems like you shouldn't be spinning that much, even if you're multitasking.
Since I got such a big productivity gain from this change, I'm looking for other things I can do. I'll be due for an upgrade in another 4-6 months and I think I'll get an SSD.
I almost have to admit that the 9 window limit on the iPad's Safari isn't a bad thing. Forces me to instapaper stuff right away and close the window.
Friends and family literally have literally made a novelty of exposing safari when they come by to wonder at how many multi-tabbed windows I have open at once. :)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-develo...
That being said, I still use it because I haven't found anything else free that I like. I suppose if I use a tool every day like this one, I should pay to find one that works better.
Combo it with JDeveloper and a local instance of Weblogic, and you can pretty easily eat up 3Gb of RAM just opening up the standard set of Oracle dev tools.
I've heard Cyberduck uses Java as well. While I don't use that one any more, I've heard it's very popular. I could not even tell it was a Java app.
edit -- turns out I use a lot of Java apps myself, more related to work, though: Pentaho Studio, SQL Power Architect, etc.
I have a java app that I wrote for my own use. It was written, using xcode, on G3 and G4 Macs. The day I moved to an Intel Mac, the app's performance improved dramatically. You can slap something together (with java) in a hurry and call it an application. Or you can take the time to look at it, refine your algorithms, and make it perform quite well.
Some of the GUI issues, however, are a limitation. While I don't know what the real issues were, I would not be surprised if keeping the java interface elements, as close to the Mac GUI, was a contributory factor here. The Mac GUI is evolving quite quickly. Perhaps java could not keep it.
Anyway, I get what you're saying (even though I've seen many web apps that I hate as well). The question is simply whether the Mac is a software platform or a consumer appliance. If it's the latter, then I understand the idea of Apple curating every single piece of software that goes on those machines. Otherwise, the idea of banning everything you or Mr. Jobs don't like is inconsistent with the purpose of the product.
He isn't banning anything. Nobody is saying that Java won't be allowed on OSX, just that there is no longer a need for Apple to maintain the development.