[rescue] [geeks] Windows monoculture (was Last Call - Ultra 5/10 parts)

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014, Michael-John Turner wrote:

> Of course, Java itself is a mess - yesterday I had to jump through a lot of
> hoops to get the Java 6.x plugin working on my daughter's MBP running OS X
> 10.9 - the site she wanted to use wasn't compatible with Java 7.x. I
> thought the whole promise of Java was "write once, run anywhere" - surely
> that should include /some/ form of backwards compatibility?

Well-written code is completely backwards compatible.  However, when you
rely on undefined behavior, you get bitten.

That said, a lot of security things changed between Java 6 and Java 7,
largely to address the sorts of things groused about in this thread.
Applets probably got bitten hardest by this.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
Elgin, TX
USA