So I came in this morning, ran this:

svn update
rake db:migrate

and got this:

`bin_path': can't find executable rake for rake-0.8.7

Turns out you have to remove this file:

RUBY_HOME/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/specifications/rake.gemspec

rake was working so where did that file come from? There are two possibilities, either RubyMine did something bad to my system as it doesn’t work, or I haven’t run rake since installing spork as it doesn’t work either apparently. Who knows? It’s ruby, get used to the mess.

Just saw this press release from Apple announcing Java will be available post Snow Leopard, i.e. Lion (10.7) but it’ll be Java 6 only. As I said before, not a problem. It’s a trade off I’m willing to make. I’ll happily use Java 6 instead of 7 for the productivity of developing on OS X. It seems that Apple are handing over their Java implementation to the OpenJDK project and the availability of Java 7 on OS X will be down to Oracle.

I like it when a big commercial outfit open sources their inhouse development. The software that comes out is usually pretty good, such as BEA Systems open sourcing XMLBeans and Novell giving the Java LDAP libraries to the OpenLDAP project. Those are two open source libraries I use almost every day.

So a big thank you to Apple for keeping Java on OS X!

Although I don’t develop Java applications for OS X, I do use OS X as my development platform of choice as it’s such a smooth and reliable OS and the fact that Apple have always been a version behind the main JDK release has never bothered me. It’s a trade off I’m willing to make, to be able to develop on such a great platform. However, I suppose this day had to come, when Apple announced they are no longer providing Java after Snow Leopard (10.6). There’s also a nice precise of the decision here. It looks like the best Java IDE around, IntelliJ IDEA may not run on future versions of OS X which will mean I’ll have to think about using another OS for developing Java systems. Linux? It’s possibly the worst desktop experience I’ve ever had so that leaves Windows as the only option. Run Windows on a VM in OS X? No point. Why spend so much on a MacBook just to run Windows? Just buy a cheap laptop and keep the rest of your cash for loads of memory and virus scanners. (more…)