Chaotic Java

Okay, I know I promised this some time ago, and it’s really going to happen. I downloaded the NetBeans Profiler Milestone 11, and YourKit 5.0 with 15 days of free evaluation.

Just as with IDEA, YourKit has a free license for Open Source development – So don’t fear it (At least not if you’re in the open source business.)

I will also point out that I am going to run YourKit on NetBeans, and not on IDEA. This is to get some real idea of how things are when considering profiling on the same enviroment. Later, if there is any substantial difference, I will compare YourKit on IDEA and YourKit on NetBeans, even though I don’t think there will be such.

I haven’t used them both for a good enough review – I will do that tomorrow, first thing I can, and you’ll have a review around the same time tomorrow. Until then, let me just complain about installers for Mac not written by Mac users and not tested thoroughly.

For example, incidentally, let us consider YourKit’s installer. It asks you for the location of NetBeans. Now NetBeans, like any well behaved Mac OS X application, is using the Bundle mechanism so that the application’s runnable is actually hiding the entire application’s directory structure.

However, the Java Open Dialog doesn’t know this, and since the installer is restricting selection to “Directories only”, the user is semi-stuck. Only by digging up the full path of the bin directory inside the NetBeans pacakge could I successfully install YourKit.

Now, this is just a rant, but a justified one: If you’re releasing something for the Mac, at least have the courtesy to Test it, to make sure it matches the [sometimes strict] look and feel the OS promises to its users. Is that really too much to ask for?