Java WTF
Par Benoît Dejean le mardi, 20 mai 2008, 12:01 - Lien permanent
I tried to download a propriertary JDK6, worst download experience ever ... clicked download which gave me a JNLP file (???). I first thought it was a bug, so i reloaded the page. No, it's the "Tvo Download Manager". You need to read the "download" button's tooltip to understand what was going on.
This started a 3 tab download manager:
- Download: you configure where the file is to be downloaded, the number of retries, the logfile size (???), whether it has to unzip or not, etc
- Proxies: HTTP and FTP proxies configuration. I failed to enter any valid proxy there (it always claimed the proxy was invalid). At first this "tool" must have inherited browser settings.
- Authentication: totally failed to configure this tab with host authentication list, etc
You want to dowload a zip and you end up with a bloated java downloader for HTTP downloading which doesn't handle transparent proxy configuration and authentification. So i haven't downloaded anything and i'm going to stay as far as possible from this unethical crap. (If that zip was to be downloaded bia bittorrent, i would have understood the need for a downloader.)
WTF
PS: I was a proxy admin in my previous job.
Commentaires
if you would have looked better on the downnload page, you would have ffound the offline installer, which does not haave a downloader. so beenolt wtf
You clicked on the wrong link (probably you are using the Sun downloader or as the previous commentator writes the online installation).
sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jdk
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin
surely?
That's why you were fired.
- unfortunately not every server runs Debian
- the SDM is the default method and it's unusable.
The funniest thing is that when I go to the web site, I am told that I should install Java Web Start for the best downloading experience... WHICH IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE ON MY PLATFORM (amd64)! Fail.
The funniest thing is that when I go to the website, I am told that I should install Java Web Start for the best downloading experience... WHICH IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE FOR MY AMIGA!!!!11111!!!!11
"the best downloading experience" aka the easiest is not meant for people who know WTF they are doing. If you use a 64 bits OS it pretty much means you should know what you are doing and shouldn't need someone holding your hand on the website to figure that the default download path is not meant for people like you.
http://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP...
That was so hard to get. Oh ye gods.
It is now by default in lots of GNU/Linux distros (under the GPL!). For Fedora 8 use yum install java-1.6.0-icedtea-{devel,plugin,demo,javadoc,src} for Fedora 9 or CentOS 5: yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk-{devel,plugin,demo,javadoc,src}
Others listed at: http://openjdk.java.net/install/
I liked the line about "unethical crap" at the end, which basically says "no matter how this turned out I was going to blame Sun for being the Antichrist".
I liked the way some software editors manage to screw even the most simple action: downloading a file is so easy.
That reminds me of http://www.waterfall2006.com/ : "It was hard to build, it should be hard to use" + "it should be hard to download".
You fail.
what I don't get behind all this "optimizations" to download pages seemingly going on all over the place: Why?
Why create additional points of failure? Why only let people running a java runtime to download the java runtime? Why keep showing "your download is starting now"-pages redirecting to the actual file when many browsers disallow this practice by default?
Ironically, such pages even display information on how to teach the browsers to accept the download none the less...
Why not just provide the download link? Every current browser provides usable UI for downloads and nearly every browser even supports resuming of aborted downloads.
Why subject the user to ever changing experiences? Why risk braking the whole process for some users for no apparent benefit?
I-just-don't-get-it!
Philip
Hey, 64-bit is pretty much the standard already. I don't know very many people running 32-bit anymore, and I am not talking about nerds.
I agree, it is really complicated... when I have to download one, I always take the following very complex steps:
1. Go to http://java.sun.com/
2. Click "Java SE" under the Popular Downloads section on the right
3. Click the "Download" link right next to the one that I want (JDK 6 Update x)
4. Select my platform and language (Linux, Multiplatform), check the box (that part is really really hard) and then click "Continue"
5. Click the file that I want and have it download
I have never had them shove a download manager at me, and I always cancel or avoid such things when they are avaialable.
You are right, though, download managers are idiotic.