XCode Has Dropped Support for Java!

I guess this is hardly news to anyone but me, since I have not written a single line of Java for the past 4 years, but apparently Xcode has dropped the support for Java projects.

As of Xcode 3.2.1, there is no way to create a command line or Swing application project which is fully managed by Xcode. There is still support for the Java syntax in the text editor and the java compilation tools are also installed, though.

One of the default project templates, JNI library, does actually let you create a project containing java files. However these files are compiled with ANT. This demonstrates that Xcode can still be used for Java development through the use of “external build systems”, but that’s it… Java is no longer a first class citizen in Xcode.

I guess this decision makes sense for Apple. The Cocoa bindings for Java have not been supported since MacOS X 10.4 after all.