Hi-tech Travelling Blues

[On the train to Montreal.] After getting my fill of reading I pulled out my laptop to do a little programming. I clicked on Eclipse and got a message that I needed Java 6 and it wouldn't start. It helpfully offered to install one but I had no internet so that failed. This was working fine when I used it a few days ago so I assume an OS X update removed it. 

I like automatic updates but only if they don't blatantly break stuff. I've already gone through this reinstall of Java multiple times. It's not a big deal when you're connected. I understand the security issues, but that's pretty much all related to the browser plugin. I'm not sure why it has to keep removing Java entirely rather than just the plugin. 

I hunted around and found I still had several copies of Java 7 but I couldn't figure out how to get Eclipse to use them. I found a spot in the plist where you could specify a particular JVM but that didn't seem to help. I'm not sure why it was insisting on Java 6. 

There's probably a way to get it to work but I didn't have the patience and gave up frustrated. After all, I am on holidays, and this was supposed to be recreational programming!

But five minutes later I remembered that I had a computer within my computer - my Windows VM in Parallels, where I also have Eclipse. I got my laptop back out and fired up Parallels. Sure enough, that copy was out of reach of OS X updates and was still functional. (Windows updates haven't decided to arbitrarily remove Java, yet.) 

I don't normally do my Eclipse development under Windows on my MacBook so this copy of my source code was out of date but I could get the files I needed from OS X. 

So in the end I got operational. During our layover in Toronto I managed to install the missing JVM using Starbucks Wifi so I should be functional on OS X again. And just in case, I brought the Windows copy of my source code up to date. (Although for some reason it failed when I tried to pull the changes on OS X. Argh!)

Now I just have to figure out why Eclipse is using Java 6 instead of 7 ...