Category: Java
May 7th, 2008
JavaFX's day in the Sun
Dan Farber has some information about JavaFX from the JavaOne keynote today. It sounds like it wasn’t a great day for demos but that we’re starting to get a better picture of JavaFX and what the plans are. Michael Coté has some additional information about Sun’s plans around Java as a whole and JavaFX. In our podcast with Joshua Marinacci before JavaOne, I was able to learn a lot about what the plans for JavaFX are and how it fits into the greater ecosystem of Java. It’s not a replacement for Swing (a UI framework for Java) and it’s also not entirely correct to say it competes with Flash, Silverlight, AIR, or any other technology.
JavaFX is just one part (albeit a very snazzy part) of many enhancements to the Java runtime which includes the Java Update 10 browser plugin that would enable JavaFX developers to target the browser with animations and vector art. But JavaFX is part of a larger Java ecosystem and is in some ways a lynchpin to allow developers and designers to create RIA experiences across a lot of devices. As Coté mentions, this is a lot like Adobe’s Open Screen Project and I think it shows an industry trend of moving towards a more cohesive multi-demensional platform.
Java has been down this road before so anyone counting them out isn’t giving them enough credit. They have a LONG way to go especially when you look at Adobe’s RIA strengths and Microsoft’s very enthusiastic entry into the space. But I think JavaFX will be a breath of fresh air for people and will help in expanding the RIA footprint further.
Update: Dion Almaer posted a video (embedded below) from the JavaFX demo:
And here’s a ZDNet video of Sun executives Rich Green and Nandini Ramani showing the JavaFX environment at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco:
April 6th, 2008
JavaFX preview coming in May with a 1.0 release "shortly thereafter"
I’ve been really bad about keeping up with the news lately because we’re in Europe with the on AIR tour but during our RIA Weekly podcast, Coté mentioned an article by Paul Krill which indicated that JavaFX is going to be releasing a preview version at the Java One conference in May.
If we really do get to see a version of JavaFX, it could be a big deal. JavaFX has kind of been the quiet one in the big three RIA companies (Microsoft, Adobe, and Sun). There has been a lot of speculation but not a lot of hard information other than sporadic bits of JavaFX mobile talk. In the podcast, Coté mentions that a lot of Java developers just want to build a better user interface. JavaFX could be a big, big leap for them to do that. Sun sees JavaFX as a way to create interactive content with one language across devices and desktops.
I think it’s a bit difficult to place JavaFX in the general competitive space. As I understand it, JavaFX is analogous to XAML or MXML, it’s more of a language enhancement that will be built into the Java runtime than something like a browser plugin or a standalone runtime. They’re also looking to target the set-top box market which could be VERY cool to see. I think that space is ripe for RIA technology.
October 15th, 2007
RAP brings Eclipse into the Ajax framework game
I had an interesting call on Friday about Eclipse’s Rich Ajax Platform (demos here) which is releasing its version 1.0 today. Normally I leave Ajax framework news to the pros, but this one got my attention because it fits into the entire ecosystem of Eclipse. In talking to RAP’s project leader, Jochen Krause, the goal behind RAP is to let Java developers familiar with Eclipse start building rich Internet applications using the tools they already know. Because Eclipse has such a huge following, there is some value in that. Studies by the Eclipse Foundation have shown that only about 30% of Java developers are actively building Ajax applications. RAP should lower the barrier to entry and increase that number.
Competitors will be thrown about a lot. In some ways RAP is similar to Adobe AIR because it bridges the web and the desktop (in some ways). But in my opinion the closest competitor is the Google Web Toolkit because with RAP, you’re still writing Java on the server side, it’s just creating Ajax on the page. It’s actually a lot like what ColdFusion is doing with some of its form functionality in version 8.
I asked about taking an entire application built on Eclipse’s Rich Client Platform (RCP) and porting it to RAP and they said that wouldn’t be quite possible yet, but it seemed like the end goal. For now you’ll still be able to use a lot of your components and assets from the RCP in your RAP applications with all the benefits of CSS and JavaScript to skin and customize them. In the end, this is a great move for Eclipse and will be a huge boost to rich Internet applications.
More info:
Ed Burnette
Zviki Cohen
The Register
June 4th, 2007
JavaFX and the Rich Internet Application landscape
I haven’t done a very good job of covering JavaFX. Partly it’s because I don’t come from the Java world and so I still haven’t totally grasped the full significance of the announcement. The other part is that there isn’t really anything to play with, so it’s difficult to dig in. But one of the things I came across this weekend was a post by Coach Wei of Nexaweb on JavaFX. I thought it had a great tone and while not a technical discussion of JavaFX, I thought it was a good perspective from someone who has worked with the Java world a lot. One of the quotes I liked was this:
All of these establish that RIA is the next generation application paradigm. Over the last 20 months, press has been dominated by Ajax and Flash. Microsoft’s Silverlight announcement tells the world not to ignore .NET. Java pioneered rich web applications years ago, and this JavaFX announcement firmly reinvigorates Java as a platform of choice for RIA.
He hits it on the head pretty well. RIAs are heating up, which in and of itself is great, but the fact that it’s touching so many different developer skillsets is going to mean great things for the web. There will always be concern about these technologies abstracting the web and creating small sandboxes all over the place, and I can see why that would worry people. But we’re going through some growing pains. First we need to show off why RIAs are great, and with more and more developers digging in, it’s going to be easier to do that. The fact that we can program against the .NET Runtime on a Mac inside the browser still blows me away, and it’s awesome. From what I’ve been able to gather, JavaFX is going to bring that level of power to RIAs.
One of my favorite opinions about JavaFX was from Simon Brocklehurst, who I had an email back and forth with earlier last month. He is very familiar with the Java world. He made the very good point that Java had a lot of traction with the RIA space, but they were a bit too early. Now Java is open source, it has a lot of developer momentum, and it’s very powerful. My favorite quote from him was in an email:
JavaFX runs on Java SE. Java SE *is* really a
super-powerful platform. I totally accept that it’s hard to use for
people that aren’t pretty serious software engineers. What I’ve
observed, over the last ten years of working with Java, is that people
who haven’t had success with Java are quick to say things like “Java
doesn’t work”… and those people make a lot of noise!
So I’m still going to have to figure out what the technical specifics behind JavaFX are. Simon’s post is a good primer at this stage. JavaFX the *language* is aimed at making it easier to build rich, interactive user interfaces by making Swing and Java2D more accessible. Swing allows you to build some great GUI interfaces in Java and it is a powerful tool, but it’s been tough to grasp. If JavaFX can lower the barrier to entry for it then that’s going to open up a richer world for Java developers, and that’s a decidedly good thing.
May 15th, 2007
Project Orbit launches, puts OpenLaszlo on devices
Lost in some of the hoopla last week of JavaFX was that Sun launched Project Orbit, a runtime for OpenLaszlo that takes the DHTML from OpenLaszlo 4.0 and makes it available to Java ME devices. More information is available on the OpenLaszlo Project Blog as well as the official page for the project.
I'm not sure exactly what this means for JavaFX because mobile was one area where JavaFX was going to be focused on. It seems like there might be a lot of synergies with JavaFX and OpenLaszlo, so I think this aspect of the partnership is worth watching. In fact, from the project blog, I got this quote about the project:
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit here - integration with the OpenLaszlo developer’s console (a Java radio button), and tighter integration with the OpenLaszlo compiler come to mind. This is a community effort - Sun and OpenLaszlo are relying on folks to pitch in and help move the project forward. If you’re looking to contribute to a very cool, forward looking project, here’s your chance!
Aside from any future partnerships, Project Orbit gives OpenLaszlo a device footprint right now. There are lot of JavaME phones out there and now OpenLaszlo has a fairly competitive offering. As some of the news and commentary around JavaFX showed, devices are going to be a significant battleground for RIAs. Java has the lead right now in number of devices, but I think Flash Lite has a lot of momentum behind it and a better overall story. Now OpenLaszlo can jump into that and give its developers the option to deploy on JavaME.
January 31st, 2007
Bruce Eckel on Java and Rich Internet Applications
Bruce Eckel, the author of Thinking in Java and a pretty influential figure in the Java community posted a long, eloquent assessment of the web, Java and Rich Internet Applications. To me it's a signal that RIAs continue to gain ground and Bruce has some great thoughts on the subject.
He starts off by acknowledging what anyone who has tried to build real applications knows: the web is a mess. The building blocks (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) just weren't intended to do what they're doing now and while we've gotten a lot of mileage out of them, it's quickly becoming more and more difficult for developers of those technologies to keep pace. Not impossible, but extremely difficult.
He then talks about the history of Java and questions why it hasn't been successful in bringing about "the web revolution", it's a good read but it isn't until a couple of sections down when he hits on Flash:
So here’s my question. Allow for a moment the possibility that, after 10 years, Java is not going to take over the world of RIAs. Further allow that Ajax is just “how JavaScript was supposed to work in the first place,” but that the limitations imposed by browsers, HTML and CSS committees seem unlikely to let it expand beyond its current bounds. What are we going to use to build RIAs?
The only obvious solution is Flash. Flash has always been all about cross-platform multimedia experiences and user interfaces. People are very familiar and comfortable with Flash, and it is installed on almost all machines in the world. It’s trusted, stable and reliable.
That's a pretty resounding endorsement of Flash. He goes on to introduce Flex and even touches on Apollo and how it will enable these Flex applications. While a long article, it's full of excellent points and reasons why we need to embrace richer platforms to build the applications of the future. More and more people every day realize that Ajax and HTML are too limiting to build what they need. Flash continues to gain converts and as richer user interfaces become the norm, the platforms that empower developers to create them will become more prevalent. It's a great time to be following RIAs and the web.
November 14th, 2006
Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A few random items from the past few days. I'm skipping the graphic for tonight because I'm in a hurry, but it will be back tomorrow.
- Thomas Nicholls pointed me to this walkthrough to get set up using OpenLaszlo over on XML.com. It's a pretty thorough step-by-step and a good way to get started.
- Finally some info on Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere over on betanews. My fellow blogger, Mary Jo Foley, also has some information and it appears all of this started with a blog post by Joe Stegman (whose feed I was embarrassingly not subscribed to until now).
- Jeff Schiller has some good thoughts on what the Java announcement might mean for the mobile web. He ties it back to what the mobile web needs to succeed.
- Scoble blogged about his demo of Adobe Connect with Peter Ryce. Adobe Connect is a really cool application and as I've said before, it shows off what the player is capable of. If you haven't tried it, this demo is worth a look. But Robert, PodTech is KILLING me with these .mov files. Why is there no Flash!?
November 13th, 2006
What a free Java means for Rich Internet Applications
The big news today was that Java is going to be released for free under the GPL license. This comes hot off the heals of Adobe's decision to open source their ActionScript Virtual Machine (my thoughts here), the core part of the Flash Player. While both of these announcements are unrelated, I think both are very good for Rich Internet Applications.
One of the main concerns for many people in this new, standards-based world, is that the Rich Internet Technologies that exist are largely proprietary. Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation isn't open, Flash player is still largely closed, though ActionScript is well-positioned to become the ECMA standard implementation for the 4th revision. OpenLaszlo provides an open source solution, but if you go the Flash route, you're still stuck to proprietary technology.
Java has always tried to be the write once, run everywhere solution, and it made a lot headway. There are supposedly 5 million Java developers out there, and it runs on everything from servers to mobile devices. As a Rich Internet Application solution however, it has always lacked a little bit. It was difficult to build compelling user interfaces with Java, and because it came before the web really took off, it never quite meshed with web developers. As new and more interesting technologies appeared, Java took a back seat quietly riding along powering big parts of the web from behind the curtains.
But this announcement should bring a healthy jolt to the Java community and revitalize Java as a platform at just the right time. Eclipse's Rich Client Platform continues to make strides, and I hope is one of the main beneficiaries of a new, open Java. Between Flash, and Windows Presentation Foundation, there is starting to be a lot more interest in applications that leverage the web, but are available offline and can make use of the power that we have heavily invested in on our client machines.
Java is well positioned for a resurgence because of their strong developer community and their history as a platform. This step could help bring Java into the new world and make it a rallying point for developers who want an open source solution do deliver Rich Internet Applications. I also hope it encourages other providers to open up more. We got a glimpse that Adobe is willing to consider that, and I hope this adds to that conversation within the company.
October 17th, 2006
Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, October 17, 2006
- I read about Janus over on the RichApps blog. As the post notes, it is an EXE wrapper for Flash, meaning it's in a similar vein to Zinc, but it seems like it may be a bit further along. It seems like an interesting alternative as we wait for Apollo, though I don't know enough about it to recommend it. Campbell seems excited.
- Via Cinsky, I found the Flash Video FAQ. Considering how important video is to Flash, I thought this might be a helpful resource for RIA developers and business people looking at the differences between codecs.
- Some info from Techworld about Java running on Vista. I don't talk a lot about Java, but it deserves more attention. I use Java for all of my development (using the Eclipse platform) and I love the fact that it is cross platform. The Eclipse Rich Client Platform seems to have a decent following.
- Telephia is reporting that 3 percent of US mobile subscribers, around 80 million people, are using cell phones to capture video. While the percentage seems small, Telephia notes that the percentage is much higher among people with newer phones. This made me think of Yahoo's recent acquisition of Jumpcut. I think Jumpcut is a great RIA - it allows you to edit video and add effects right from a web application - and shows how RIAs can be used to explore the cutting edge. Video from a phone could use a lot of editing, and I think the guys over there can tap into this market and show off what an RIA should be at the same time.
October 10th, 2006
OpenLaszlo makes a deal with Java to go mobile
Laszlo Systems is announcing a deal with Sun Microsystems today to bring the OpenLaszlo platform to the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME). This is great news for OpenLaszlo, and it should make waves in the mobile world.
I'm getting more information on the deal later today, but according to the press release, Sun and Laszlo are going to be working together on a project code-named Orbit. A demo of an Orbit application, running on Java ME, should be available later this year. OpenLaszlo has taken the approach of supporting multiple runtimes including Flash and DHTML, and with this, they've instantly made themselves a force in the mobile space. The press release cites that there are 3.8 billion Java devices in the world and 1.2 billion of those are phones. That compares to only 77 million Flash Lite enabled devices (according to Adobe, which means that this instantly makes OpenLaszlo a formidable solution in the mobile world.
I don't talk a lot about OpenLaszlo, partly because they seem to be focusing on Ajax and partly because there isn't a lot of news that comes out of the OpenLaszlo world. That said, they should always be in the Rich Internet Application discussion, especially with their Legals project. One of the complaints I've heard a lot is that Flash isn't open source. OpenLaszlo provides a great open source solution for Rich Internet Application developers and their deployment model is very unique. The OpenLaszlo platform allows you to write code that will compile into a Flash Player 7 SWF or a DHTML application. For Linux users who want to build Rich Internet Applications, OpenLaszlo is really your only choice until Adobe releases Flash Player 9. Now that they have a partnership with Sun to enter the mobile space, they should be getting a lot more attention from both me and the RIA community at large. I'll post more on the deal as I find out.
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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