Sun Debuts JavaFX As Alternative To AJAX 441
r7 writes "Internetnews is reporting on Sun's introduction of JavaFX at JavaOne today. Looks like a combination Applet, Flash, Javascript, and AJAX with a friendly programming interface. Does this really spell the end of AJAX? I sincerely hope so. Nothing built on Javascript will ever achieve the security, cross-platform reliability, and programmatic friendliness that Web 2.0 needs. Proprietary solutions and vendor lock-in are also dead ends. JavaFX has the potential to satisfy this opportunity even better than did Java over a decade ago. Along with AJAX, let's hope JavaFX also puts paid to Microsoft's viral Active-X and JScript, and, more importantly, that it really is a web scripting language that developers can grok."
Another Flavor of Java? (Score:5, Informative)
Also from the site:
New toolkit, not a "combination" (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, there is one drawback it's going to have as compared to AJAX: It will require end-users to install something. As it is now, AJAX will run (to some extent) in MSIE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and a number of browsers with similar rendering engines. Even if it gets built in to the standard JRE, that still requires people to install Java, putting it more on par with Flash (though at this point a lot of people do have Java installed).
So, how long before Sun convinces Apple to include JavaFX in their version of the JRE? Last I looked you couldn't just download a JRE for MacOS X.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Proprietary solutions & vendor lock-in (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New toolkit, not a "combination" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:5, Informative)
Every single time it has been hard, complex, and slow. This despite wanting it to be good.
I generally have to go visit some download page, figure out which of the myriad Java acronyms I need to install, have it fail, then have to visit the page again and figure out how to do it manually, work at it, fail, and then ultimately, give up. In the very few occasions I've seen it work, there is the infamous Java load time to roll my eyes at.
Contrast with Flash, which I hate, and which I practically have to struggle, to avoid having on my computer.
That is, with Flash apps: I visit, it says, "You need flash," I click on the "OK install Flash thing," and after like 2 seconds, it's installed, and then playing whatever it was I wanted to look at.
After the very first install of Flash, I don't notice that it even loads, at all. I don't even think about it.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:2, Informative)
What? There are only three different "flavors" (if you will) of the JDK: Java EE, Java ME, and Java SE. If you go to www.java.com, you'll only be presented with Java SE, and it doesn't even mention the SE bit. I clicked a "download java now" button, it automatically figured out which platform download I needed. Done.
Maybe you're in some other interweb?
Re:Another Flavor of Java? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New toolkit, not a "combination" (Score:3, Informative)
That means you have to wait for Apple to incorporate the library into their JRE and push it out to users. And here's the key: Apple's Java always seems to lag behind the upstream version. They're still on Java 5. Java 6 has been out for, what, 4 months? From what I can tell, they're even several point releases behind on Java 5. The most recent release I could find was 1.5.0_07 [apple.com] Sun's version of Java 5 is up to 1.5.0_11.
So yes, waiting for it to appear in Apple's JRE is a concern.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, I tried java.com, using Mozilla Firefox, and it gave me this page [java.com] which is really quite good. One thing I gotta ask though, why is Sun asking me to install an unsigned extension? Why can't they go get a signing certificate already?
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:4, Informative)
Also, you can't really blame Sun for not having Java pre-installed on most desktops. There were certain monopolists doing everything in their power to prevent Java's emergence as a solid platform.
Re:Another Flavor of Java? (Score:2, Informative)
Honestly, if this is how well this works, Sun STILL has their head up their collective asses when it comes to Java on the web. At least when I try to open a flash based web site and flash isn't installed I get redirected to a page that tells me how to install flash or that my OS isn't supported.
C'mon, is it really that hard??
Bryan
Re:New toolkit, not a "combination" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Here's a requirement you can't get (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New toolkit, not a "combination" (Score:3, Informative)
I don't see why you say java on the web is dead. Yahoo games [yahoo.com], which I use daily, uses java, and is just one existing site that uses java.
Websites aren't going to replace their applets just because you think they should, and as long as the content is compelling, people will download the plugin.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:5, Informative)
Cell phones - yes ("flash lite", newer phones with FL2 are equivilent to flash 7)
Pocket PC - yes (at least 6)
PSP - yes (6 or 7, not sure)
PS3 - yes (don't know the version offhand, should be at least 7 since wii has that)
Re:Another Flavor of Java? (Score:2, Informative)
java -version
java version "1.5.0_07"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_07-164)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_07-87, mixed mode, sharing)
My point is still valid.
Bryan
Re:AJAX Going Away? Oh noes! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
A) Silverlight is nothing like ActiveX. In function, security, etc. The main thing of silverlight is a more feature rich version of vector animation technologies with the ability to push higher quality video in a very easy to program manner that also directly works with current server and browser side scripting standards. It is what SVG should have been, but SVG couldn't see past basic image rendering. Flash is overkill, locked to its programming model, and in the end has far less features than SilverLight.
From what I personally know of Silverlight, MS waited for other technologies to fill this gap, and 5 years later it never happened, so they decided to use what they learned from developing WPF,
B) Yes ActiveX sucks, and should have been limited to a Intranet or corporate technology only. MS was stupid not to have seen the security risks of distributing code in this manner.
C) MS has killed ActiveX in case others haven't noticed. It is hell to even get a control to run anymore because of the restrictions MS has added themselves.
D) If you want to talk about MS's ActiveX replacement, then you would be talking about
Go look up the British Library for an example of a WPF Web application, it is NOT SilverLight.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:3, Informative)
To my mind AJAX is more the step its taken towards generic frameworks that hide the html/javascript/xmlhttprequest stuff that's really going on, and all the cruft to support doing it on multiple browsers and presenting it all to developers with as an API.
In that view AJAX is sort of like the OO C++ wrappers for the C windows APIs. (MFC, OWL, etc). Previously C++ programmers would encapsulate what was needed for the application at hand, each sort of hacking something together. And then suddenly there were these big huge frameworks you could program against; that mostly worked pretty well, but occasionally failed in spectacular ways or hid some functionality that you needed. Forcing you go back to the C APIs directly, and work doubly hard to avoid blowing the whole thing up, since the frameworks could be really badly trashed if you started manipulating hWnd's and so forth directly.
The big difference though, is that AJAX is flakier than the OO wrappers ever were.
Re:I disagree so strongly, I finally made an accou (Score:2, Informative)
I was just about to say all those things until I read your comment. JavaScript is actually quite nice once you actually learn it beyond using alert.
Check out http://javascript.crockford.com/javascript.html [crockford.com] for info on why JavaScript is so misunderstood.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Freedom of a programming language (Score:4, Informative)
They are doing a lot and doing what they said, you can't deny that.
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Have they fixed the startup time? (Score:4, Informative)
"Go run along and play; the adults have work to do."
You can make a point without insulting people. In fact, it tends to work a lot better.
Re:AJAX Going Away? Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Core_JavaScr
(Yes, those are the Netscape docs from 10 years ago. No one read them then, either.)
If you're brave, I also recommend the ECMA specs:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/st
All the Web APIs you need to go with that can be found at the source:
http://www.w3.org/ [w3.org]