The Artima Developer Community
Articles | News | Weblogs | Books | Forums
Artima Forums | Articles | Weblogs | Java Answers | News
Sponsored Link •

Weblogs Forum
Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java?

103 replies on 7 pages. Most recent reply: Oct 7, 2008 12:42 AM by Andrew Binstock

Welcome Guest
  Sign In

Go back to the topic listing  Back to Topic List Click to reply to this topic  Reply to this Topic Click to search messages in this forum  Search Forum Click for a threaded view of the topic  Threaded View   
Previous Topic   Next Topic
Flat View: This topic has 103 replies on 7 pages [ « | 1 ... 4 5 6 7 ]
Cameron Zemek

Posts: 17
Nickname: grom358
Registered: Dec, 2006

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Jul 30, 2008 3:47 AM
Reply to this message Reply
Advertisement
Yes the majority of Openoffice.org is written in C++. They use UNO (Universal Network Objects) which is sort of like CORBA.

And it is definitely not using Swing for the GUI either.

Richard Laugesen

Posts: 1
Nickname: tinyrock
Registered: Aug, 2008

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 2, 2008 6:19 AM
Reply to this message Reply
I've released a couple of Swing apps at http://tinyrock.com/termites and http://tinyrock.com/monkey. They apply fancy global optimization algorithms to generate optimal seating plans and group lists. Basically keep people with good relationships together and bad relationships apart. Think classrooms!

I found the whole process with Swing to be unenjoyable and now impossible to maintain. Eventually resorted to using the Netbeans drag-and-drop interface just to remove the complexity. However, creating a GUI in any system has always been frustrating, JavaFX is a slight improvement, and Flex is nice and decoupled but all the XML sure smells bad. What we need is a paradigm shift. Perhaps the solution IS a drag-and-drop generator and we just learn to be satisfied with inelegant code.

Has anyone used Delphi?

Cheers,
Richard

Bruce Eckel

Posts: 875
Nickname: beckel
Registered: Jun, 2003

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 2, 2008 10:25 AM
Reply to this message Reply
> Has anyone used Delphi?

Delphi is (was) well-designed, IMO. I was there when it was being created, and it solved a lot of problems that VB didn't -- scalability in particular.

Delphi's architect now works at Microsoft creating C#, so if Delphi is your inclination (and you can deal with being Windows-only; in general, I can't) you should check out C#. Visual Studio (C#'s dev environment) is quite good at GUI building, just like Delphi.

Fred Garvin

Posts: 52
Nickname: fredgarvin
Registered: Jan, 2008

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 4, 2008 11:04 AM
Reply to this message Reply
Have you seen Silverlight 2? Microsoft appears to have addressed many of the concerns here, including multi-platform and browser shortcomings.

It appears that with the CoreCLR Microsoft is finally granting Web app developers a seat at the adult table:

- All the .NET languages are supported for client-side web development, including C# 3! This is huge. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc721609.aspx

- The Web UI API is nearly identical to the desktop WPF API. They'll likely converge in a future release. This is equally huge.

- Indeed, you can use the Expression Blend IDE to target both desktop and Web UI (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Expression_Blend) And, of course, Visual Studio fully supports Silverlight 2 apps.

- OS X support.

I haven't tried it, but they claim Linux is supported too via Mono. Mono seems to be gaining more and more of Microsoft's attention lately.

Is it time to trade your Flex stock and load up on Silverlight?

Arkady Ganov

Posts: 1
Nickname: aganov
Registered: Jul, 2008

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 5, 2008 7:23 AM
Reply to this message Reply
I think the application type determines in much the environment for building it.
Our company is using internal Swing applications together with Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) as remote OLTP clients to centralized database. We've chosen the environment by the following reasons:
- OLTP needs rich GUI and Swing is able to do everything we need (MDI for example)
- ADF provides data access models for Swing components
- Oracle's JDeveloper tool helps in building ADF-centric applications
- ADF can be extended to access remote databases via Web Data Service (WDS)
We consider Java as promising no possible impasses rather than being a heavy and complex environment. For simplifying development and keeping common UI rules throughout hundreds of programs, we are using code generators where each template is a set of replaceable code pieces.
Java allows us to use 3rd party APIs for Excel, PDF, email processing.
Having this Swing-ADF-WDS combination, at the moment we don't feel any need to look for another means for OLTP applications.

Li Yuandong

Posts: 1
Nickname: lydzxc2
Registered: Aug, 2008

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 5, 2008 6:44 PM
Reply to this message Reply
People use windows and don't want to install JVM.
i think Desktop java will not become popular..

Kondwani Mkandawire

Posts: 530
Nickname: spike
Registered: Aug, 2004

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 6, 2008 12:16 AM
Reply to this message Reply
> People use windows and don't want to install JVM.
> i think Desktop java will not become popular..

This is a ridiculous statement, you have no clue what you are talking about.

It is undisputed that Swing did have its moments.

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/hansmuller/archive/2005/10/official_swing.html

At the time Hans Muller posted that, people were still using windows so your argument that people don't/won't use Java Desktop because they use Windows is moot.

Roger Voss

Posts: 27
Nickname: rogerv
Registered: Aug, 2005

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 6, 2008 5:43 PM
Reply to this message Reply
A better way to get the Flex model of programming the GUI of desktop Java is:

1) Port AS3 compiler to target Java byte code

2) Port MXML compiler (given it produces AS3, shouldn't be much effort)

3)Use the above ported AS3 compiler to port the Flex SDK for use on the Java JVM.

The challenge will be to find the right abstraction level for porting over the Flex SDK classes.

Once this is all done, though, then it should be possible to compile a Flex MXML/AS3 app to run on the Java JVM - one and only one virtual machine required.

This would be somewhat comparable to where Sun showed JavaFX code being able to run on Google Android runtime - which is a different virtual machine.

Roger Voss

Posts: 27
Nickname: rogerv
Registered: Aug, 2005

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 6, 2008 5:55 PM
Reply to this message Reply
Given a choice of programming GUI in ActionScript3 or C# 3.0, I'd definitely opt for AS3. (Have done both.)

The closure feature in AS3 is lightweight and clean. The properties binding and event model of Flex is better thought out.

Mainly C# 3.0 has become weighted down with language feature mania. It's become the modern day PL/1 kitchen sink language that never met a programming idiom that it didn't like.

AS3 has just enough OOP, just enough functional, just enough compile time static typing, and yes, just enough dynamic programming. Yet it's basically still a simple language that is dirt simple to learn. All Java and C# developers find themselves quickly at home in AS3.

Kondwani Mkandawire

Posts: 530
Nickname: spike
Registered: Aug, 2004

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 15, 2008 1:07 AM
Reply to this message Reply
I can now see the undertone:

"...a chance to catch up with James Ward, Technical Evanelist for Adobe and Bruce Eckel, Consultant to Adobe..."

http://www.theflexshow.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/8/13/The-Flex-Show-Episode-50-Interview-James-Ward-and-Bruce-Eckell

Note the "Consultant to Adobe"

Kondwani Mkandawire

Posts: 530
Nickname: spike
Registered: Aug, 2004

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 15, 2008 1:13 AM
Reply to this message Reply
Is it me or is Adobe targeting all the prominent, respected, talented individuals in the Java Community?

Chet Hasse and Hans Muller (both top dawgs at Sun's Desktop Division) defected to Adobe if I'm not mistaken, then you have Bruce Eckel. Who's next Scott Violet? Romain Guy?

Bruce Eckel

Posts: 875
Nickname: beckel
Registered: Jun, 2003

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 15, 2008 11:38 AM
Reply to this message Reply
FYI, I currently have no consulting contract with Adobe, although that could change.

Sourav Datta

Posts: 2
Nickname: soura20067
Registered: Aug, 2008

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Aug 27, 2008 6:38 AM
Reply to this message Reply
I guess we should have a look at the "Art of Illusion" - its a superb 3D modelling, animation and rendering tool written in Java.

Andrew Binstock

Posts: 9
Nickname: binstock
Registered: Sep, 2006

Re: Does Anyone Really Care About Desktop Java? Posted: Oct 7, 2008 12:42 AM
Reply to this message Reply
"Windows is dying anyhow"? What are you talking about? It has 90%+ of the desktop market.

Flat View: This topic has 103 replies on 7 pages [ « | 4  5  6  7 ]
Topic: The Weblog Skeptic Previous Topic   Next Topic Topic: Community Book Creation: Python 3 Patterns and Idioms
Sponsored Links


Google
  Web Artima.com   

Copyright © 1996-2019 Artima, Inc. All Rights Reserved. - Privacy Policy - Terms of Use