SwingX, JRuby: Survivors?
Submitted by Josh Fruhlinger on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 19:54.
Deciding what projects will live and what projects will die once Java has "Property of Oracle" stamped on its behind is, of course, Oracle's job; but predicting those outcomes is good clean fun for everyone, until then! I've already discussed a couple of projects people have been anxious about -- Glassfish and JavaFX; in the last few days, there's been a few peeps about JRuby and Swing.
JRuby encapsulates in miniature some of the way that Sun's open source Java offerings -- including, really, Java itself -- work. It's a free and open source project and "community-driven" project, and therefore it will do absolutely fine in the future, Charles Nutter told an audience at RailsConf. But Nutter is one of JRuby's key developers -- and he's on Sun's payroll. That's the sort of stuff that Sun liked to fund, and the sort of stuff that one suspects that Oracle might not in its historical focus on the bottom line. If Oracle decides to reassign him to something more immediately profitable, it's unlikely that such a well-used project will simply vanish, but it's also likely that its progress will be slowed down.
Then there's Swing. Remember the big debate on whether JavaFX or Swing represented the future of Java's UI? While JavaFX seemed to be the golden child from Sun's perspective in that tussle, one wonders if Oracle, which may well be less interested in the project, won't instead keep the current UI framework going only because that means fewer resources invested. And lo and behold, SwingX, given up for dead by some, is now on the verge of 1.0 status. Meanwhile, the half-joking Swing 2.0 project over at Project Kenai seems to be going nowhere fast.
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Oracle and Java client technologies ...
One thing made very clear by Larry Ellison last week during JavaOne ... he's very interested in the client side of things.
"Does JavaFX have a future at Oracle?" is pretty outdated in light of that, considering how much mention JavaFX got by the Oracle CEO ... going as far as saying he'd like to see a JFX version of OpenOffice.
Ruby: I just don't get the
Ruby: I just don't get the point of it. I can do everything I need at record productivity using a combination of Echo (nextapp) and Wicket sitting on top of a JDO interface (DataNucleus implementation) to my domain model.
The Controller Decides
I think the point is the allocation of resources and priorities. Sun an Oracle have historically been very different.
So what we might see is a well used and liked project shelved or put on the back burner because the new controllers have different priorities. This probably can't be helped but is quite annoying to the interested parties.
JRuby progress will slowly grind to a halt
Without some corporate nudging behind JRuby from Sun/Oracle, I don't see who else would push it's development. It's unfortunate if Oracle totally abandons Sun's tradition and culture of support for this type of project, but their bottom-line focus will dictate that they champion development in areas that have a more tangible path to profit.
Alex Java is beyond
Alex Java is beyond comparison
Sun should not have released
Sun should not have released it until it was ready for prime-time. They over promised and under delivered. It won't take long for Oracle to pull the plug. Ellison is just stroking egos when he talks up JavaFX.
I Agree
I agree, Oracle should have waited until it was ready then they would have caught more corporate sales. However, I must admit JavaFX looks to be holding its weight even though alot of hype surrounded it.
the only serious alternative
the only serious alternative to MS Office, one may not need to see a dramatic "revolution" like Office 2007 leaving nearly no piece untouched and making some features almost unusable (while a few others became let's say more "colorful")
Curious Mark
I'm kinda new to Java coming from a Ruby, etc background. After seeing this post I thought hey, MAYBE I can find something similar to _Rails_(the web framework, not to be confused with _Ruby_, the language) based on this guys illuminating post.
It is absolutely laugh out loud funny that this person thinks either of these frameworks approaches the usability and maintainability of Rails.
I do like Java. Most of what I've done(non web work) has been acceptable(albeit very wordy and convoluted), and has worked on the first try. Beats the crap out of my experiences with C, C++, and Objective-C.
You all should just keep doing what you do well--operate slightly better than traditional compiled languages, and stop trying to compare yourself to higher level languages and frameworks. You'll never do that as well as Rails or Ruby.
Oracle doesn't need to kill
Oracle doesn't need to kill JavaFX. It is already dead. Sun should not have released it until it was ready for prime-time. They over promised and under delivered.
I guess it will take some time for Sun to come back.
Will the two technologies
Will the two technologies develop in parallel, each with their own areas of specialization, or will JavaFX come to supplant Swing?
I got the JDO interface to
I got the JDO interface to work in the end.
Sun Microsystems (JAVA)
Sun Microsystems (JAVA) shares are trading lower this week on fresh worries about the status of the company’s proposed acquisition by Oracle (ORCL) given ongoing opposition to the deal from the EU.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes yesterday indicated that Oracle had failed to produce hard evidence to placate concerns that the deal would hurt competition, according to Reuters. The EU in particular is concerned about Oracle’s acquisition of Sun’s MySQL open source database software unit.
Lane
________
seo expert
One thing made very clear by
One thing made very clear by Larry Ellison last week during JavaOne ... he's very interested in the client side of things.
"Does JavaFX have a future at Oracle?" is pretty outdated in light of that, considering how much mention JavaFX got by the Oracle CEO ... going as far as saying he'd like to see a JFX version of OpenOffice.
JavaFX does have future at
JavaFX does have future at Oracle. That's what I thought. And yes, Larry seems to be interested in the client interest.
I think java totally has a
I think java totally has a future in this. It is such a widely used platform...they are coming up with bigger and better ways to use java too.
I agree but
Client side is very important for any application
I don't think we'll see a
I don't think we'll see a JFX version of OpenOffice for a while.
I agree, it will be a great
I agree, it will be a great effort to base OpenOffice on JavaFX.
And industry veterans remember, Oracle already tried a Pure Java Office against Microsoft over 10 years ago. Which was one of their biggest defeats.
Making other legacy products like JDeveloper (it still looks feels and behaves like JBuilder 2 back when Oracle bought the rights for that off Borland) fit for the 21st century could be done with parts of NetBeans (Swing IDE, too) more easily than let's say ripping it apart and rebuilding that with JavaFX, too ;-)
Sure a better way of using OpenOffice from Java including FX won't hurt, but being the only serious alternative to MS Office, one may not need to see a dramatic "revolution" like Office 2007 leaving nearly no piece untouched and making some features almost unusable (while a few others became let's say more "colorful")
JavaFX
Oracle doesn't need to kill JavaFX. It is already dead. Sun should not have released it until it was ready for prime-time. They over promised and under delivered. It won't take long for Oracle to pull the plug. Ellison is just stroking egos when he talks up JavaFX.
I blogged about!
Nice entry!
I blogged about jmx4r support few months ago at:
http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/tags/jmx4r
I'm not totally sure we're
I'm not totally sure we're going to OpenOffice JFX anytime soon.
"Meanwhile, the half-joking Swing 2.0 project over at Project Kenai seems to be going nowhere fast."
I don't know, there are 2 posts there after all!!
James
I think we will see within
I think we will see within couple of years about Oracle dead or not.
Ruby: I just don't get the
Ruby: I just don't get the point of it. I can do everything I need at record productivity using a combination of Echo (nextapp) and Wicket sitting on top of a JDO interface (DataNucleus implementation) to my domain model.
My model is made up of POJOs created and managed in a UML based visual object oriented design tool called Javelin.
It's so easy, so clear and so productive that I just can't see the motivation for Ruby. What else could it give me?
There has been a lot of
There has been a lot of talks about SwingX becoming impotent and and is now dead, but I usually ask - Isn't SwingX dead for the past five years? There has been no improvement, no implementation. This is a project that should see no further development.
Tyler
Hello, I am looking for
Hello, I am looking for information about JRuby. Just got a college task to develop software with that. I am still not clear. Can you provide detailed information?
JRuby
I wonder is JRuby functions just like Ruby on Rails, because I am using that for a new web project.
jruby
is jruby the most secure solution for java?
I think SwingX will turn
I think SwingX will turn outstanding with their new features. They always innovate the products, making new customers keep coming and later make purchase.
good article
This is happening, in places such as the swing-generics project, and in projects such as SwingX, JXLayer, etc. The whole purpose of the discussion was to ensure Swing was not forgotten within Sun, and given the recent news about Nimbus integration, JXLayer integration, SwingX getting to a 1.0 release, the ecosystem is starting to look better, and hopefully Java 7 continues to retain focus on Swing.
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