Java FX?
Just read that Sun is throwing it’s hat into the rich internet application ring with a Java FX offering. Trying to compete with Flash, AJAX and the soon to be Silverlight - it certainly is a crowded ring.
The article suggests that it’ll have a leg up on it’s competitors because there’s a lot of java developers out there. Although, really, I think that isn’t a leg up, that’s the only reason it might survive. There’s already a ton of Flash developers, a ton of AJAX developers (who can move to flash relatively easily because of the similarities between javascript and actionscript) and Silverlight will be able grab it’s .net developers in addition to ruby, python and perl developers. So it just puts Java FX into the ballgame - it doesn’t give them any advantage over the rest. Although I guess .net, PHP and ROR are increasingly eating java’s serverside lunch, so maybe the article is suggesting that there are a lot more java devs looking for work. Doh! Oh no i di’ int!
It’s kind of funny since java was initially touted as being the way to develop rich internet apps - before everyone realized what a joke write once run everywhere was for applets. It switched into being a competent backend language and now comes back full circle with an applet offering again. Until recently, I wouldn’t have given this a second thought, but people keep telling me that Sun isn’t dead and that sun is doing interesting things in the hardware and software space - I haven’t experienced it personally, but I’m willing to believe. So, I’ll watch and see what happens when they actually release this. In any event, I’m always for more competition in any given space.
