Oracle Propels JavaFX Forward by Enlisting Weaver and Chin
steveonjava | April 2, 2012I put out an April Fools’ post yesterday about joining NASA to help with exploration of the big red planet. That post was not far from the truth… all the details about technologies developed by NASA were 100% accurate. Heck, even the fact that I quit my job was the truth! The only part that was not true was the company that I will be joining.
While working for NASA to help explore Mars would be a very cool gig as well, I am joining another big red entity that you might be familiar with…
I was initially skeptical about joining Oracle, but have been won over by their commitment to moving forward the Java platform that they have demonstrated over the past 2 years. For example:
Oracle released Java 7 on schedule in only 1 year
This is something that Sun had been unable to accomplish in the 3 years preceding the merger, and had historically struggled with.
Hudson and OpenOffice have been freed
While the community outcry around the Jenkins and LibreOffice project splits made all the headlines, the ensuing freeing of these platforms by Oracle in which they donated the code to the Eclipse and Apache Foundations, respectively, was not nearly as well publicized.
Oracle saved JavaFX 2
Sun lost touch with their developer base, and built a platform that was inaccessible to Java developers and didn’t meet the needs of business client applications. Oracle turned this around by rewriting all the APIs in pure Java, adding a much-needed focus on desktop business applications, and shipped JavaFX 2.0 on time!
For these reasons and more, I am glad to have the opportunity to continue to drive Java forward from the inside out. In fact, not only am I going to be joining Oracle’s Java evangelism team, but at the same time they also recruited Jim Weaver, my friend and co-author on the Pro JavaFX 2 Platform title. So what can we infer from the hiring of two JavaFX gurus like Jim and myself?
For one, JavaFX is here to stay as a part of the Java platform.
With the 2.0 release, JavaFX finally has the performance, Java language support, and business focused controls to be a worthy successor to Swing. This is good news to those companies who have a heavy investment in Swing, because they have a path forward to continue developing mission critical business applications on the highly robust JVM platform. Also, with the new JFXPane component that allows embedding of JavaFX applications in Swing, it is easy to begin incorporating JavaFX elements in existing web applications.
Also, JavaFX has the potential to be a driving force in cross-platform mobile application development.
Right now you have to choose between with the limited functionality, poor usability, and device incompatibility of web-based cross-platform frameworks or the high cost of writing multiple native applications. I had high hopes that Flash would fulfill the gap between these two approaches, but Adobe fumbled he ball. Fortunately, JavaFX has shown great promise in this area with some impressive technology demos at JavaOne, and has the opportunity for a touchdown with a business-focused release of JavaFX 2 on mobile.
I am optimistic about the future of Java and JavaFX technology in the coming years, and in my new role will be in a good position to give all of you a front row seat. Expect plenty of blogs, articles, demos, and the usual satiric, but realistic, developer viewpoint on the Java platform as I dig my heels in at the big red giant!
Java truly is moving forward, both the technology and the community. And having both you and Jim Weaver join Oracle’s Java Evangelism Team will only strengthen Oracle’s commitment for Java. Very proud to have you on the team!
Congratulations are in order here! You are a good addition to the team.
Super !!!.
Is there a guess-estimate on when the JavaFX runtime would seamlessly merge into the java runtime ?.
/rk
I am happy that oracle both sun than sun goes to some other company… I may be little sad on some bad things happens in the post oracle owning java days.. may be its by intention, by force or its the first time oracle handles java environment. But still i am ok with oracle… i am one of fan of some of oracle products like OracleDB, ADF, JDev etc.
I am sad about the split of Hudson and OpenOffice community. First it was one community later, then broken into 2 and then its given to some other group to maintain it! i fell bad in this… if plan to give to another people then why to break the community?
I really appreciate steps like Java and JavaFX review launch… But we still need stable version for linux and mac!!!! ASAP. Please listen to us(community) i know talking is easy doing is tough but still i hope it will come soon. Other RIA is already picking up!
About Jim and joining Oracle…… I stay with 50g/50b in this… Jim and you are perfect to this role…. so do Oracle seen it. other 50, they have took the community members!!!! they kidnapped not only RockStars but JavaChampion and JUGLead!!! also
i will say good by to RockStars, JavaChampion and JUGLeads
and welcome Oracle’s JavaFX Evangelists behalf of JUGChennai 
Congratulations
Congratulations to you and Jim Weaver for joining Oracle. Its really a great time for JavaFX as you guys enter Oracle. All the best!
Congratulations. Have fun at the new gig.
Great to know! It is a big improvement for the Java Desktop applications, although I think this is not a huge market for Java anymore. Abandoning the JavaFXScript was the right decision.
About the mobile platform, I am more skeptical. We can see what happened to Silverlight, Flex/Flash and even … Applets! There is no space at all for them in the mobile browsers: cumbersome, slow and plugin-dependant. How could JavaFX overcome all these challenges?
Steve,
Welcome to Oracle! As a 20-year veteran of Oracle, I can tell you that it has its ups and downs, including issues inherent to any large organization — but you will never be bored! I’ve managed to completely re-tool and re-invent my career at least three times at Oracle, and am continually challenged. I was initially attracted to it (hired away from Sybase, no less) by all the amazing technology I saw. I’ve stayed for the amazing people here.
I also can’t tell you how enthusiastic about the JavaFX platform I am. I was one of the earliest proponents of Java, especially at Oracle — training sales consultants about the language and back-end components way before it was fashionable. After a time, Java, for me at least, went through a maturing phase where it seemed to get bogged down in complexity. Other platforms like Ruby on Rails were more “fun”. But JavaFX has made Java fun again. I’ve done extensive UI work in Flash, and after experiencing much of its pseudo-deterministic behavior, really appreciate the functionality, depth and stability of Java and JavaFX.
Really looking forward to more great things from you and the JavaFX team! Look me up if you need help navigating the big red machine.
Cheers,
Cameron
You got me good on the NASA post
Steve,
Congratulations to you and Jim!,
Make history my friend.
Amazing move on Oracle’s part. I believe this will truly take things to a new level. Just the right guys to champion JavaFX. Way to go Oracle!
WOR-JFX-A
Carl
Will join the chorus in congratulating you, Oracle and the Java community. We all win.
Congratulations!
Congratulations Steve,
As I commented to Jim, JavaFX will greatly benefit from both of you. Two of the best minds to help move JavaFX forward.
Congratulations, Steve! JavaFX has all the potential in the world and you’re just the one to bring it to fruition. Best of luck!
Steve, congrats.
Do help to push JavaFx touch/swipe feature and iOS support for 2.1/2.2 release.
These 2 features are the reasons we are in the midst of switching to C# (monotouch) and a matching server side, for our future projects!
(There are other reasons for java webapp thats forcing us to switch, not eloborating since this is a JavaFx blog.
Let me know if u wanna know and can help push them at Oracle! “)
Congratulations Steve and Jim. I think JavaFX is sure to flourish with you two involved at Oracle, and its high time they brought you into the fold.
Congratulations to both of you!
Interesting.
Well, I saw Flex+AIR like providing a kind of “corporate browser”, that is a web-enabled client-side platform enabling to develop (with success) decent corporate applications.
These days, I think that the Java platform, and particularly JavaFX, may be the next Flex+AIR, see http://www.jroller.com/dmdevito/entry/javafx_may_be_the_next
And while I read the JavaFX roadmap includes enhancements to the WebView component (“WebView is expected to feature support for additional HTML 5 features such as Web sockets, offline browsing, and local database. The JavaScript engine powering WebKit will be replaced with a high-performance JavaScript engine [that will be part of JDK 8, see Java 8: Selected Updates] that will leverage the power of the Java Virtual Machine”), I think It’s quite promising!
In my wildest dreams, I even hope that we are going to see the release of a Java-based browser… see http://www.jroller.com/dmdevito/entry/hotjava_may_come_back_due – that would be such a great tool!
Wait and see