> As I work more with JavaFX it is becoming 'painfully' obvious to me > that--here we go again--"everyone will need to know one more > technology to get something done...
I think that the potential in JavaFX is in the ability to bring in a group of people that would've found a full Java stack to laborious to learn. Java's got such a large face now a-days, that just learning - what- to learn can be a hassle. At least with JavaFX, you have some more constrained interface focused API/language for new users to Java. That said, I think that the 'language' in JavaFX should be a focus of the system, but not the end-all. Allowing all JavaFX API's to be integrated into a Java SE project should eventually feel like a Java SE API. I haven't really stepped into JavaFX beyond downloading the SDK/demos sadly, so I'm not sure how applicable this is to Java. In terms of what you could do to make my life easier, that would be a stupid simple way of integrating modern media codecs into Java without excessive developer burden. JMF looks nice from a technology standpoint, but it falls off on the API side. You're either writing the entire pipeline, or you're using the very out of date looking all- in player. Better layering and overwriting abilities would make this more feasible. Another silver bullet amazing solution would be an 'assured codecs' program. It would work as such: 1. SPI your java runtime to see what media framework bindings you have 2. Enumerate your bindings to find out what codecs your system can play (may be deferred until the application is actually requested) 3. User asks to play XYZ.mp3/avi/mp4/mkv/etc.. 4. Ask all your codecs/container parsers to go to town on the media 5a. (All Codecs Exist) Play the media file (end) 5b. (Missing Codecs) Determine if the file format being played is supported by Sun's officially supported lists of codecs 6a. (Codec is supported by sun) Fetch the Sun supported version of the codec automatically, install it (repeat for all deficient codecs/ containers goto 5a.) 6b. (Codecs are not supported by sun) Throw an exception or a nice dialog to the user specifying that there was a media player codecs... blah blah... The main benefits of such an approach would be: 1. A developer can assume that there are a core set of containers/ codecs that they can write applications for 2. Oracle/Sun only needs to license the codecs for users who don't already have them installed 3. Users will be able to run media applications through Java without jumping through a lot of hoops The only caveat I can see is that because we're relying on third party library implementations (directshow/gstreamer/ffmpeg/quicktime/etc..) the implementations of the containers/codecs may not work perfectly on all configurations. > Applets to arrive 12 years later. I know, I know, everybody's used > them to recalculate their mortgages...but if we want to be honest > Applets really didn't get off the ground. Which brings me to my > second point. > ... > I can speak for myself > that I am SO OVER APPLETS...unless your audience has the > exact_right_version_of_java forget it. And hoping for your viewers to > have the exact right version is ... well I'm not going there with this > PG audience. I must say that Sun's done a really good job in improving the JRE in 1.6u10 & 1.6u12 releases: Java64 Applets/Webstart: Thank you! JNLP support for applets: Makes life for developers(ultimately users) a lot easier Snappier startup etc... In other words, I've been a lot happier using Java on desktop since these releases. The best enhancement in JavaSE recently have been in the Graphics and Applet spaces, so I'm hoping JavaFX can reap the benefits of these enhancements. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
